The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 144, February 12, 2023 (V3 #39)
With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.—Abraham Lincoln (2nd inaugural address)
Into the company of love
it all returns.
—from “For Love,” Robert Creeley
Books and Culture
On Opposition to the 1619 Project and Teaching Slavery in Schools: ”What these bills make clear is that the fights over the 1619 Project, at their essence, are about power,” Nikole Hannah-Jones, LitHub, 2/10/23
The Defiance of Salman Rushdie: After a near-fatal stabbing—and decades of threats—the novelist speaks about writing as a death-defying act, David Remnick, New Yorker, 2/6/23
W.E.B. Du Bois, Black History Month and the importance of African American studies, Chad Williams, The Conversation, 2/7/23: “Black people needed to cease emulating the worst traits of America – flamboyance, individualism, greed and financial success at any cost – and support labor unions, Pan-Africanism and anti-colonial struggle.”
Lost and Found: A Newly Resurfaced Poem by the Late Mark Strand: “Wallace Stevens Comes Back to Read His Poems at the 92nd Street Y,” which The New Yorker purchased in 1994, is published for the first time in the magazine’s Anniversary Issue, Hannah Aizenman, New Yorker, 2/6/23: May other more intricate powers convene. / May the words that I speak be the ones you hear.
The Case For Digital Minimalism: Dedicated devices are the vibe shift we need, Talia Barnes, Persuasion, 2/6/23: “I traded my smartphone for a dumbphone to simplify my life. Then I revived my iPod. Then I bought a GPS. Then I bought a point-and-shoot camera.”
‘A different perspective’: the journalist reporting the Amazon through fresh eyes: Elaíze Farias, editor of news outlet Amazônia Real, wants her ‘post-colonial’ journalism to put the voices of marginalised people first, Melissa Godin, The Guardian, 2/6/23
Why the world feels so unstable right now: Our lives tend to run smoothly and predictably most of the time, but they are also prone to intermittent instability with devastating consequences. Can we do more to predict these periods and even intervene to prevent them? Tim Palmer, BBC, 2/5/23
Meet the woman who has witnessed over 80 years of Black history in Chicago: For Black History Month, NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Edith Renfrow Smith of Chicago. Now 108 years old, she has witnessed A LOT of history, NPR, 2/11/23: “Wake up every morning and thank the good Lord that you are alive and able to look at his wonderful world.”
Yale expands efforts to protect scholars at risk: Yale is expanding its Scholars at Risk program, which welcomes scholars facing dangerous conditions worldwide to campus so they can continue their work, Mike Cummings, Yale News, 2/7/23
The Sound of Grief: After the sudden death of my young son, I listened to Bill Evans, Frank Ocean, and my therapist, Matthew Schnipper, New Yorker, 2/9/23
This book is considered pornography in Ron DeSantis' Florida, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 2/8/23: “One book reviewed in Duval County and banned from school libraries was The Best Man, a book “about a boy's journey into the middle school years and the male role models in his life.””
The Archives of the East Village Eye Go to the New York Public Library: Leonard Abrams started the paper, which chronicled the cultural life of downtown New York, in 1979. After trying for eight years to place its archives, he handed them off to the library last fall, Hannah Gold, New Yorker, 2/9/23: “You could read the Eye and feel fully fed, with all cultural, sensory, and political bases covered.”
Composer Burt Bacharach, Smooth Virtuoso of 1960s Pop, Dies at 94: The eight-time Grammy winner and three-time Oscar recipient had a hand in such classics as "Walk on By," "The Look of Love," "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" and "Close to You,” Duane Byrge, Lisa De Los Reyes, Hollywood Reporter, 2/9/23
Bonnie Raitt: The story behind “Just Like That,” the song no one expected to win a Grammy, Jesse Kornbluth, Head Butler, 2/7/23
And just like that your life can change
Look what the angels send
I lay my head upon his chest
And I was with my boy again
I spent so long in darkness
Never thought the night would end
But somehow grace has found me
And I had to let him in
—from “Just Like That,” Bonnie Raitt
Politics
How The Fake Electors Scheme Explains Everything About Trump’s Attempt To Steal The 2020 Election: New materials illustrate why Fani Willis and Jack Smith have focused on this esoteric part of Trump’s plot, Josh Kovensky, Talking Points Memo, 2/10/23: “…the fake electors plot provides a lens through which to view the entire effort, giving Trump’s 2020 plans a coherence, with each piece fitting neatly together.”
Trump campaign paid researchers to prove 2020 fraud but kept findings secret: An outside firm’s work was never released publicly after researchers uncovered no evidence that the election had been rigged for Joe Biden, Josh Dawsey, Washington Post, 2/11/23
How Koch manipulates the media, Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 2/7/23: “…few individuals have spent more money to legitimize Trump and his allies than Charles Koch.”
The Students of "How To Start a Civil War" Have Begun: America didn’t ask for a homegrown rightwing terror movement, but now that it’s here we need to take it seriously, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 2/7/23
Dark Times for Academic Freedom in the Sunshine State: We are critics of DEI initiatives. But DeSantis' method of fighting them is deeply illiberal, Amna Khalid, Jeffrey Aaron Snyder, Persuasion, 2/10/23
Biden the Unappreciated: Despite his historic achievements, the public doesn’t think he’s done much at all, Harold Meyerson, American Prospect, 2/7/23
How the Wealthy Save Billions in Taxes by Skirting a Century-Old Law, Paul Kiel, Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica, 2/9/23: “ProPublica was able to reconstruct the tax-loss strategies of scores of the nation’s wealthiest people, including Ballmer and Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, using a trove of IRS data.”
Missouri Republicans Vote to Affirm Toddlers’ Rights to Carry Firearms in the Streets: Yes, it’s exactly as crazy as it sounds, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 2/92/23
Fears mount around ‘catastrophic’ abortion pills case as decision nears: Conservative judges likely to decide fate of Texas lawsuit seeking to ban mifepristone nationwide, Caroline Kitchener, Perry Stein, Washington Post, 2/5/23
Here’s What States Are Doing to Abortion Rights in 2023: In the first full legislative session after Roe v. Wade was overturned, states across the country are looking to further restrict or better protect abortion rights. ProPublica looked at what abortion legislation is on the table in 2023, Megan Rose, ProPublica, 2/8/23: “Dueling efforts to protect and restrict abortion, divided along political lines, are making what was already a patchwork of access across the country even more pronounced.”
Blue States Got Too Comfortable: The left has long believed that Democratic states are the future, whereas Republican states are the past. But migration data tell a different story, Isabel Fattal, The Atlantic, 2/10/23
"Apartheid" in Jackson, Mississippi, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 2/9/23: “The Mississippi House, a body dominated by white Republicans, voted Tuesday to create a separate court system and police force for portions of Jackson, Mississippi — the second-Blackest city in the United States.”
We whose ancestors owned slaves want to make amends – but nations must also pay their due: My family owned plantations, made profits and was compensated, but the personal atonement of my generation can only ever be a start, Alex Renton, The Guardian, 2/11/23
US Media’s “Chinese Spy Balloon” Meltdown Shows Intellectual Vacuity of “National Security” Coverage: Was it a “spy balloon” at all? To US media outlets it didn’t matter, what matters is something Bad And Dire and Sinister has happened and we must all freak out, Adam Johnson, The Column, 2/6/23
Europe has to stand against Russia: The U.S. is going to get distracted, and Russia isn't going to stop, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 2/11/23
Putin apologist Elon Musk cuts Starlink's use by Ukrainian military, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 2/10/23: “Pull your head out of your ass, Musk…”
Nuclear war! Why it isn't happening, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 2/9/23: “In psychological terms, the fantasy of omnipotent submission is understandable. So let us understand it as psychology -- and also understand that the Russians deploy it as psychology. The fantasy is used against us. We need to be thoughtful about it in order to resist it. And as we try to work our way out from under it, we must realize that it is there to prevent strategic thinking.” (Ed. As usual, this Snyder piece is a must-read).
I love you Spring.
I miss your warmth.
Come unlock my door.
—from “Beloved,” E. Ethelbert Miller
Science and Environment
‘Crazy interesting’ findings by Australian researchers may reveal key to Covid immunity: University of Sydney scientists have found a receptor protein which ‘acts a bit like molecular velcro, in that it sticks to the spike of the virus,’ Melissa Davey, The Guardian, 2/9/23: “Our data suggests that higher levels of LRRC15 would result in people having less severe disease.”
New unidentified ‘cylindrical’ object shot down over Canada: NORAD and military aircraft spotted and tracked the latest object, as search continues off Alaska for aircraft downed Friday, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton, Washington Post, 2/11/23
‘Monster profits’ for energy giants reveal a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence: Last year’s combined $200bn profit for the ‘big five’ oil and gas companies brings little hope of driving down emissions, Oliver Milman, The Guardian, 2/9/23
Colorado River crisis is so bad, lakes Mead and Powell are unlikely to refill in our lifetimes, Rong-Gong Lin II, Ian James, LA Times, 2/5/23
How to Disentangle a Forty-Foot Right Whale: Every winter, the coasts of Georgia and Florida become the front line in the fight to save a critically endangered species. A day in the life of the heroes doing the work, Elizabeth Florio, Garden & Gun, 2/1/23
Scientists dissect the nuanced choreography of two top predators: humans and dolphins: The keys to saving this imperiled and unusual display of intraspecies cooperation are cracking down on overfishing and rewarding dolphin-friendly fishers, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 2/8/23
More than 75% of global insect species not adequately protected: Bugs need conservation areas too, Brett Marsh, Grist, 2/6/23
EV batteries getting second life on California power grid, Nichola Groom, Reuters, 2/7/23: “…grid-scale storage provides a useful destination for the millions of used battery packs that will come from the transition to electrified transportation in the coming years.”
Can we make the internet less power-thirsty? Michael Dempsey, BBC, 2/10/23: “The cloud does not float in the atmosphere, it consists of computer servers with a vast appetite for electricity.”
We don’t need ‘miracle’ technologies to fix the climate. We have the tools now: Wind, water and solar energy is cheap, effective and green. We don’t need experimental or risky energy sources to save our planet, Mark Z. Jacobson, The Guardian, 2/7/23
Solving a machine-learning mystery: A new study shows how large language models like GPT-3 can learn a new task from just a few examples, without the need for any new training data, Adam Zewe, MIT News, 2/7/23
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web: OpenAI’s chatbot offers paraphrases, whereas Google offers quotes. Which do we prefer? Ted Chiang, New Yorker, 2/9/23
Talking to AI might be the most important skill of this century: It takes expertise, creativity, and a whole lot of guesswork, Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 2/8/23
For the Housing Market’s Greenest Buyers, ‘Earthships’ Are Taking Off: Long dismissed as hippie havens, off-grid communities are getting a fresh look as wasteful construction practices come under scrutiny, Michaela Haas, Reasons to be Cheerful, 2/8/23
An Ancient Grain Made New Again: How Sorghum Could Help U.S. Farms Adapt to Climate Change: Sorghum—popular among young, BIPOC, and under-resourced farmers—has extra long roots that allow it to withstand drought and sequester greenhouse gasses, Dana Cronin, Civil Eats, 2/7/23
Discovery of 3m-year-old stone tools sparks prehistoric whodunnit: Presence of teeth from extinct hominin challenges view that only members of Homo genus used complex tools, Hannah Devlin, The Guardian, 2/9/23: “The artefacts date to about 2m years before humans mastered fire, so the toolmakers would have eaten the hippo and antelope meat raw, possibly pounding it into something like a tartare to make it easier to chew.”
How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities: Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means, Charlie Wood, Quanta, 2/6/23
Everything you are I'm tearing through
Everything you want I'm wanting too
I gave you more than I thought I could ever do
But I will never break you
—from “I Will Bury You in Time,” Neutral Milk Hotel, by Jeff Mangum
Birds
Mobilising Assam’s ‘hargila army’: how 10,000 women saved India’s rarest stork: Greater adjutants, reviled as bad omens, were endangered until Indian conservationist Purnima Devi Barman transformed attitudes to the bird – and gave thousands of women a new identity, Anne Pinto-Rodrigues, The Guardian, 2/9/23
Weather Whiplash: How Climate Change Killed Thousands of Migratory Birds: Can we help species adapt to the evolving threat of compound climate extremes? John R. Platt, Revelator, 2/8/23
Watch this genius bird plan for its ‘handyman’ job: Goffin’s cockatoos take a tool set to work on a puzzle box, a rare example of pre-planning in the animal kingdom, Virginia Morell, Science, 2/10/23
Bird Eyes Come In an Amazing Array of Colors—but Why Is a Mystery: A recent study analyzing what scientists know about avian eye color finds that there are numerous questions left to solve, Meghan Bartels, Audubon, 2/7/23
Latin America’s bird scientists issue manifesto to end marginalization: Researchers highlight barriers to their work and steps for overcoming them, Emiliano Rodriguez Mega, Science, 2/8/23
The Benefits of Polygamy: How Birds Avoid Harmful Mutations, Univ of Bath, SciTechDaily, 2/10/23
Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love you flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me.
—from “Recreation,” Audre Lorde
You might have noticed that this week’s TWT includes no mention of the Super Bowl, the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the State of the Union address and many other stories that the actual media covers. I don’t see the need to repeat such well-known news stories here. It’s not that I don’t care or haven’t noticed — I’m after other things here, trying to explore other narratives and feature stories and people you may not have seen anywhere else. I hope you find enough value to make the time investment worthwhile.
I am humbled that some of you have made pledges of support, even though I intend for TWT to always be free to read. And thanks to all of you who have continued to read along with this eccentric journey through our continually amazing reality. Stay well, stay vigilant, share your joy. My love to all - David