The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 119, August 21, 2022 (V3 #15)
“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”—Charles Bukowski
Let this single hour atone
For the theft of all of me.
—From “August Moonrise,” Sara Teasdale
Books and Culture
A School Librarian is Suing the Right-Wing Activists Who Tried to Harass Her: After she stood up for LGBTQ+ books, Amanda Jones faced rampant claims of grooming children in private Facebook groups, James Factora, Them, 8/15/22
How Teens Are Pushing Back On Book Bans: “Teachers are afraid of losing their jobs. Principals only have so much that they can do in the face of school boards. But students can protest. Students can speak out,” Ashira Morris, Next City, 8/10/22
If we don’t defend free speech, we live in tyranny: Salman Rushdie shows us that: The Satanic Verses author didn’t plan to become a hero, but as he recovers from this attack, the world must stand by him, Margaret Atwood, The Guardian, 8/15/22: “Living in a pluralistic democracy means being surrounded by a multiplicity of voices, some of which will be saying things you don’t like.”
We Ignored Salman Rushdie's Warning: Words are not violence. Violence is violence, Bari Weiss, Common Sense, 8/13/22
Cancel Culture Did Not Stab Salman Rushdie: Bari Weiss and other self-anointed defenders of free speech used the author’s stabbing to accuse the left of rhetorical excess—and ignored the very relevant scourge of book-banning by the American right, Aaron R. Hanlon, The New Republic, 8/16/22: “If you want to place the attack on Rushdie into a U.S. political context, it’s the rise in legislation to ban books from schools and local libraries that should most concern you.”
Republicans’ classroom gagging bills are ‘attack on education’, report says: PEN America says ‘educational gag orders’ have increased 250% since 2021 with focus on race and LGBTQ issues, Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian, 8/17/22
Texas School District Demands Removal of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ Illustrated Adaptation From Its Libraries, Brandon Katz, Yahoo News, 8/17/22
How Future Generations Will Remember Us: History is a long series of moral abominations, William MacAskill, The Atlantic, 8/16/22
What a New Translation of Beowulf Says About Extinction: on Talking About Species Loss, Lydia Pine, LitHub, 8/18/22
How Eco-Fiction Became Realer Than Realism: Encompassing everything from the ecosystems novel to sci-fi, a growing body of literature is imagining and interrogating the past, present, and future of the planet's climate, Lynn Feeley, The Nation, 8/18/22
Why Are We Not Better Than We Are: How Poetry Saves Lives: “…a stillness in which the germ of what is not yet palpable pauses and gathers to begin one more time,” Maria Popova, The Marginalian, 8/21/22
In Praise of Peaches: Sometimes a peach is just a peach. But sometimes it's a portal, Alice Wong, Orion, 8/18/22: “Eating a fresh Elberta peach is indeed a magical, spiritual experience.”
Top 10 Protest Songs from the 1960s, Colm Clark, Culture Sonar, 8/10/22 (Ed: Which one is your favorite? If any…)
The Creedence Clearwater Revival Revival: How can a band as beloved as C.C.R. still seem underappreciated? And is that finally beginning to change? David Cantwell, The New Yorker, 8/17/22
Janis Joplin: Unseen Images, New Revelations, Cindy Grogan, Culture Sonar, 8/15/22: Photographs of Janis Joplin on the Road and on Stage by Elliott Landy
Art Doesn’t Care If You Like It: on The Sandman Adaptation“Why should art need to appease and excite everyone at once?” Gabrielle Bellot, LitHub, 8/19/22: “It is at once the work of a Renaissance man and something accessible to anyone who is willing to spend time with it.”
These Indigenous female skateboarders are breaking stereotypes in Bolivia: A group of young female skateboarders in Bolivia are using their attire to break stereotypes across society. Spanish colonizers introduced polleras to the country centuries ago, and they became a symbol of the Quechua and Aymara ethnic groups of South America, Tibisay Zea, The World, 8/15/22
Charles Simic: Empire of Dreams
On the first page of my dreambook
It’s always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The storefronts gutted.
I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn’t be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of Halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on.
from Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems
Politicking
The New Era of Political Violence Is Here: The danger is not organized civil war but individual Americans with deep resentments and delusions, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 8/15/22
Must read article of the week: The Case for Trump Is Getting More Radical Every Year: It’s not 2016 anymore, David French, The Atlantic, 8/19/22: “But hidden behind these dry statistics are the stories we tell, and I don’t think many members of the media truly understand precisely how radical the core MAGA narrative has become and how challenging that narrative is to any effort to pull the GOP away from Trump and Trumpism. … Why would Republicans immediately rally around Trump after the FBI search? Because their entire story of the past six years teaches them that Trump is persecuted, he’s God’s instrument, and the Democrats (and “deep state”) are thwarting God’s divine plan.”
Fatwas, Foreign and Domestic: There’s the Iranian brand and the Republican brand, Harold Meyerson, American Prospect, 8/16/22: “The American Fatwa-er in Chief, of course, is Trump himself.”
A Constellation of Anti-Voting Groups Threaten Democracy, Marc Elias, Democracy Docket, 8/16/22: “These right-wing groups work closely with the RNC and with state legislatures to advance anti-voting legislation.”
Waking up to the genetic surveillance state, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 8/19/22: “Once the DNA database is hacked, good luck filling out the forms to get yourself a new genome.”
Abortion bans are a threat to patients. Doctors can and should resist them, M. Gregg Bloche, Sarah K. Werner, Washington Post, 8/18/22
Holes in the Recession Story, Jim O’Neill, Project Syndicate, 8/16/22: “…recent developments offer some hope that the prevailing pessimism may no longer be as warranted as it was a few months ago.”
Climate change is a secret driver of inflation, Hope King, Axios, 8/18/22: “Extreme weather is affecting both the supply and demand sides of the economy”
Japan urges its young people to drink more to boost economy, Malu Cursino, BBC News, 8/18/22
The New US Climate Law Will Reduce Carbon Emissions and Make Electricity Less Expensive, Economists Say: Recent research shows consumers across the country are paying too much for electricity, given the carbon cost of the power now on the grid, Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News, 8/19/22
The Putin-Xi Economic War Games: Daniel Yergin, the renowned energy expert, on Xi, Putin, American diplomacy, and avoiding a “Lehman-style” economic catastrophe in Europe. William D. Cohan, Puck, 8/17/22
Is There a Serious Case for a Not-Awful Election for Democrats This Fall? One strategist’s “Trumptimism” is another’s “hopium.” Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker, 8/18/22
Our privacy and why it matters, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 8/17/22: “Without the right to privacy, other rights you are guaranteed by the Constitution cease to matter.”
Americans see an ‘invasion’ at the border. But what does that mean? Philip Bump, Washington Post, 8/18/22: ““invasion” is an inherently subjective word, influenced by how people talk about the situation at the border.”
The case for high-skilled immigration reform (and how to make it happen), Alec Stapp, Jeremy Neufeld, Noahpinion, 8/16/22: “Facing ever-growing wait times for green cards in the United States, talented immigrants are increasingly looking abroad for opportunities.”
Oh, I don't wanna ride on your shoulders or put you in the hospital
I just wanna roll away boulders that they said was impossible
'Cause don't you know there are many repressible optimists walking with the fatal flaw
Running in the streets like feral cats
Will be hard to mistake any and raise a paw
—Andrew Bird, “Make a Picture”
Science/Environment
Some spiders may enter REM sleep — and maybe even dream, study says, Julian Mark, Washington Post, 8/15/22
Endangered sea turtles found on Louisiana islands for first time in 75 years: Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, world’s smallest sea turtle species, discovered in Chandeleur Islands off coast of New Orleans, Maya Yang, The Guardian, 8/21/22
The Curious Afterlife of a Brain Trauma Survivor: Sophia Papp emerged from an accident with her personality transformed. She tried to continue on as before—until she realized she could reinvent herself, Mike Mariani, Wired, 8/16/22: “The sweeping changes in her perception became the crux of her reinvention.” –from What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us
Scientists unravel the origins of the Southwest’s monsoon: But just as their understanding of the phenomena becomes mores clear, it’s starting to disappear, Caroline Tracey, High Country News, 8/2/22
Mexican Drought Spurs a South Texas Water Crisis: A century of enterprise brought the Rio Grande to its brink. Now authorities are “praying for a hurricane” as reservoirs dwindle and populations boom on both sides of the border, Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News, 8/15/22
How the Western drought is pushing the power grid to the brink: The megadrought is costing us megawatts, Umair Irfan, Vox, 8/16/22
How Long Droughts Make Flooding Worse: Parched ground is less likely to absorb water and increases the risk of dangerous flash floods. But there are ways to mitigate these conditions, Amit Katwala, Wired, 8/19/22
Diet for a hotter climate: five plants that could help feed the world, Cecilia Nowell, The Guardian, 8/20/22
A Single Gram of Salt Is The Difference For Millions of Heart Attacks, David Nield, ScienceAlert, 8/19/22
Octonions: The strange maths that could unite the laws of nature: Could a system of eight-dimensional numbers help physicists find a single mathematical framework that describes the entire universe? Michael Brooks, New Scientist, 8/16/22
Epigenetic ‘Clocks’ Predict Animals’ True Biological Age: A statistical analysis of chemical tags on DNA may help unify disparate theories of aging, Ingrid Wickelgren, Quanta, 8/17/22
Teaching climate hope as students envision a no-carbon 2050 future: Harmful ‘eco-anxiety’ and ‘doomism’ can, must, be reversed so that youthful students can fully engage in needed climate involvement, Jill Hopke, Barbara Willard, Yale Climate Connections, 8/17/22
‘Genius engineering’: the battle to save Hawaii’s historic fish ponds: Neglected and polluted, the ponds were nearly barren of native species. But community efforts are starting to pay off, Lucy Sherriff, The Guardian, 8/17/22
Rebirth of San Francisco’s Salt Marshes: An ambitious restoration project in San Francisco’s South Bay is attempting to balance a return to the ecological past with the needs of species that have become reliant on the area’s artificial salt ponds, Skylar Knight, Skylar Knight, Hakai, 8/16/22
Climate Change Is Forcing Georgia Peach Farmers to Explore New Varieties: Could the "Peach State" one day be forced to adopt a new nickname? Michael D’Estries, Treehugger, 8/16/22
Biden’s Climate Law Is Ending 40 Years of Hands-Off Government: For America to decarbonize, it must reindustrialize, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 8/18/22
Stop drinking, keep reading, look after your hearing: a neurologist’s tips for fighting memory loss and Alzheimer’s: When does forgetfulness become something more serious? And how can we delay or even prevent that change? Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian, 8/17/22
‘Most have thrown their hands up’: has the US forgotten about Covid? As Americans go about their daily lives, severely affected Covid patients are wondering if others are moving too quickly from the worst days of the pandemic, Maya Yang, The Guardian, 8/19/22
And far out in the dawn the first bird of morning opens its beak.
In the tops of pinetrees the light wind hovers,
On faraway peaks air trembles in motion, revolving the night.
—William Everson, from “River-Root, A Syzygy for the Bicentennial of These States”
Birds on the Wire
Landmark Solar Victory for Birds & People in Mississippi, Audubon Mississippi, Audubon, 8/9/22: “The Commission’s decision places Mississippi as one of the leading states in the country for advancing equitable renewable energy policies and sends a clear message that the state is open for solar business.”
Good news: A good year for puffins and terns, despite climate change: A visit to a remote Maine island finds puffins and terns rebounding, Derrick Z. Jackson, Environmental Health News, 8/19/22
Rare Nazca booby bird sighting near Vancouver Island leaves boat captain, whale watchers amazed: It's only the third confirmed time the seabird has been seen in B.C. waters, Akshay Kulkarni, CBC News, 8/14/22
Turn out the lights, New York. It’s for the birds: Lights Out New York is a statewide initiative to mitigate the negative effects artificial light has on birds, Laura Harkawik, Times Union, 8/16/22
What is the fastest bird in the world? How fast can it fly? Probably faster than you think, Mythili Devarakonda, USA TODAY, 8/19/22: “The Common Swift is still technically the fastest flying bird in the world. In fact, it is known to hold the record for the longest continuous flight by staying up to 10 months in the air.”
Nearing the end of summer feels strange. It’s come too soon. And watching Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series seems to have been altering my dream patterns. Or maybe it’s just the daily news dislocating my sense of safety. Even so, this morning I am thrilled to have seen a goldfinch in my garden, and to know the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles are still with us.
Thanks to all of you who have written and thanks for reading TWT. Stay well, stay safe. Go for a swim. Love to all - David
Stay gentle, keep the eyes of a child
Don't harden your heart or your hands
Know to find joy in the darkness is wise
—From “Stay Gentle,” Brandi Carlile/Phil Hanseroth/Tim Hanseroth