The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 189, December 24, 2023 (V4 #33)
What a scandal is Christmas,
What a scandle Christmas is,
a red stick-up
to a lily.
—from “Will You Write Me a Christmas Poem?,” Lorine Niedecker
Books Music Culture
A Hawaiian paradise, built by a revered modern poet: W.S. Merwin set out to build a sanctuary on Maui. It continues to provide refuge years after his death, Adam Chandler, Washington Post, 12/18/23: “Anyone with an internet connection can take a virtual walk through the garden.”
He Made a Magazine, 95 Issues, While Hiding From the Nazis in an Attic: The people who hid Curt Bloch, a German Jew, in the crawl space of a Dutch home gave him both food and the materials he needed to make a highly creative magazine now drawing attention, Nina Siegal, NY Times, 12/18/23: “Each issue included original art, poetry and songs that often took aim at the Nazis and their Dutch collaborators.” (Gift article)
These are the poets and writers who have been killed in Gaza, Dan Sheehan, LitHub, 12/21/23: Heba Abu Nada, Heba Abu Nada, Refaat Alareer, Abdul Karim Hashash, Inas al-Saqa, Jihad Al-Masri, Yusuf Dawas, Shahadah Al-Buhbahan, Nour al-Din Hajjaj, Mustafa Al-Sawwaf, Abdullah Al-Aqad, Said Al-Dahshan, Saleem Al-Naffar (From “Second Preliminary Report on the Cultural Sector Damage War on Gaza Strip”)
It’s My Party and I’ll Read If I Want To: Reading Rhythms bills itself as a series of “reading parties,” where guests read silently for an hour and chat with strangers about the books they brought. (Just don’t call it a book club.), Molly Young, NY Times, 12/19/23 (gift article)
Nothing for Something: Cryptos, Cons, and Zombies, Peter Lunenfeld, LA Review of Books, 12/19/23: “…crypto is a digital oligarchy, power is power, and power benefits from and produces imbalances.” (DW: this article is about much more than crypto – it’s also about the power of propaganda, well worth reading in full.)
Nobody Knows What’s Happening Online Anymore: Why you’ve probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world, Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 12/18/23: “TikTok’s biggest hits are videos you’ve probably never seen. Other platforms have the same issue… We live in a world where it’s easier than ever to be blissfully unaware of things that other people are consuming. It’s also easier than ever to assign outsize importance to information or trends that may feel popular but are actually contained.” DW: Thus we no longer share a culture, without which, our bonds, and thus our democracy, is weakened to the point of collapse. (Gift article)
The Internet Isn't Dead. It's Saturday Night Live: In 2023, a new idea took hold: The internet isn’t fun anymore. Except it's not a new idea, Kate Knibbs, Wired, 12/23/23: “To insist that the fun is over is to adopt an overly nostalgic stance, and one that rests on a pathetic fallacy: Just because you aren’t having fun on the internet doesn’t mean the internet itself is broken. It’s what it always has been, a flawed mirror of the cultural moment.”
Reading Mumbo Jumbo in the Post-Covid Age: Ishmael Reed’s novel depicts an American government dedicated to public health as long as its efforts keep hierarchy and the status quo in place, Melvin Backman, The Nation, 12/20/23: “…because the United States’ ruling crust has always been fine with throwing wide swaths of its charges onto the pyre of order, it only cared to stamp out the new expressions of spiritual and political health that Covid had created. It decided that we could live with a disease that debilitates the body politic as long as the head retains its function and place.” (DW: I recommend reading or re-reading Mumbo Jumbo – Ishmael brilliantly pre-saged in 1972 what is happening in America and the world today.)
With ‘White Christmas,’ Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby helped make Christmas a holiday that all Americans could celebrate, Ray Rast, The Conversation, 12/19/23: “…reminding listeners of what makes them not just American, but human: the importance of home, a longing for togetherness and a shared hope for a better future.”
America Before Pizza: The beginning of the country’s love affair with bread, cheese, and sauce, Saahil Desai, The Atlantic, 12/21/23: “Food we now eat all the time and take for granted probably wasn’t available even a few decades ago.”
How to experience L.A. like a poet, Mark Gozonsky, LA Times, 12/20/23: “The enthusiasm these poets all showed for walking made me feel like I don’t need some kind of total personality transplant in order to experience L.A. like a poet. I can simply exercise already existing qualities, much as the Tin Man and Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion can all become their better selves simply by applying their certificates of approval from the Wizard of Oz.”
On Poetry and Miracles, Nin Andrews, Best American Poetry, 12/21/23: “I guess it depends on your definition of a miracle. For me it means simply stopping time. (Okay, maybe that’s not so simple.) Writing, meditating, reading—all take me into outside of ordinary time. And offer a kind of magic. Poetry, in particular, can seem like a dream manifested, a spiritual gift.”
The Chancellor of Berkeley Weighs In: Carol Christ reflects on campus protests, then and now, Molly Fischer, New Yorker, 12/17/23:”… one of the things that has happened is that there’s a narrative about higher education, generally, that’s politically useful to some groups in this country, and this very difficult situation with Israel and with Palestine is getting absorbed into that narrative.”
The rich are not the problem (we are): Triangle of Sadness and the moralizing of wealth and poverty, Elle Griffin, The Elysian, 12/18/23: “At what level of abundance do we become the asshole?”
The World’s Fastest Road Cars—and the People Who Drive Them: “Hypercars” can approach or even exceed 300 m.p.h. Often costing millions of dollars, they’re ostentatious trophies—and sublime engines of innovation, Ed Caesar, New Yorker, 12/18/23
20 years after the Chicks controversy, Maren Morris picks up the torch: Morris’s announcement that she was ‘leaving’ the genre shows the Chicks’ influence on a new generation of Nashville stars, Emily Yahr, Washington Post, 12/21/23
The Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping” – A Perfect Holiday Non-Anthem, Graham Pierrepoint, Culture Sonar, 12/20/23: “ Instead of sugar-coating the season, The Waitresses present a positive, if world-weary, spin on what it means to appreciate Christmas.”
Then suddenly we laughed and laughed
Caught on to what was happening
That Christmas magic's brought this tale
To a very happy ending
—from “Christmas Wrapping,” Waitresses, written by Chris Butler
Politics and Economics
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves — Edward R. Murrow
Fight back, Mr. President. Fight back for us, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 12/18/23: “Joe Biden needs to do more than use a deputy press secretary to denounce Trump in a written statement. He needs to show up in people’s living rooms on television over and over to make the point that Trump is not just his political opponent but an unpatriotic racist and a fascist. Fight back, Mr. President. He’s lying about you, he is lying about us, and he is a threat to our freedoms and our system of government. Repetition works. Shout the truth about Trump at the top of your lungs until people get it.”
How the battle for democracy will be fought — and won, Editorial Board, Washington Post, 12/21/23: “The mission is no less than explaining to the world why freedom matters to everyone, every day.”
Misogyny in the Heartland: Did you know that pregnant women in Missouri can't finalize a divorce? Jess Piper, Jess’s Substack, 12/18/23: “I felt the rage of generations of women rise up in me. What does my pregnancy status have to do with seeking a divorce? Not only do I not have the privilege to make decisions about my body due to a total abortion ban, but Missouri courts won’t even recognize my ability to make a civil decision? What the hell is going on in this state?”
The GOP’s 60-Year Authoritarian Plot: Perhaps None Dare Call It Treason. But I Do.: Understanding how they got here — and dragged the rest of us with them — may give us some clues to how to get out of this mess, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 12/19/23: “And it all tracks back to wealthy conservatives funding a project in the 1960s to scare Americans about socialism and communism so they could stop the union-fueled growth of wages that were cutting into their profits.”
The Supreme Court's long downhill slide, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 12/19/23: “It’s not a culture war that we’ve been fighting. It’s a war for our freedom, and the weapon we have been given to fight it is our vote.”
What To Think About Colorado and the 14th Amendment, Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 12/20/23: “ It’s no bad thing to have this Court put on the spot and tell us just what they think happened on January 6th 2021.”
Feelings and Vibes Can’t Sustain a Democracy: America could be heading for an election where nothing matters, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 12/18/23: “Millions of American voters appear to have lost their grip on reality.” (Gift article)
The Secret of Trump’s Appeal Isn’t Authoritarianism, Matthew Schmitz, NY Times, 12/18/23: “Inured to his braggadocio, they see him now as he was then: less an ideological warrior than a flexible-minded businessman who favors negotiation and compromise. This understanding of Mr. Trump, more than any other factor, may explain why so many voters have stuck with him, and why, a year from now, we may be looking ahead to a second Trump administration.” (Gift article)
Creator of Godwin's Law Says It's OK—and Necessary—to Compare Trump to Hitler: “Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy,” Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, 12/22/23
Wait, What? Biden’s Ahead? Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 12/21/23: “The story is that everything is going wrong for Biden. And it will continue that way even if the polls shift in a contrary direction.”
Fighting Book Bans in Kentucky Schools—and Beyond:The Boyle County School District quietly quietly banned more than 100 books, citing anti-trans bill SB 150. But a local campaign by students and their peers successfully pushed back, Ramona Pierce, The Nation, 12/19/23
Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective: Wheels falling off cars at speed. Suspensions collapsing on brand-new vehicles. Axles breaking under acceleration. Tens of thousands of customers told Tesla about a host of part failures on low-mileage cars. The automaker sought to blame drivers for vehicle ‘abuse,’ but Tesla documents show it had tracked the chronic ‘flaws’ and ‘failures’ for years, Hyunjoo Jin, Kevin Krolicki, Marie Mannes, Steve Stecklow, Reuters, 12/20/23
The China-Backed Retailers Shipping Millions of U.S. Packages a Day: Newcomer Temu and Shein are targeting bargain hunters and benefit from lower shipping costs by sorting packages in China, Esther Fung, Shen Lu, Wall Street Journal, 12/22/23
How did the U.S. achieve a soft landing? Four simple theories, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 12/20/23: “A macroeconomy is a very complex thing, with a lot of moving parts, and everything tends to happen all at once. So maybe 2021-23 just isn’t a simple story at all, much as we might prefer it to be one.”
Why the U.S. steel industry is dying: It's not because of foreign competition, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 12/21/23: “… the biggest reason the U.S. steel industry went into terminal decline was that we stopped building things that used lots of steel.”
What If Putin Wins? US Allies Fear Defeat as Ukraine Aid Stalls: With critical aid for Kyiv snarled up by political infighting on both sides of the Atlantic, European officials are starting to think through the consequences of a victory for Russia, Natalia Drozdiak, Milda Seputyte, Peter Martin,Bloomberg, 12/20/23
Safe Skies: Over more of Ukraine, thanks to you, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 12/20/23: “Another $950,000 would mean protecting four more regions -- Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Poltava, and Cherkasy -- from drones and cruise missiles.” To learn more and to donate: Safe Skies
coyotes are now surrounding the car i’m in with a man whose afraid to get high/ atop a hill on the eastside/ i’m always crying/ He never cries/ i walk up the hill/ shake hands with the creatures and ask them to quiet down/ they roll their eyes/ later in silence they agree that the universe needs a balance
—from “utilizing Google Maps to triangulate the course of my desmadre over the years,” Viva Padilla
Science and Environment
Written in Wood, Sarah Kaplan, Bonnie Jo Mount, Emily Wright, Frank Hulley-Jones, Washington Post, 12/20/23: “The ring for this year is barely a dozen cells wide. It is a silent distress signal sent by one of Earth’s most enduring organisms. A warning written in wood.”
How reindeer help fight climate change, Erica Benke, BBC, 12/19/23: “By gobbling up shrubs, they help increase the reflectivity of snow and ice.”
Indigenous activists are risking their lives for butterflies: In Central Mexico’s forests, armed community members defend an iconic butterfly from cartel-backed logging, Anjan Sundaram, Vox, 12/20/23: “Despite the fact that the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is internationally protected, decades of degradation of the forest have posed an existential threat to this fragile ecosystem.”
The US promised to return stolen lands to Native Hawaiians a century ago. Most are still waiting: The Maui wildfires illuminated the ongoing failures of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, Claire Wang, The Guardian, 12/22/23
In a Major Shift, Northwest Tribes — not U.S. Officials — Will Control Salmon Recovery Funds, Tony Shick, ProPublica, 12/21/23
COP28 spotlights key climate battle: Saving Himalayan ice: From Afghanistan to China, vanishing glaciers risk floods and drought for billions, Rhyannon Bartlett-Imadegawa, Asia Nikkei, 12/19/23
Different Kinds of Winning: Helping Biden Help Himself--and the Planet--on Climate, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 12/22/23: “If the president does the right thing in the right spirit on LNG exports, he’ll be able to say he’s done more than president before him not just on clean energy but also on the dirty stuff. He’ll be the leader he promised to be.”
After a Decade of Planning, New York City Is Raising Its Shoreline: Inspired by the Dutch model of living with water, New York’s coastal defenses are on the rise. The city — like others around the country — is combining infrastructure like floodwalls with nature-based features, as it moves ahead with the largest resiliency project in the U.S., Andrew S. Lewis, Yale Environment 360, 12/19/23
An ingenious ultrathin film keeps crops warm at night and slashes food waste. No energy required: The almost invisibly thin film—many microns thinner than a human hair—might not only replace plastic sheeting and heaters in agriculture, but also protect telephone lines and electric cables, Emma Bryce, Anthropocene, 12/8/23
Oh Good, Hurricanes Are Now Made of Microplastics: When Hurricane Larry made landfall two years ago, it dropped over 100,000 microplastics per square meter of land per day. It’s another ominous sign of how plasticized the environment has become, Matt Simon, Wired, 12/18/23
Reducing Methane From Livestock Is Critical for Stabilizing the Climate, but Congress Continues to Block Farms From Reporting Emissions Anyway: A long standing pattern of letting livestock producers off the hook continues, even as billions pour into the industry, Georgina Gustin, Phil McKenna, Inside Climate News, 12/22/23
How Slow Scan TV Shaped The Moon, Lee Wilkins, Scope of Work, 12/18/23: “SSTV … shaped some of the most well known images of the Moon, and its quirks helped manufacture popular understanding of what it might be like to live on another planet.”
Even as it is getting dark so fast
that there is almost nothing left to see
still, we together swim on, into some world
not yet imagined, not yet understood.
—from “Ode to Goby,” Julianna Spahr
Health and Wellness
If Not Vegan, or Vegetarian, How About Chickentarian? Chicken can be part of a climate-friendly diet; we’re just eating way too much of it, Eve Andrews, The Atlantic, 12/21/23: “Ideally, a chicken-inclusive climate-friendly diet would involve eating less chicken than the average American does now, and using it more strategically, to flavor and embellish other dishes.”
U.S. government spent more on health care in 2022 than six countries with universal health care combined, Annalisa Merelli, Statnews, 12/19/23: “American taxpayers footed the bill for at least $1.8 trillion in federal and state health care expenditures in 2022.” DW: Most of the difference between US and countries with publicly funded healthcare: added cost of private insurance.
Colon cancer is rising in young Americans. It’s not clear why, Joel Achenbach, Laurie McGinley, Washington Post, 12/21/23: “…suggests that more subtle, systemic factors could be at work, such as changes in gut bacteria — the microbiome — according to medical experts.”
TO KNOW THE DARK
To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
Wendell Berry
Birds Birds Birds
Poisonous harvest: Pesticide overuse threatens bird species: Excessive use of toxic agricultural drugs has significantly reduced varieties of native bird populations, Asif Mahmood, Express Tribune, 12/18/23: “…hundreds of bird species in Punjab face annihilation.”
These Birds Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together: Personalities play a role in whether seabirds “divorce”—but sometimes climate change does, too, Rebecca Heisman, Hakai, 12/20/23: “For black-legged kittiwakes, breakups can come down to personality differences. And when birds move on, they tend to find mates more like themselves.”
Humans have driven more than 1,400 bird species to extinction, double what was previously thought: A new study warns that intensive agriculture and climate change are accelerating the global decline of birds, Veronica M. Garrido, El Pais, 12/20/23
The daredevil flight to save rare birds, Storms, an eagle attack, emergency landings, and a unique bond: how scientists led a flight of endangered ibises on a 2,300km journey to their new winter sanctuary, Sophie Hardach, BBC, 12/18/23
Thank you for the apricots in the mail,
thank you more for appearing at my door
with so little time left: no going back
to field our regrets. Old
as we are, you are here and now,
why not a meadow and a clearing?
—from “Thank You,” Ira Sadoff
My ongoing thanks to all of you who take the time to read these weekly compendia, and special thanks to all of you who have written to me. I know these run long, I know they can be exhausting, but I am guessing (hoping) that most of you pick out what you want to go deeper on. I’m just providing the tasty crumbs to follow to fuller meals.
It just seems the weirdness - and approaching dangers - of each week just won’t let up. It helps to know we are in this together and talking about - not hiding from it all - makes a difference.
Especially today, wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever and however you are celebrating — or not — whatever you are doing — I send warm regards and thanks for who you are and what you do. Please keep in touch. Stay well. Share love. We need each other, now more than ever.
—David
'We believe in a future where all people live in peace with dignity, justice, and liberty.'—Combatants for Peace