The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 198, February 25, 2024 (V4 #42)
Lived life is only details —Lyn Hejinian
The only thing keeping this plane of existence from disappearing is the love between us.—David Wilk
Books, Music, Art, Culture
Ukraine’s secret weapon: Art, Anna Husarska, Mikhail Reva, Washington Post, 2/23/24 (Gift article)
The Show Must Go On: On Billie Holiday’s Last Live Performance: the Final Months of America’s Queen of Jazz, Paul Alexander, LitHub, 2/19/24: “It was her longing to move on to whatever was to come—a show, a recording session, a television appearance—that allowed her to cling to her unwavering sense of hope.” Book: Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year
Billy Dee Williams: ‘At this stage in my life, I don’t need to apologise for anything:’ The actor, best known for playing Lando in the Star Wars movies, talks about his new memoir, a life on screen and why he couldn’t ‘care less’ about becoming a political spokesperson, David Smith, The Guardian, 2/21/24
In My Mother’s Archive: Researching my mother’s friendships with Truman Capote and Elizabeth Bishop, her love affair with Dylan Thomas, and her own writing career, I discovered that she had led a courageous early life, David A. Bell, NY Review of Books, 2/20/24
Reading the Room: An Interview with Paul Yamazaki, Seminary Co-op Bookstore, Paris Review, 2/19/24: “It’s all about developing a conversation between the books. When they’re placed side by side, they talk to one another.”
From Homer to Gaza, the History of Books in Wartime: Nazis burned books; the U.S. shipped them to its troops; Alexander the Great, Hitler, and Stalin were keen bibliophiles. How to make sense of all this? Claudia Roth Pierpont, New Yorker, 2/19/24
Tools for Thinking About Censorship: One price of free speech is eternal humility, recognizing that none of us is immune to becoming a tool of censorship if we fail to recognize its manipulative tactics, Ada Palmer, Reactor, 2/21/24: “The majority of censorship is self-censorship, but the majority of self-censorship is intentionally cultivated by an outside power.”
Work-Life Imbalance: How the Pandemic Ruined Our Understanding of “Free” Time: the Idea of Free Time in Grind Culture, Gary S. Cross, LitHub, 2/19/24: “Time grows tedious when unstructured and many ultimately find the technological delivery of pleasure to be satiating, ultimately even boring.”
Disappearing tongues: the endangered language crisis: Linguistic diversity on Earth is far more profound and fundamental than previously imagined. But it’s also crumbling fast, Ross Perlin,The Guardian, 2/22/24: “…languages are not “dying natural deaths”, but being hounded out of existence.” (Gift Article)
Baseball is proving the power of immigrants. America should take the hint, Jaswinder Bolina, Washington Post, 2/21/24: “…there are no curses except those that are self-inflicted by cheap, regressive thinking.”
Who Should Regulate Online Speech? A number of cases before the Supreme Court this term will determine the future of free speech on the Internet, David Cole, NY Review of Books, 2/23/24: “There is no doubt much to criticize about social media. But there is also an unfortunate tendency to see it as the source of all evil.”
My Guilty Pleasure: I’m Addicted to Bad News: The world may be awful, but if I know about it, then at least I know, Casey Plett, The Walrus, 2/20/24: “I don’t know why I’m anxious. I just constantly stare at a device that beams nightmares into my eyes.”
‘Everything is hairless’: what 100 women taught me about porn and body confidence: How is pornography changing women’s perception of what is normal, acceptable and beautiful? I interviewed them to find out, Fiona Vera-Gray, The Guardian, 2/20/24: “The widespread impact of pornography on body confidence – for men and women – is beginning to show.”
US Media Is Collapsing. Here’s How to Save It, Alissa Quart, Jacobin, 2/21/24: “To preserve a functioning media ecosystem, we need three things: immediate aid to struggling journalists, public subsidies to smaller news outlets, and eventually industry transformation into a publicly funded system.”
Cult singer-songwriter Bill Fay: ‘I didn’t leave the music business, the music business left me!’: In his last ever interview, the 80-year-old – admired by stacks of stars from Nick Cave to Jeff Tweedy – explains how God and war informed his distinctive folk pop, and how he got a second chance at success late in life, Daniel Dylan Wray, The Guardian, 2/22/24
Be not so sorry for what you've done
You must forget them now, it's done
And when you wake up you will find you can run
Be not so sorry for what you've done
—from “Be Not So Fearful,” by Bill Fay
Politics, Economics
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: On age, the presidency, and mistaking corruption for confusion, Sarah Kendzior, Newsletter, 2/21/24: “The problem is not old age, but endemic corruption. The worst Americans are disproportionately old as a result of them clinging to power for decades on end. The result is the oldest and least popular Congress ever and the oldest and least popular presidential candidates ever.”
Abortion-Ban Extremists Are Using a Slave Law to Repress Women, Jim Hightower, Lowdown, 2/22/24: “Extraterritoriality….It expresses a sketchy legal theory asserting that rulers in one state have a right to enforce their laws in another state.”
Disinformation and AI: the industrial revolution? NewsGuard research shows that tech improvements will shortly allow AI to foster “fake news” at an unprecedented scale, in unbelievable volumes and seizing advertising revenues from news media while plagiarising their content, Elena Perotti, WAN-IFRA, 2/22/24
ChatGPT Has Gone Berserk: Not a Joke, Gary Marcus, On AI, 2/20/24. DW: Berserk in this case means producing compelling and poetic writing, maybe the AI has lately been “reading” Lewis Carroll or Louis Aragon.
Lilt off the gether and vindicate the things to be seen as centermosts for the meet.
Ethel the books, any concrete scaries, and the eye of hitches, with a primal house on the list for lay-off and gavel vaulting.
The Case for Disqualification: The Supreme Court must decide if it will honor the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment and bar Donald Trump from holding public office or trash the constitutional defense of democracy against insurrections, Sean Wilentz, NY Review of Books, 2/22/24 issue
Ending Reign of GOP Gerrymandering, Evers Approves Fair Maps in Wisconsin: “Wisconsin, for the first time in over a decade, we will not have some of the most gerrymandered maps in America,” Evers said, Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams, 2/19/24
The “Acceleration” of the New Reich: The racist Trumpsters who want a second civil war call this an “acceleration,” & hope they can create enough chaos that they can finally fulfill their fantasies about fighting in a noble civil war…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 2/20/24
Trump's gold sneakers, Biden's age and the media's love of a simple story line: Another insane news cycle, and some reaction to my recent post about Biden's memory, Margaret Sullivan, American Crisis, 2/19/24: “How could such a forgetful fellow get all this done? She answers: ‘He has, for the most part, surrounded himself with experts, genuine scientists, respected economists and effective governmental actors and advisors.’”
Two Weeks of Geopolitical Madness: Is the World About to Explode? Trump-induced chaos time is now the guiding principle the world has to operate on in 2024. Can America survive it? Malcolm Nance, Special Intelligence, 2/19/24: “You know, it’s true, everything now in the year of our lord, 2024, is being impacted by Donald Trump’s chaos as we head into a general election in ten months.”
The Federal Abortion Ban Plan Team Trump Doesn't Want You to Know About: "I think the pro-life groups should keep their mouths shut as much as possible until the election," said an attorney tied to Trump, Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, 2/20/24: “They 'are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban.”
Nex Benedict Matters, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 2/21/24: “Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old Oklahoma sophomore, died on February 8. Nex, who was non-binary, was attacked in an Owasso High School bathroom the previous day, sustaining serious head injuries.”
Kicking Native People Off Their Land Is a Horrible Way to Save the Planet, Robert Williams, NY Times, 2/20/24: “…an estimated 476 million Indigenous people dwell on lands that are home to 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity. When governments decide that nature conservation and potential revenue from it take priority over existing human activities, too often they resort to evictions, destruction of agricultural fields and confiscation of livestock, sometimes through stupefying violence, to get residents off the land.”
Migration as a systems crisis: Ukraine, US politics, and the importance of systems thinking, Karen Christensen, KC’s Letter, 2/21/24: “I am not going to suggest any kind of solution to immigration, except to say that we should all learn to think in systems.” Book to recommend: Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows
Russia is losing the economic war: the West must not lose its nerve now: Despite a whiff of 1938 defeatism in Munich, nobody should be fooled by Putin’s fantasies, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Daily Telegraph (UK), 2/20/24
What Navalny Represented: With his death, the curtain continues to close on the idea that a better Russia is around the corner, Sam Kahn, Persuasion, 2/19/24: “Navalny was a direct link to Russia’s moment of liberal optimism in the ‘90s. With his death, that thread really is cut: Putin’s work is complete. Russia has returned to being exactly the autocracy it was before the Soviet Union fell.”
Beware the Weak Man: Thoughts from the Munich Security Conference, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 2/22/24: “Ukraine could win, if Americans would help; but our weak men have cut off the weapons.”
I’m trying to find where I feel most at home
I believe it’s inside me
—from “The Lord’s Corner,” Tyree Daye
Science, Environment
I discovered a way to identify the millions of species on Earth after a lightbulb moment in the supermarket: I developed DNA barcoding in my back yard using a UV light and a white sheet to collect the moths of my childhood. I believe it could help discover all life on the planet, Paul Hebert, The Guardian, 2/22/24: “One by one, it became clear: every single moth could be sorted using a tiny slice of their genome.”
How tracking animal movement may save the planet: Researchers have been dreaming of an Internet of Animals. They’re getting closer to monitoring 100,000 creatures—and revealing hidden facets of our shared world, Matthew Ponsford, MIT Technology Review, 2/22/24
See the dozens of new species this deep-sea robot just discovered: Alien-looking lobsters, sponges, urchins, sea stars and sea lilies are among the creatures deep-sea explorers found off the coast of Chile, Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 2/24/24
Centuries-Old Shark Teeth Suggest Brazil’s Ocean Is Less Resilient Today: Researchers used shark teeth from a 13th-century fishing site in southern Brazil to get a picture of how the ecosystem has changed, Sarah Sloat, Hakai, 2/23/24
The New Hot Climate Investment Is Heat Itself: Batteries that store heat can replace fossil fuels for steelmaking and other industrial processes, Amrith Ramkumar, Scott Patterson, Wall Street Journal, 2/23/24: “Heat batteries may be poised to leapfrog hydrogen for many industrial uses.” (Gift Article)
Los Angeles Just Proved How Spongy a City Can Be: As relentless rains pounded LA, the city’s “sponge” infrastructure helped gather 8.6 billion gallons of water—enough to sustain over 100,000 households for a year, Matt Simon, Wired, 2/19/24
U.S. Renewable Power Growth Is Setting New Records on the Back of Federal Support: Wind and solar power are projected to become more popular than gas in replacing coal, Yusuf Khan, Wall Street Journal, 2/21/24 (Gift article)
Young people push for a Green New Deal for schools across the U.S.: As a result of student activism, a school district in Colorado will include climate change in the curriculum and implement clean energy initiatives, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 2/23/24
How traditional Hawaiian food is playing a key role in wildfire recovery: The firestorm that engulfed Lahaina last year disrupted a whole way of life and led some to reflect on food, land and a future beyond tourism, Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, 2/21/24: “Maui Hub is part of a broader Indigenous-led land back movement to construct a circular food economy to boost food sovereignty, climate resilience, soil health and public health, while reducing Maui’s unsustainable overdependence on tourism – which is driving the housing crisis and exacerbating water shortages.”
There’s Only One Way to Fix Air Pollution Now: Clean-air rules just can’t keep up with climate change, Zoë Schlanger, The Atlantic, 2/21/24: “The air we breathe is worsening because of an expired calculation. Maybe it was always bunk. Now, preserving life depends on how quickly we can correct that equation.”
At least 60% of US population may face ‘forever chemicals’ in tap water, tests suggest: Federal tests of one-third of water systems find 70 million Americans exposed to PFAS – suggesting 200 million affected overall, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, 2/20/24 (Gift article)
Rain Comes to the Arctic, With a Cascade of Troubling Changes: Rain used to be rare in the Arctic, but as the region warms, so-called rain-on-snow events are becoming more common. The rains accelerate ice loss, trigger flooding, landslides, and avalanches, and create problems for wildlife and the Indigenous people who depend on them, Ed Struzik, Yale Environment 360, 2/20/24
Monitoring Polar Ice Change in the Twilight Zone: Landsat’s new extended data collection program is mapping Arctic and Antarctic regions year-round, even in polar twilight, Ted Scambos et al, Eos, 2/20/24: “Thermal images taken under winter conditions reveal subtle surface features and temperatures of sea ice.”
The illusion of plastic recycling: a 40 year deception, EHN Curators, Environmental Health News, 2/20/24: “The oil industry’s lies are at the heart of the two most catastrophic pollution crises in human history.”
We're robbing kids of their future--but also their present: Climate anxiety meets the commitment to the status quo, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 2/20/24: “Climate anxiety might not constitute a mental illness, but the realities of climate change alongside governmental failures to act are chronic, long-term, and potentially inescapable stressors.”
Astronomers discover universe’s brightest object – a quasar powered by a black hole that eats a sun a day: Light from the celestial object, which is 500tn times brighter than our sun, travelled for more than 12bn years to reach Earth, Tory Shepherd, The Guardian, 2/20/24 (gift article)
The sun just launched three huge solar flares in 24 hours. What it means: The latest outburst is the most intense of the current 11-year solar cycle, Matthew Cappucci, Washington Post, 2/22/24: “The parent sunspot cluster that launched all three, dubbed “Active Region 3590,” is still crackling.”
JWST Caught a Hidden Galaxy Like Our Own Growing at The Dawn of Time, Evan Gough, Science Alert, 2/21/24: “The Firefly Sparkle provides an unprecedented case study of a Milky Way-like galaxy in the earliest stages of its assembly in only a 600 million-year-old Universe.”
Health, Wellness
Why the brain's microbiome could hold the key to curing Alzheimer's: The surprising discovery that your brain has its own microbiome is raising an intriguing possibility – that some dementias might be reversible, David Robson, New Scientist, 2/20/24
New study reveals diet link to PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ in human body: US research shows foods such as butter and processed meat likely to increase levels of toxic PFAS in blood over time, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, 2/19/24
‘Not a disease you want to relive’: why is the US seeing outbreaks of measles? Experts sound alarm after children in two states infected with disease and state official tells parents to ignore CDC advice, Jessica Glenza, The Guardian, 2/25/24: “Measles was eliminated in the US in 2000. It has since re-emerged alongside vaccine misinformation.” (Gift Article)
Birds, Birds, Birds
A new book explores the transformative power of bird-watching: Trish O’Kane’s Birding to Change the World shows how birds and humans can help one another heal, Aaron Tremper, Science News, 2/20/24: “My students stare at me in disbelief when I tell them that until I was forty-five years old, I never cared about birds.”
Time of Tyranny, 49
We live in toppled times under a feat of tyranny; let’s not
fake getting lost, let’s do it, let’s not do it intermittently, let’s be
lost, disoriented and never to be bound so all can hear
the hiss of the adverbs we shoot into tyrants’ eyes, quivering
shafts slippery from limbs and aimed by eyes under feathered
lids. Our features are like stale bread, my headache bad
as a blueprint for butter. Windows: how stupidly the intensity
of glass returns to us the terror of love. Things diverge, separate
like the forks of the Eel River to which the competing lies
of two tyrants are but split stones shaken by earthquakes
of stupefying times, of minutes through a glorious forest, of women
who are personal friends, the flanks of a prevented rabbit: to scatter
and ambiguate, obviate, surreptitiously
flesh and hurry to find things to recombine.
—Lyn Hejinian
(Lyn passed away the morning of February 24, 2024, we will miss her.)
This has been another one of those busy news weeks, some of it sad news, some uplifting, and some, just disturbing, as seems to be emblematic of this era we are living through. And we will get through, with friends, family, all those we love.
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 news.
Above all, stay well; share love; work for good. We need each other, now more than ever.
Love from here—David