The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two —Andrea Levy
So let's all of us -- including all the groups that decide who gets hired and what gets made and who wins awards -- let's all of us make an effort to expand that tent. So that everyone rises and everyone's story has a chance to be seen and heard.
I mean, doing this simply means acknowledging what's true. Being in step with the emerging diversity that's happening because of all those who marched and fought in the past and those who've picked up the baton today.
After all, art has always been not just in step with history, but has led the way.
So, let's be leaders, OK?
—Jane Fonda, from her DeMille Award speech at the Golden Globe Awards, 2/28/21
As the hours, the days, the weeks, the seasons slip by, you detach yourself from everything. You discover, with something that sometimes almost resembles exhilaration, that you are free. That nothing is weighing you down, nothing pleases or displeases you. You find, in this life exempt from wear and tear and with no thrill in it other than these suspended moments, in almost perfect happiness, fascinating, occasionally swollen by new emotions. You are living in a blessed parenthesis, in a vacuum full of promise, and from which you expect nothing. You are invisible, limpid, transparent. You no longer exist. Across the passing hours, the succession of days, the procession of the seasons, the flow of time, you survive without joy and without sadness. Without a future and without a past. Just like that: simply, self evidently, like a drop of water forming on a drinking tap on a landing.
—Georges Perec, from Things: A Story of the Sixties and a Man Asleep
For there is wilderness everywhere
For there is weather proofing
For the storm of our lives is never over with
—Alfred Starr Hamilton, from “Shoe”
This morning, conservative pundit William Kristol wrote in The Bulwark what a number of us have been saying for a while now, and it dovetails cleanly with the current Republican attempt to suppress voting.
Kristol warns that our democracy is in crisis. For the first time in our history, we have failed to have a peaceful transfer of power. The Republican Party launched a coup—which fortunately failed—and “now claims that the current administration is illegitimately elected, the result of massive, coordinated fraud. The logical extension of this position would seem to be that the American constitutional order deserving of our allegiance no longer exists.”
“So,” he notes, “we are at the edge of crisis, having repulsed one attempted authoritarian power grab and bracing for another.” —Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 3/1/21
Democracy Under Siege: As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny, Sarah Repucci and Amy Slipowitz, Freedom House, 3/2/21
As a lethal pandemic, economic and physical insecurity, and violent conflict ravaged the world in 2020, democracy’s defenders sustained heavy new losses in their struggle against authoritarian foes, shifting the international balance in favor of tyranny. Incumbent leaders increasingly used force to crush opponents and settle scores, sometimes in the name of public health, while beleaguered activists—lacking effective international support—faced heavy jail sentences, torture, or murder in many settings.
These withering blows marked the 15th consecutive year of decline in global freedom. The countries experiencing deterioration outnumbered those with improvements by the largest margin recorded since the negative trend began in 2006. The long democratic recession is deepening.
My nomination for outrage of the week:
Wisconsin hunters kill 216 wolves in less than 60 hours, sparking uproar, Kills quickly exceeded statewide limit, forcing the state to end the hunting season early, Victoria Bekiempis, The Guardian, 3/3/21
State authorities had a total culling goal of 200 wolves, in an attempt to stabilize their population. As Native American tribes claimed a quota of 81 wolves, this left 119 for the state-licensed trappers and hunters. Because the tribes consider wolves sacred, they typically use their allotment to protect, not kill, them.
“Should we, would we, could we have [closed the season] sooner? Yes.” Eric Lobner, DNR wildlife director, said, according to the Journal Sentinel.
“Did we go over? We did. Was that something we wanted to have happen? Absolutely not.”
The overshoot, which has never exceeded 10 wolves in prior seasons, spurred criticism.
Megan Nicholson, who directs Wisconsin’s chapter of the Humane Society of the United States, commented in a statement: “This is a deeply sad and shameful week for Wisconsin.”
One of America’s biggest pension funds is backing a bolder climate policy. Other investors should get on board, Fiona Reynolds and Sharon Hendricks, Fortune, 3/4/21
After a year of intense weather events and increasing signs of damage to global ecosystems, the early months of 2021 have thankfully set a more optimistic tone. The Biden-Harris administration signals a new direction for the world’s largest economy, along with a welcome recommitment to international leadership and multilateral cooperation to address climate change. Finally, the days of ignoring the science are nearly behind us.
Now, with government moving, the world’s largest investors (some of whom have been in a holding pattern in recent years) will need to move as well—and swiftly. The need for urgent climate policy is no longer contested, so now attention must turn to urgently accelerating the pace of the transformation.
Long-term investors require continued economic growth. Study after study has found that such growth will come from investing in climate solutions, not from continuing to focus on fossil fuel infrastructure that is destined to be written off as stranded assets.
Saving this small bird might cost us millions. But it would be worth it, Bruce Beehler and David Wilcove, Washington Post opinion page, 3/1/21
At its most basic level, of course, saving this bird is about holding onto something irreplaceable, a product of eons of evolution. Once a particular species — or subspecies, in this particular case — is gone, there’s no getting it back, tearing one more hole in the weakening fabric of global biodiversity.
Yet this is not just about the bird itself. By working to preserve the Florida grasshopper sparrow, we’re also protecting the remaining bits and pieces of a unique natural ecosystem unlike any place else on Earth: the Kissimmee prairie, a natural subtropical savanna unique in the Eastern United States. Across the nation, all sorts of natural ecosystems — places unconverted to tract housing, agriculture and other human uses — are becoming scarcer and more precious as our landscape becomes more and more human-dominated. These ecosystems are Earth’s prototypes — communities of plants and animals that have evolved over vast stretches of time in ways we are still trying to understand — and they can never be fully re-created once lost.
Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium, L. Caesar, G.D. McCarthy, D.J.R Thornalley, N. Cahill, S. Rahmstorf, Nature Geoscience, 2/26/21
The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—one of Earth’s major ocean circulation systems—redistributes heat on our planet and has a major impact on climate. Here, we compare a variety of published proxy records to reconstruct the evolution of the AMOC since about AD 400. A fairly consistent picture of the AMOC emerges: after a long and relatively stable period, there was an initial weakening starting in the nineteenth century, followed by a second, more rapid, decline in the mid-twentieth century, leading to the weakest state of the AMOC occurring in recent decades.
Why Salish Sea researchers are targeting superbugs in marine mammals:Harbor seals and porpoises in the Salish Sea experience antibiotic-resistant bacteria differently, pointing to worrying implications for orcas, Hannah Weinberger, Crosscut, 3/3/21
Antibiotic medicine has saved innumerable people, but research has shown we are prescribed antibiotics more often than needed, leading bacteria in our bodies to build up immunity and become superbugs.
The negative impacts aren’t limited to humans, though. Through a multitude of possible pathways, including runoffs, sewage and landfills, more antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria are showing up in the Salish Sea and in the bodies of the wildlife that live there — especially marine mammals.
The ways we use antibiotics in medicine, agriculture and beyond have concerned Dr. Stephanie Norman, a wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist with Marine-Med, for decades. It’s for that reason that Norman and a team spent two years collecting and analyzing animal necropsy samples from porpoises and harbor seals in the Salish Sea. They wanted to get a better idea of how susceptible marine mammals are to antibiotic resistance and how these bacteria spread through the world. Antibiotics might find their way into the marine environment via a host of things we medicate: people, pets or even farm animals.
“We don't understand a lot about how antibiotic resistance moves through the environment, and what effect it could potentially have on wildlife,” says Dr. Joe Gaydos, a co-author on the study and science director of the SeaDoc Society
‘Space Hurricane’ observed above the North Pole: the space hurricane was detected in the Earth's upper atmosphere and 'rained electrons' over the North Pole for nearly eight hours, Amy Barrett, Science Focus, 3/2/21
Scientists say they have confirmed the existence of space hurricanes after analysing a 1,000km-wide swirling mass of plasma spotted hundreds of kilometres above the North Pole.
The space hurricane, observed by satellites in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, was raining electrons instead of water. It spun in an anticlockwise direction and lasted nearly eight hours before breaking down.
These events would be expected to lead to important space weather effects and disruption to GPS systems, scientists found.
TikTok Sensation Alexis Nikole Nelson Wants You to Love Foraging as Much as She Does: ‘As a Black woman, I just want to yell into the heavens about how accessible this information should be and how accessible so many of these foods are,’ Bridgett Shirvell, Civil Eats, 3/4/21
“I absolutely love this one particular kind of seaweed, bladderwrack,” said 28-year-old Nelson, who lives just outside of Columbus, Ohio, and spends most of her free time either searching for and gathering food or researching edible plants. “When it’s dried, I blend it up with salt. It makes things taste a little meaty, a little cheesy, [and] not particularly fishy. I’ve been finding all kinds of really fun ways to use it, and now I’m like, ‘Well, I’ve got to find a ton more of it this year.’”
Nelson’s interest in finding the seaweed in its natural environments is more than personal. She hopes to share it on the social media platform TikTok, where she’s teaching nearly half a million people how to identify, harvest, and prepare everything from sumac to acorns to ginkgo nuts—all while presenting an alternative to the mostly white-male image of modern foraging.
INSIGHT-“When will it end?”: How a changing virus is reshaping scientists’ views on COVID-19, Julie Steenhuysen and Kate Kelland, Reuters, 3/3/21
A new consensus is emerging among scientists, according to Reuters interviews with 18 specialists who closely track the pandemic or are working to curb its impact. Many described how the breakthrough late last year of two vaccines with around 95% efficacy against COVID-19 had initially sparked hope that the virus could be largely contained, similar to the way measles has been.
But, they say, data in recent weeks on new variants from South Africa and Brazil has undercut that optimism. They now believe that SARS-CoV-2 will not only remain with us as an endemic virus, continuing to circulate in communities, but will likely cause a significant burden of illness and death for years to come.
As a result, the scientists said, people could expect to continue to take measures such as routine mask-wearing and avoiding crowded places during COVID-19 surges, especially for people at high risk.
Even after vaccination, "I still would want to wear a mask if there was a variant out there," Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, said in an interview. "All you need is one little flick of a variant (sparking) another surge, and there goes your prediction" about when life gets back to normal.
Covid Drug 80 Times More Potent Than Trump’s Tested in Italy, Chiara Albanese and Flavia Rotondi, Bloomberg, 3/6/21
Tucked in the Tuscan hills around Siena in Italy, a research lab has come up with an antibody treatment for Covid-19 that its developers say will be 80 times more potent than the one given to former U.S. President Donald Trump in his most critical days in hospital last year.
The therapy is derived from the blood of people who’ve recovered from Covid, and relies on 453 different antibodies. It will also be administered as a single shot rather than a drawn-out infusion, which has been the norm for similar drugs. Clinical trials of about 3,000 doses produced so far started in Italy Thursday, and a roll out for general use could be approved as early as this summer.
This is a long article that I urge anyone interested in the political future of America to read carefully and espeically to think about its implications for the next two years:
David Shor on Why Trump Was Good for the GOP and How Dems Can Win in 2022, Eric Levitz, New York Magazine Intelligencer, 3/3/21
Ideological polarization is a dead end. If we divide the electorate on self-described ideology, we lose — both because there are more conservatives than liberals and because conservatives are structurally overrepresented in the House, Senate, and Electoral College. So the way we get around that is by talking a lot about progressive goals that are not ideologically polarizing, goals that we share with self-described conservatives and moderates. Even among nonwhite voters, those tend to be economic issues. In test after test that we’ve done with Hispanic voters, talking about immigration commonly sparks backlash: Asking voters whether they lean toward Biden and Trump, and then emphasizing the Democratic position on immigration, often caused Biden’s share of support among Latino respondents to decline. Meanwhile, Democratic messaging about investing in schools and jobs tended to move Latino voters away from Trump.
…
Basically, we have this small window right now to pass redistricting reform and create states. And if we don’t use this window, we will almost certainly lose control of the federal government and not be in a position to pass laws again potentially for a decade. In terms of putting numbers on things, I think that if we implemented D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood and passed redistricting reform, that would roughly triple our chance of holding the House in 2022 and roughly the same in the Senate. The fact that it’s possible to triple those odds is a testament to how bleak the baseline case is. So we need to pass those reforms and we need Biden to remain popular. If his approval rating is below 50 by the end of the year, we’re probably fucked.
Fungal microbiome: Whether mice get fatter or thinner depends on the fungi that live in their gut, Kent Willis, Justin D. Stewart, The Conversation, 3/5/21
Scientists are still learning which species of fungi make their home in the gut versus fungi that might just be passing through. While many of the interactions between humans and their gut fungi are likely beneficial, this may not always be the case. For example, fungi may play a role in irritable bowel syndrome and increase the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.
Not only could the presence or absence of certain fungi have direct effects on health, fungal interaction with bacteria is also likely very important. Our work has made some key first steps in understanding the complex relationship between bacterial and fungal communities when they cooperate to digest processed food.
Food waste: Amount thrown away totals 900 million tonnes, Victoria Gill, BBC News, 3/6/21
The UN Environment Programme's Food Waste Index revealed that 17% of the food available to consumers - in shops, households and restaurants - goes directly into the bin.
Some 60% of that waste is in the home.
The lockdown appears to have had a surprising impact - at least in the UK - by reducing domestic food waste….
The report has highlighted a global problem that is "much bigger than previously estimated," Richard Swannell from Wrap told BBC News.
"The 923 million tonnes of food being wasted each year would fill 23 million 40-tonne trucks. Bumper-to-bumper, enough to circle the Earth seven times."
Northeast US: Walking, Biking Could Save Billions, Lives, Michelle Samuels, Futurity.org, 3/1/21
Infrastructure investments to promote bicycling and walking—proposed by the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), a regional collaboration of 12 northeastern states and Washington, DC—could save as many as 770 lives and $7.6 billion annually. Those findings appear in the Journal of Urban Health.
The analysis shows that the economic benefit of lives saved from increased walking and cycling far exceeds the estimated annual investment it would cost to promote such infrastructure, without even considering the added benefits of reducing air pollution and increasing access to climate-friendly transportation modes.
In December 2020, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and DC became the first jurisdictions to formally join the TCI. “Our study suggests that if all the [northeastern] states joined TCI and collectively invested at least $100 million in active mobility infrastructure and public transit, the program could save hundreds of lives per year from increased physical activity,” says the study’s lead author Matthew Raifman, a doctoral student in environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Joy Harjo on the Poetic Lyricism and Subversive Native Storytelling of James Welch: In Praise of the 1974 Novel Winter in the Blood, Joy Harjo, Lithub.com, 2/25/21
It is the grief compounded by generations when one has lost a country, layered with the grief of losing a brother. It is a story of being lost, yet of being found in the lostness. It is lyrical language that motivates the story to find itself, in the give and take of a man without a country, because in this story no one has a country, not even those who believe they own their lands or even their destiny. The novel began as a poem, and it is the lyric voice of a poet that compels this story to keep moving through a place of “stalking white men.”
…
James Welch’s extraordinary storytelling event, Winter in the Blood, has more of a place than ever in this time where we are still fighting for Native rights, for sovereignty. Some of us can speak with deer, and we attempt to move about lyrically when possible, but always with that sideways look that irony and humor provide. Welch is among the best storytellers, those that keep the stories going, even if the fire looks like it might be going out.
Box of dreams
a box - not
an empty box
a box of paper
left to me by
a friend whose own
lost friend inscribed
these papers to pass on
to another
always another
this box inspires me
to solitude
and to listen
not
quiet music
but the music
of dancers
the godmothers
attending their duties
before sleep
this box
suggesting an
inevitable idea
of what box
implies
but I resist
the inevitable
carry this box
with me to
every home I visit
on my way to the next life
a box of
memories not my own
a box to
explore
before sleep
overtakes me
this box of
dreams
—David Wilk
RATATATAT – Quick Hits
Fractured: Harmful chemicals and unknowns haunt Pennsylvanians surrounded by fracking: We tested families in fracking country for harmful chemicals and revealed unexplained exposures, sick children, and a family's "dream life" upended, Kristina Marusic, The Daily Climate, 3/1/21
A Legacy of the New Deal, Electric Cooperatives Struggle to Democratize and Make a Green Transition: FDR program to electrify rural America is now beset by expensive coal plants and often-hidebound governing boards, as members clamor for transparency and renewables, James Bruggers, Inside Climate News, 2/28/21
Nearly four in 10 university students addicted to smartphones, study finds: Research finds students who showed signs of addiction were also highly likely to suffer from poor sleep, Dennis Campbell, The Guardian, 3/2/21
'World's highest-capacity' solid-state battery developed in Japan: Hitachi Zosen eyes applications in industrial machinery and space, Ryotaro Sato, Nikkei Asia, 3/4/21
Alberta’s Carbon Revolution: Could our big liability become our main asset? Markham Hislop, Alberta Views, 3/1/21
Op-ed: Indigenous Tribes Are Reviving Traditional Hemp Economies: With 10,000 uses, hemp can be a catalyst for a New Green Revolution in Indian Country, tied to justice, economics, restoration ecology, and a return-to-the-land movement, Winona LaDuke, CivilEats, 3/5/21
The Tribal Coalition Fighting to Save Monarch Butterflies: Habitat loss and climate change are decimating the species. What can the U.S. learn from Oklahoma tribes’ efforts to restore their migratory path? Nick Martin, The New Republic, 3/4/21
Experts say California's iconic Pacific Coast Highway could fall into the ocean: Parts of the roadway are already under repair, Anagha Srikanth, The Hill, 3/3/21
An Afternoon with Lawrence Ferlinghetti in the Last Light of San Francisco: Robert Andersen Reflects on an Unforgettable Encounter, Robert Anderson, Lithub.com, 3/3/21
AFTER TEXAS, GREEN NEW DEAL ADVOCATES PUSH ROOFTOP SOLAR. BUT WILL BIDEN FUND IT? Federal funding could jumpstart rooftop solar, providing jobs, lower bills, and a boost to electric systems’ disaster resilience, Alleen Brown, The Intercept, 3/1/21
Electricity can be transmitted through the air: A New Zealand firm is trying to make an old idea work commercially, Science & Technology, The Economist, 2/27/21
I'm gonna take the song from every bird
and make them sing it just for me.
Why should I hang my head?
Why should I let tears fall from my eyes
when I've seen everything that there is to see
and I know that there ain't no sense in crying!
I know that there ain't no sense in crying!
I think I'll call it morning from now on.
—Gil Scott-Heron, from “I Think I’ll Call it Morning”
There are none among us who have not been, even for a moment, cruel to those whom we love most, as if unable, in that moment, to shoulder any longer the magnificent weight and burden, the responsibility, of that love. —Rick Bass, from The Sky, the Stars, the Wilderness
I've already done the best I could with yesterday. —Ben Ames Williams
March 7 birthdays:
Maurice Ravel
"No influence can claim to have possessed him entirely; new styles seem to have aroused in him more technical curiosity than receptivity, modifying his way of writing but not his language, leaving no more trace behind than an occasional chord, a trick of instrumentation or a peculiarity of spelling: for although he was so rarely impressionable his ear was miraculously sensitive and he had an almost unlimited appetite for what was unheard, valuable and rare; but these are pursuits which involve only harmonic sensitivity and not the mental quality of emotion." – Jonathan Williams, from Untinears & Antennae for Maurice Ravel, Truck Press, 1977
Alva Lee “Bobo” Holloman, the only major league pitcher to throw a no-hitter his first start, May 6, 1953, his one and only season in the big leagues.
Ernie Isley (the Isley Brothers), Arthur Lee (Love), Chris White (the Zombies)
Georges Perec, Rick Bass, Andrea Levy
Townes Van Zandt (March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997)
Sweetest at the break of day
Prettiest in the setting sun
She don't cry when I can't stay
'Least not 'til she's all alone
Loretta, I won't be gone long
Keep your dancing slippers on
Keep me on your mind a while
I'll be back, babe, to make you smile
Be well dear friends, stay strong, make sure you get vaccinated as soon as you qualify. Spring is almost here.
And do keep in touch….
Watching baseball, sitting in the sun, eating popcorn,
reading Ezra Pound,
and wishing that Juan Marichal would hit a hole right through the
Anglo-Saxon tradition in the first Canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti