The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 261, May 11, 2025 (V6 #1)
In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.— Albert Einstein
The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become.– Russell L. Ackoff
The picture of the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children is not a pretty one.—Bill Gates
Books, Music, Art, Culture
A Century of Surrealism: One hundred years after André Breton launched the Surrealist movement, we’re still trying to make sense of its aims and effects, Jed Perl, NY Review of Books, 5/15/25 issue: “The more you know about Surrealism, the more you realize there’s much more to know.”
How New York City’s Radical Social Movements Gave Rise to Hip-Hop: on the Revolutionary History Behind One of America’s Main Musical Exports, Dean Van Nguyen, LitHub, 5/6/25: “This union of Black and Puerto Rican communities for revolutionary struggle in the late 1960s and early ’70s was a crucial precursor to the grassroots creative expression that would take place.” Book: Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur
Every arts director at the NEA exits federal culture agency: The National Endowment for the Arts saw an exodus of senior leaders and employees as the Trump administration has redirected much of its grant funds while seeking to shut it down, Sophia Nguyen, Janay Kingsberry, Washington Post, 5/8/25
On the Latest Threat to Literary Culture’s Fragile Ecosystem: Donald Trump: What Can Be Done in the Face of Trump’s Devastating NEA Cuts? Maris Kreizman, LitHub, 5/8/25: “We need indie presses and literary magazines for a thriving literary ecosystem.” DW: I have a lot of ideas on this subject. Ask me to share them with you if you’re interested.
On the Creative Power of Walking: “From this boredom, words flow. I can’t stop them,” Craig Mod, LitHub, 5/9/25: “My rules: No news, no social media, no podcasts, no music. No “teleporting,” you could say.”
The Creator of @PoetryIsNotALuxury on Their “Mixtape” for the Moment: A conversation with the anonymous creator of the popular account about their new collection of poems, Sara Franklin, The Nation, 5/6/25: “To think about surviving, we need art.”
Why It’s So Hard To Find Small Press Books: And what you can do about it, Melanie Jennings, Elizabeth Kaye Cook, Persuasion, 5/6/25: “Our hope is that the small presses and their brave, funny, weird books are taken up as a cause célèbre by serious and casual readers alike, and especially that mainstream outlets take seriously their journalistic duty to report on book culture writ large.”
How a Group of Fearless American Women Defied Convention to Defeat the Nazis: on the “Atta-Girls,” the Pilots Who Chased Adventure During the Second World War, Becky Aikman, LitHub, 5/8/25: “The Atta-Girls lived ahead of their time, carrying on the way ambitious women aspired to behave decades later.” Book: Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II
How Reality Television Warps Our Understanding of Political and Economic Realities: on the Role of Entertainment and Infotainment in American Life, Eunji Kim, LitHub, 5/7/25: “This tale spun by entertainment media—that the American Dream is alive and well—is directly counter to the somber headlines touted by the news media.” DW: In other words, it’s propaganda! The spectacle of belief. The way the lottery distracts from the real contradictions of capitalism.
Can learning cursive help kids read better? Some policymakers think it’s worth a try, Shawn Datchuk, The Conversation, 5/6/25: “Research suggests it may be possible to improve overall writing and reading through handwriting instruction.”
”Everyone is cheating their way through college” with GenAI. Who should bear the costs? Society is once again left holding the bag, Garry Marcus, On AI, 5/7/25
Addressing the Transactional Model of School: We need to attack thoughtless ChatGPT use from the demand side, John Warner, Biblioracle Recommends, 5/11/25: “we should all be rethinking what writing in school contexts means in a world where tools of syntax generation exist.”
Authentic Spirituality Is Revolutionary: It Unleashes Our Core Beauty, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 5/6/25: “Authentic spirituality is revolutionary. It does not legitimize the world, it breaks the world. It does not console the world, it shatters it. And it does not render the self content, it renders it undone.”
A Ritual of Remembrance: on the Aftermath of Her Mother’s Death: From Dana Tiger’s Illustrated Adaptation of the Poem, “Washing My Mother’s Body,” Joy Harjo, LitHub, 5/9/25. Book: Washing My Mother’s Body: A Ceremony for Grief
I never got to wash
my mother's body
when she died.
I return
to take care of her
in memory.
Politics, Economics, Technology
By Confirming Bisignano, Senate GOP Greenlights ‘DOGE Destruction of Social Security:’ “Their playbook is clearly to break Social Security so they can justify further cuts and privatization," one labor leader warned, Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, 5/6/25
The war on free speech, Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, Noel Sims, Popular Information, 5/6/25: “The FCC is considering whether CBS's actions violate its rules on ‘news distortion.’”
Then They Came for “Habeas Corpus,” Charlie Sykes, To the Contrary, 5/10/25: “Perhaps we should take this both literally and seriously: ‘Top White House adviser Stephen Miller says 'we're actively looking at' suspending due process for migrants.’”
Power of the People: The SAVE Act and its threat to American democracy, Laura Williamson, SPLC, 5/9/25: “The SAVE Act is now with the Senate. Sustained constituent opposition is critical to prevent its passage and enactment into law. Contact your senator today and urge them to vote no.”
The Republic or the Tyrants? The Choice Jefferson Faced in 1776 Is Now Ours in 2025: Will we defend the dream of self-rule, or surrender to the very powers our ancestors bled to escape? Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 5/7/25
Some Rob You with a Six-Gun/ Some With a Fountain Pen: On Civil War By Other Means, Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency, 5/8/25: “…major parts of the US government are being destroyed through economic and administrative means, as well as reckless hacking and deleting, the violence and destruction are being underestimated, downplayed and normalized, or described piece by piece but not as a whole.”
Scale of Musk's DOGE Conflicts of Interest ‘Should Alarm Every American’: “The wealthiest man in the world is working to dismantle the very same federal departments and agencies tasked with overseeing and placing checks on his businesses,” says Public Citizen in a new analysis, Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, 5/7/25
The Pope gets it, Gary Marcus, Marcus on AI, 5/11/25: “The most important question about AI isn’t a technical question. The most important question is about how to maintain and grow a just society in the age of AI.”
Maine fought the law, and Maine won: The Trump administration can't defend the indefensible, Liz Dye, Public Notice, 5/7/25: “We took ‘em to court, and we won.” (Gov. Janet Mills)
Judge orders temporary halt to Trump’s mass layoffs of federal workers: A federal judge ordered a two-week pause, writing that a president must enlist the help of Congress “to make large-scale overhauls of federal agencies,” Frances Vinall, Washington Post, 5/10/25
Putting Trump’s threats in writing doesn’t make them law: A judge demolishes Trump’s assault on law firms, Jennifer Rubin, Contrarian, 5/5/25: “[Howell’s] ruling was on a summary judgment motion, meaning that the government had no facts that could possibly lead to a decision upholding the order.”
Personality Cults and “Insult Suits”: Noise and Silence in Authoritarian Propaganda: How autocrats protect their claims to be the sole arbiters of truth, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid, 5/7/25
Tariffs and Poverty Around the World: Why you should care about Bangladesh, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 5/7/25: “ the trade war will proceed, even intensify….The United States will be a big loser, both politically and economically….But the biggest losers will be poor countries that have become less poor largely thanks to exports and are about to see their hopes of progress dashed.”
Globalization did not hollow out the American middle class: The protectionist narrative is more myth than fact, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 5/8/25: “Most of what the U.S. consumes is made here, and most of what the U.S. produces is consumed here, and eliminating trade deficits wouldn’t change either of those basic facts.”
The New Belt and Road: MAGA-Style Economic Coercion, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 5/7/25: “Voters were promised American greatness. What they got is corporate leverage masquerading as diplomacy. It's not America first. It's Musk first, enforced by trade war.”
The Houthis Won: An escalation justified on reestablishing deterrence has showcased US weakness. Welcome to the latest forever-war lesson Washington won't learn, Spencer Ackerman, Zeteo, 5/10/25
Causes, Benefits and Costs of International Trade: A primer on the basics, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 5/11/25: “One major reason nations specialize and trade is that they are different, and trade to take advantage of those differences.”
Deep cuts to bus and rail services loom across big cities, small towns: Fearing a financial ‘death spiral,’ transit providers say they need more support, Kevin Hardy, Stateline, 5/8/25
Trump’s scattered brain creates havoc: The economy is at the mercy of the least informed president in history, Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian, 5/8/25
Budgets as Propaganda: Trump's budget proposal formalizes the paranoid style as government policy, Dan Moynihan, Lincoln Square, 5/6/25
The Texas-Sized Plan To Shut You Up: A corporate-led attack on free speech in Texas is making odd bedfellows and tearing the state’s GOP apart, Luke Goldstein, The Lever, 5/8/25: “If passed, the bills could unleash a torrent of defamation attacks against journalists and citizens…”
Center for Popular Democracy Launches Campaign to Protect 14th Amendment, Ariana Orozco, Indypendent, 5/6/25: “Part of the ‘deep political education’ the CPD aims to provide is the history of the 14th Amendment and the indispensable role Black Americans had in ensuring its passage.”
A Crisis of Faith. And Not the Religious Kind: What happens when an entire generation loses faith in democracy? Elise Labott, The Preamble, 5/6/25: “Young Americans have lost faith in the system. Not just in politicians or a particular party — in democracy itself.”
A Mother’s Day truth about the “Fertilization President:” The White House’s avowed concern about the nation’s declining birth rate is a pretext for something else, Robert Reich, Newsletter, 5/8/25: “He and his regime care about the decline of America’s patriarchy.”
Democrats Are Forgetting an Important Lesson from Obama: Americans are angry and looking for candidates who represent real change—not a defense of the political establishment, Michael Baharaeen, Liberal Patriot, 5/6/25
History is Our Battlefield, Walter Baier, Transform!Europe, 5/7/25: “We commemorate the liberation of the concentration camps, the capitulation of the German Wehrmacht, and the end of Nazi barbarism on May 8/9, 1945. But what lessons have truly been learned?”
The crisis of the 21st century is here: Slipping a little bit closer toward a world of war, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 5/10/25: “ Out of the world’s nine nuclear powers, four — India, Pakistan, Russia, and Israel — are now at war.”
The Nakba Unfolds in Gaza as the World Watches, Rabbi Brant Rosen, Shalom Rav, 5/9/25: “How long will the world allow this decades-long crime to continue?”
Where you dream of water
I have held a handful of sand.—from “For an Anniversary,” Robert Creeley
Science, Environment, Wilderness
An Indigenous Theory of Water: on Rivers as Teachers: The Author of Theory of Water Offers Some Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg Spirituality, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, LitHub, 5/8/25: “When Indigenous peoples protest, we are motivated to put our bodies between the state and our relatives in the plant and animal world because these relatives are part of us.” Book: Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead
Scientists just found a way to break through climate apathy: In a field of muddy results, it's among the clearest findings that one cognitive scientist has seen in his career, Kate Yoder, Grist, 5/5/25: “…if people see compelling visuals more often, it could help keep the problem of climate change from fading out of their minds.”
Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism With a Smile: Why Humanity—and Dignity—Shouldn't Surrender to Technological Inevitability, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 5/9/25
How to cook, clean, and heat your home without fossil fuels: Electric appliances can reduce climate emissions and indoor air pollution, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 5/9/25
Truth and the price of carbon: Dissecting the most confused number in climate, Quico Toro, One Percent Brighter, 5/6/25? “Economic theory is pretty clear about what to do about externalities: if you can’t ban them, you should tax them. But because carbon dioxide messes things up at a global level, and there is no world government, there’s no public body able to tax it at the appropriate level. That’s the institutional hard nub of the climate crisis.”
Ocean warming is accelerating, scientist warns: He says it’s important for the world to act quickly, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 5/7/25
Attenborough at 99 delivers ‘greatest message he's ever told,’ Justin Rowlatt, BBC, 5/6/25: “He believes his new, cinema-length film Ocean could play a decisive role in saving biodiversity and protecting the planet from climate change.”
Could this 1980s battery design unlock long-term clean energy storage? Utility Southern Co. will install Inlyte’s iron-salt long-duration battery, tech the startup has updated for the era of renewables and data center demand, Julian Spector, Canary Media, 5/7/25
Moss could provide a soft landing for tens of thousands of defunct oil wells: In a milestone for ecological restoration, researchers have developed a method for restoring carbon-storing peatlands to old oil well sites across western Canada, Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 5/6/25
Proposal Could Threaten Endangered Species’ Survival in Farm Country: Even as the Environmental Protection Agency moves to better regulate pesticides under the Endangered Species Act, the Trump administration is seeking to weaken habitat protections, Brian Calvert, Civil Eats, 5/7/25
How the World Became Awash in Synthetics: It started in 1934, with a PR crisis, Mariah Blake, The Atlantic, 5/5/25: “Less than a century after these chemicals entered the world, nowhere is pristine.”
Decoding Crop Evapotranspiration: The intricate factors influencing cropland evapotranspiration is uncovered in a new article, from stressors to diverse management practices, and reveals critical insights into changing climates, Rangjian Qiu, Eos, 5/6/25
Wasp mums use remarkable memory when feeding offspring, Univ Exeter, ScienceDaily, 5/9/25: “…mother wasps can remember the locations of up to nine separate nests at once, rarely making mistakes despite the fact nests are dug in bare sand containing hundreds belonging to other females.”
The Molecular Bond That Helps Secure Your Memories: How do memories last a lifetime when the molecules that form them turn over within days, weeks or months? An interaction between two proteins points to a molecular basis for memory, Adjina Halilovic, Quanta, 5/7/25: “It’s the persistent association between two proteins that maintains the memory, rather than a protein that lasts by itself for the lifetime of the memory.”
some blue air fell over me
what I want is less clear to me
now than it was then
—from “Against the Encroaching Grays,” C.D. Wright
Health, Wellness
Black tea and berries could contribute to healthier aging, Edith Cowan Univ, Science Daily, 5/5/25: “…foods rich in flavonoids could help to lower the risk of key components of unhealthy ageing…”
‘Get rid of the pseudoscience’: top doctor’s plan to improve America’s health: Eric Topol says we can prevent age-related disease and live fuller lives – but only if we reject anti-science ‘malarkey,’ Jessica Glenza, The Guardian, 5/8/25
Why Do Americans Pay More for Prescription Drugs? David Armstrong, ProPublica, 5/9/25: “In most other wealthy countries, governments set a single price for a drug that is usually based on analysis of the therapeutic benefit of the medicine and what other countries pay.”
Birds, Birding
In full plume: Tracing the long, transcultural history of feathers in art: For centuries people have turned to feathers as the stuff of — and the subject of — various art forms. In a Q&A, two Yale scholars discuss the cultural value of feathers and why it transcends time and space, Lisa Prevost, Yale News, 5/7/25
Over 2,500 rare birds rescued and released in Herat, Afghanistan, Fidel Rahmati, Khaama Press, 5/8/25
New podcast: Rachel Blau DuPlessis reading from The Complete Drafts on Writerscast.com
What I see from the stone is time’s
unrolling scroll
one’s hand shakes to write.
Every word teeming and bereft
within its unremarked extent, its ebb and eddy.
Yet we both remember that multi-lingual renga!
—from Draft 42: Epistle, Studios
Dearest friends –
It’s our turn to defend the planet and our polity—with freedom and justice for all.
Stay strong. There is so much to be done.
Love the ones you’re with. And take care of yourself too.
Please keep in touch…hearing from you makes the work I do worthwhile.
I send my love to all of you
—David
‘Let It Be:’A Reason To Smile, Dan Rather, Steady, 5/11/25: “To the mothers, thank you for all the love, inspiration, and advice.”
And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me
Shinin' until tomorrow, let it be
—from “Let It Be,” Paul McCartney/John Lennon