The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 225, September 1, 2024 (V5 #17)
Lies should be called lies and the former president should have his mouth washed out with soap. To elect this person to our highest office is to simultaneously lower ourselves and our nation to a place where we make Hell great again.—E. Ethelbert Miller
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.—Winston Churchill
Books, Music, Art, Culture
‘Even in the teeth of a gale, she has time for a hula’: the sailor breaking barriers on the Pacific ocean: First female Fijian sail master on traditional vessel Uto ni Yalo led a difficult week-long voyage to the Pacific leaders’ summit in Tonga, Sera Sefeti, The Guardian, 8/26/24: “I was emotional because you are being handed a responsibility that our forefathers once held; they navigated using the stars, the moon, and traditional knowledge … it was still a great honour.”
Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art: To create a novel or a painting, an artist makes choices that are fundamentally alien to artificial intelligence, Ted Chiang, New Yorker, 8/31/24: “…art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.”
When Art Talks Back: on Graffiti As Visual and Written Expression: Exploring Artistic Scribbling in a Rapidly Gentrifying New York City, Jonathan Lethem, LitHub, 8/26/24: “Graffti inserts itself like the blade of a knife between creation and destruction, between publicity and furtiveness, between word and image, cartoon, icon, and hieroglyph.”
Early Scenes: Remembering a childhood in the South Bronx, Al Pacino, New Yorker, 8/26/24: “Once in a while, when you looked down at the sidewalk along the lots, you’d see a blade of grass growing up out of the concrete. That’s what my friend, the acting teacher Lee Strasberg, once called talent: a blade of grass growing up out of a block of concrete.”
Leonard Riggio, Who Built Barnes & Noble Into Book-Retailing Powerhouse, Is Dead at 83: A seminal figure in the industry, he transformed the company into what was once the country’s largest publicly traded bookstore chain, Jeffery A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal, 8/27/24
Schrödinger’s Catch: Applying the Rules of Quantum Physics to Queer Dating: on Quantum Shelves and Finding Your Forever Person, Hannah Silva, LitHub, 8/28/24: “Love is what makes our life worth living; afterward we are weak but we know we are powerful in the good times, that we don’t have to be violent or passive, that we don’t need anything and can, for a short time, fall in love.”
Myth and misogyny: how male representations of the female form have changed the way women are viewed: From tales of ‘toothed vaginas’ to gods with breasts, men have spent millennia vilifying and controlling representations of women. Here, Mineke Schipper reveals why she set out to reclaim the female body as a source of power, Emma Beddington, The Guardian, 8/25/24: “The female body is exalted, objectified, feared and reviled in myriad ways.”
When Art Talks Back: on Graffiti As Visual and Written Expression, Exploring Artistic Scribbling in a Rapidly Gentrifying New York City, Jonathan Lethem, LitHub, 8/26/24: “Graffti inserts itself like the blade of a knife between creation and destruction, between publicity and furtiveness, between word and image, cartoon, icon, and hieroglyph.”
The country’s largest publishers sue Florida over school book bans: Works by hundreds of authors, from Maya Angelou to Judy Blume, have been challenged and removed from school libraries. Now a group is suing to bring them back, Maham Javaid, Washington Post, 8/31/24
Real-Estate Shopping for the Apocalypse: Thirty-nine per cent of Americans believe that we’re living in end times, and the market for underground hideouts is heating up, Patricia Marx, New Yorker, 8/26/24
Who put the bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp
Who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong
Who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop
Who put the dip in the dip da dip da dip
—from “Who Put the Bomp,” Barry Mann/Gerry Goffin
Politics, Technology, Economics
Trump Wins! A Start of the Second American Civil War You Didn't Consider: Imagine your town’s police and National in Raging, Gaza-like battles … on your Street, Malcolm Nance, Special Intelligence, 8/29/24: “If there is ever an article you should share, it is this one. I have frightened myself silly just by writing it. We have really overlooked the scenario below.”
FBI informant’s book predicts far-right violence: ‘we should be afraid:’ Joe Moore, who for years investigated the Ku Klux Klan, issues a chilling warning for the 2024 election and beyond, Edward Helmore, The Guardian, 8/25/24 Book: White Robes and Broken Badges: Infiltrating the KKK and Exposing the Evil Among Us
The Election Story Nobody Wants to Talk About: A Q&A with David Neiwert, America’s foremost writer and thinker on far-right extremism, on what might happen if Trump wins—or loses, Rick Perlstein, Infernal Triangle, 8/28/24: “We’re once again faced with a situation where a substantial bloc of American politics is talking about committing acts of violence and bringing down the government….what they’re saying amongst themselves right now is probably disturbing. Because they’re talking about shooting their neighbors…. Certainly, the first priority has to be really heavy security around ballots, particularly in the swing states.”
The question Trump should be asked every single day: The Jan. 6 insurrection is far from old news, Colbret I. King, Washington Post, 8/30/24 (No Paywall): “Trump is being covered by the press as if Jan. 6 were old news.”
An ugly case of 'false balance' in the New York Times: The mainstream media is still getting it wrong about Trump, Margaret Sullivan, American Crisis, 9/1/24: “…the reporting this week left readers and listeners, especially with no knowledge of the military, at a loss to understand what actually happened — and crucially, why it mattered so much. The Trump campaign had successfully muddied the waters by alleging that the photographer had been invited to the event by family members of soldiers buried there.”
How Fascism Happens: In the face of renewed threats to democracy, historical knowledge of past dictatorships becomes as important as ever. After all, the Holocaust and World War II show what can happen when democracies allow themselves to be undermined from within, Mark Jones, Project Syndicate, 8/30/24: “History has already shown us what happens when democracies allow their enemies to weaken them from within.”
Two important books:
Richard J. Evans, Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich
Timothy W. Ryback, Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power
Confederate Voter Intimidation 2.0: The GOP's Dark Strategy for Winning - From Reconstruction to DeSantis to Paxton: How Republicans Are Keeping Power by Any Means Necessary…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 8/27/24: “…the former Confederate slave states of Texas, Georgia, and Florida would all be Blue were it not for voter suppression, voter purges, and the intimidation of Black and Hispanic voters.”
Don’t Downplay Risks of AI for Democracy, Suzanne Nossel, Just Security, 8/28/24: “…regulators should force AI companies to provide transparency, allowing researchers to dig into how evolving capabilities are being used and their effects. Second, governments and companies need to install speed bumps so AI doesn’t proliferate so fast and far that no regulation or rules can catch up.”
Why the Media Won’t Report the Truth About Trump: The political press has doubled down on horse-race coverage of the election, overlooking the threat Trump poses to democracy, James Risen, The Intercept, 8/28/24: “…the political press still doesn’t understand that campaigns are going around them in part because of their obsession with the horse race. They don’t get the connection….horse-race coverage is likely to keep its iron grip on political journalism — an arrangement that leaves candidates unchallenged, important questions unasked, and voters uninformed. It’s an arrangement that Trump is eager to exploit.”
As Much Power As the President: How Billionaires Became More Influential than World Leaders: on Income Inequality, Blurring Class Distinctions, and How Money Became Synonymous with Power, Rob Larson, LitHub, 8/29/24: “This position of ownership of the productive economy, and the social and political power arising from that, is what defines the ruling class, and it goes back centuries to the advent of capitalism in the enclosure movement.” Book: Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More
The GOP’s Silent Coup: How Republicans are Secretly Rewriting the Constitution: Sometimes you can learn as much from attending to what Republicans suddenly stop saying as to what they are talking about…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 8/29/24: “…Republicans are rewriting the Constitution right now, this year and last, through their proxies among the six corrupt Republicans on the US Supreme Court.”
D.E.I. Is Not Working on College Campuses. We Need a New Approach, Paul Brest, Emily J. Levine, NY Times, 8/30/24: “We believe that fostering a sense of belonging among students of diverse backgrounds is a precondition for educational success. That said, many D.E.I. training programs actually subvert their institutions’ educational missions.”
Elon Musk is out of control. Here is how to rein him in: He may be the richest man in the world – but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him, Robert Reich, The Guardian, 8/30/24: 1. Boycott Tesla. 2. Advertisers should boycott X. 3. Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X. 4. In the United States, the FTC should demand that Musk take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals – and if he does not, sue him under Section Five of the FTC Act. 5. The US should terminate its contracts with him, starting with Musk’s SpaceX. 6. Make sure Musk’s favorite candidate for president is not elected.
The US diplomatic strategy on Israel and Gaza is not working: US policies strengthen Benjamin Netanyahu – whose political preference in the short term is an open-ended war, not a deal, Daniel Levy, The Guardian, 8/27/24: “Netanyahu is a loose cannon, which Kamala Harris should have no interest in reloading 10 weeks out from an election.”
We can’t just talk peace, we have to be peace, or it’s another kind of bravado. I’d like a world without war; but we’d all settle for a world without wars that kill everything.
— Gary Snyder
Science, Environment
Concerns over Lithium, Water, and Climate in Earth’s Two Highest Deserts: Brine mining to meet resource demands amid renewable energy transitions is affecting water resources in South America and China. Hydrologists can help understand how and join the search for solutions, Lan Kuo, Eos, 8/27/24
What Will We Do With Our Free Power? David Wallace-Wells, NY Times, 8/29/24: “…the exploding scale and disappearing cost of solar do mean that the energy game will now be played according to some pretty different ground rules.”
The world’s fisheries are in more trouble than we think: New research finds the danger of overfishing is being understated by scientists advising policymakers, Warren Cornwell, Anthropocene, 8/27/24: “In two-thirds of the fisheries, the early estimates of a fish population were overly positive.”
The Corals That Survive Climate Change Will Be Unrecognizable: They have endured so much, and to endure this, they’ll have to adapt dramatically, Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 8/28/24: “With every passing too-hot month, we turn more reefs into ruins, the remnants of another life form that existed alongside ours.”
How a Technology Similar to Fracking Can Store Renewable Energy Underground Without Lithium Batteries: Three Houston startups are using fracking-like techniques to create underground storage caverns for pressurized water, which when released drives a turbine to send power to the grid, Dylan Badour, Inside Climate News, 8/27/24
Can Dairy Ever Be Net Zero? Food giant Mars is partnering with dairies in Germany and New Zealand to see if it can lower the carbon footprint of milk production, Yusuf Khan, Wall Street Journal, 8/30/24: “Methane is one of the key greenhouse gases that scientists focus on when it comes to cutting carbon emissions. In terms of its effect on global warming, it is four times worse than carbon dioxide.”
A new solution for flood-prone cities? Concrete made from shellfish waste: Researchers have developed a type of concrete that uses discarded shells to trap water. It's now combating floods and food waste in urban gardens and along cycling paths, Ayurella Horn-Muller, Grist, 8/29/24
Salmon will soon swim freely in the Klamath River for first time in a century once dams are removed, Hallie Golden, AP News, 8/27/24: “’Seeing the river being restored to its original channel and that dam gone, it’s a good omen for our future,’ said Leaf Hillman, ceremonial leader of the Karuk Tribe, which has spent at least 25 years fighting for the removal of the Klamath dams.”
Saltwater Aquaculture Is More Climate-Friendly than Freshwater Aquaculture: As the aquaculture industry grows, new research finds that seafoods raised in marine waters have a smaller carbon footprint than those raised in fresh water, Bárbara Pinho, Hakai, 8/30/24
As ‘Doomsday’ Glacier Melts, Can an Artificial Barrier Save It? Relatively warm ocean currents are weakening the base of Antarctica’s enormous Thwaites Glacier, whose demise could raise sea levels by as much as 7 feet. To separate the ice from those warmer ocean waters, scientists have put forward an audacious plan to erect a massive underwater curtain, Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, 8/26/24
Pesticide use may be influencing wild bee population decline: Study, Sharon Udasin, The Hill, 8/27/24: “Those two compounds, neonicotinoid and pyrethroid, have become ‘a major driver of changes in occupancy across hundreds of wild bee species,’ the authors explained.”
Humpback whales create and manipulate tools when hunting with bubbles, study says, Mark Ladao, Hawai’i Public Radio, 8/26/24: “Humpback whales use “bubble nets” to catch krill, which researchers have determined to be an example of tool modification and understanding.”
Robotic kitchens aren’t on homemakers’ must-have lists yet, but they are starting to gain traction in restaurants: Robots are coming to the kitchen − what that could mean for society and culture, Patrick Lin, The Conversation, 8/29/24: “Convenience can come at a great cost, so it’s vital to look ahead at the possible ethical and social disruptions that emerging technologies might bring, especially for a deeply human and cultural domain – food – that’s interwoven throughout daily life.”
New Experiment Brings The Quantum Internet a Step Closer to Reality, David Nield, Science Alert, 8/27/24 “[creating] the possibility of using existing infrastructure to connect multiple quantum computers in networks that might one day provide a unique means of processing power that could solve otherwise insurmountable computing tasks.”
i know you butterfly sweet
your lips taste of the sea
the years dusty with herstory
anticipate light.
—from “Belly, Buttocks, and Straight Spines,” Sonia Sanchez
Health, Wellness
What to Know About the Updated 2024-2025 COVID Vaccines, Kathy Katella, Yale Medicine, 8/27/24: “The shots aren’t meant to prevent every SARS-CoV-2 infection; rather, the aim is to protect against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. They also restore and enhance protection from previous shots, which has declined over time.”
Number of microplastics in soda bottles found to increase the more you open them to drink, Oceane Duboust, EuroNews, 8/25/24: “A new report found a number of micro and nanoplastics in soda bottles, with the number increasing based on how many times the bottle was opened.”
Catching up on sleep on weekends may lower heart disease risk by up to 20%, European Society of Cardiology, Science Daily, 8/29/24
Common chemical affects gut microbiome and contributes to diabetes and obesity, Katherine McMahon, Sarah Howard, Environmental Health News, 8/30/24: “Our work in mice demonstrates that early life exposure to an environmental pollutant may increase the risk of metabolic disorders later in life through disruption of the gut microbiome.”
How a new kind of vaccine could lead to the eradication of Alzheimer’s: Promising new vaccines are designed to be given to patients at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. If they perform well in clinical trials, they have the potential to one day rid society of dementia, Graham Lawton, New Scientist, 8/27/24
What accelerates brain ageing? This AI ‘brain clock’ points to answers: Exposure to air pollution and living in a country with high socio-economic inequality are linked to a bigger gap between brain age and chronological age, Julian Nowogrodzki, Nature, 8/27/24
A new smart mask analyzes your breath to monitor your health: Researchers out of Caltech have created masks that are able to analyze biomarkers in your breath to monitor health conditions like asthma and COPD, Scott J Mulligan, MIT Technology Review, 8/29/24
How Our Longest Nerve Orchestrates the Mind-Body Connection: Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear, R. Douglas Fields, Quanta, 8/26/24
Birds, Birding
When birds build nests, they're also building a culture, Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR, 8/29/24: “…birds seem to learn rules for nest-making that get passed down within a family group from generation to generation.”
The elusive mourning warbler: A colorful gem of North America’s forests, Joan Collins, Adirondack Explorer, 8/28/24: “The mourning warbler is one of the most sought-after by birders visiting the Adirondacks. It is an elusive and hard to see species spending most of its time low in dense thickets.”
September 1, 1939 – Germany invaded Poland, beginning what was to become World War II, fought to end fascism. Now it’s our turn.
Arizona Labor: A Specific Way to Help win this Election, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 8/31/24: “If you have time and have a sense of commitment, you can apply to volunteer for or to work for Worker Power. If you would like to help Worker Power canvass in Arizona by making a donation, you can go to this site and hit the donate button.”
Get a yard sign: https://store.kamalaharris.com/harris-walz-yard-sign/
If you want to help with voter protection, here is the National Volunteer Interest Form.
There are only 65 days until the most consequential election of our lifetimes.
No layoff
from this
condensery
—from “Poet’s Work,” Lorine Niedecker
I say this every week because I really mean it — wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever you are doing — thanks for who you are and what you do. Please continue to keep in touch. Send messages and your own news. Hearing from you makes this all worthwhile.
I’m still feeling the hope and optimism, but there is much work to be done still. Stay well; share love; work for good. We need each other, now more than ever. We can do this.
Love always—David