The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 153, April 16, 2023 (V3 #48)
You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.—Shirley Chisholm
“Republican-led statehouses across the country are proposing and passing staggering numbers of bills that serve a fringe, white evangelical agenda that abrogates the rights and freedoms of the rest of us,” he continued. “[W]e have a nation in pain and peril.”—Justin J. Pearson
Where ever something breathes
Heart beating the rise and fall
Of mountains, the waves upon the sky
Of seas, the terror is our ignorance, that’s
Why it is named after our home, earth
—from “Tender Arrivals,” Amiri Baraka
This Week: Bannings
An Idaho college removed my abortion-related art, strengthening my resolve to tell these storie: Last month, citing a state law prohibiting the use of public funds for abortion, a college removed my works and those of two other artists from a show about healthcare, Lydia Nobles, The Art Newspaper, 4/11/23
The parents’ rights movement keeps ducking parental responsibilities, Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post, 4/10/23: “In reality it is the very books adults are trying to protect students from that they find most vital.”
Missouri House goes for banning all the books, strips state funding for libraries, Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, 4/13/23
Ban Books From Homes, Not Libraries, Editor, Newtown (CT) Bee, 4/6/23: “Libraries are sanctuaries that promote and protect diversity of thought, creativity, and truth.”
The Guardian view on US book bans: time to fight back: Censorship is surging thanks to an organised rightwing minority targeting books on LGBTQ and Black characters and issues, The Guardian, 4/13/23: “Books are the building blocks of civilisation. They must be defended.”
I argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,
forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We
know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die
soon.
—from “American Sunrise,” Joy Harjo
Books and Culture
Joy Harjo on Being a Poet and Witness to History: From Her Acceptance Speech for the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award at The National Book Critics Circle Awards, Joy Harjo, LitHub, 4/10/23: “poets are the point people, that is, we are just a little ahead when it comes to the shape of an age, and how it will arrange itself around the shoulders of our children and grandchildren. We call out to hear what is unspeakable, listen, then with the tools of language: music, phrasing, time and all the other elements of poetry making, we create.”
On the Scientific Underpinnings of Poetry: “Poets judge their own reactions to the words and the forms they have chosen,” Pattiann Rogers, LitHub, 4/14/23: “Reactions to discoveries that touch the heart and soul are largely the purview of artists who portray such reactions with their talents—not through a lecture, a dogma, a sermon, or a scree, but through a song, a symphony, a drama, a sculpture, a painting, or poems by poets engaging a bold imagination, employing all poetic crafts possible.” Book: Flickering
The Great Displacement is a must-read: This timely, important book by Jake Bittle argues that mass migration triggered by climate change will fundamentally rock U.S. society, Jeff Masters, Yale Climate Connections, 4/6/23. Book: The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration
What Octavia E. Butler understood above all: vulnerability, Eden Lepucki, LA Review of Books, 4/12/23: “This is a future at once vivid and brutal, and it’ll scare you down to your scalp. How did Butler do it?” Parable of the Sower
Wilder, Riskier, More Generous: A new collection demonstrates that Cookie Mueller was not just another avant-garde It Girl of the downtown scene, but a writer of rare voice and imagination, Negar Azimi, NY Review of Books, 4/20/23 issue. Book: Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
Al Jaffee, Mad magazine’s cartoon maestro, dies at 102: He was Mad magazine’s longest-serving contributor and proudly helped corrupt the minds of generations of young Americans, Ali Bahrampour, Washington Post, 4/10/23
Jena Friedman Gives Male Comedians the Female Media Treatment: “Do you think men can be sexy AND funny?” Jen Friedman, LItHub, 4/14/23: “Do you write your own material?”
Are coincidences real? The rationalist in me knows that coincidences are inevitable, mundane, meaningless. But I can’t deny there is something strange and magical in them, too, Paul Broks, The Guardian, 4/13/23
The man who walked around the world: Tom Turcich on his seven-year search for the meaning of life: When Turcich was 17, a close friend of his died, and he had an existential crisis. He decided it was time to seize the day – and to cross the globe on foot,Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, 4/11/23: “He is the 10th person to have walked the world.”
“Hey Doll Baby”: A Love Letter to The Everly Brothers, John Visconti, Culture Sonar, 4/10/23
Don't want your love anymore
Don't want your kisses, that's for sure
I die each time I hear this sound
Here he comes, that's Cathy's clown
—from “Cathy’s Clown,” The Everly Brothers, written by Don Everly (one of the first 45’s I bought - and still have).
Politics
American women, let this be your wake-up call: it won’t end with mifepristone: It doesn’t matter if you think abortion will be legal where you live – the anti-abortion movement wants a national ban, Moira Donegan, The Guardian, 4/11/23
America's Leaders In The Twilight Zone: Time for the over-80s to make way for the next generation, Andrew Sullivan, Weekly Dish, 4/14/23
‘Family policing system’: how the US criminalizes Black parenting: A Texas newborn’s recent removal from home illustrates the cruel treatment Black families face for their childcare decisions, Edwin Rios, The Guardian, 4/14/23
Are We at Peak Commodification of Humanity? If our republic is to be successful and Americans are to have decent lives, we must stop the commodification of America’s commons and turn power over life’s essentials to We The People, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 4/14/23
The controversial article Matthew Kacsmaryk did not disclose to the Senate: The judge who delivered a high-stakes abortion pills ruling last week removed his name from a law review article during his judicial nomination process, emails show, Caroline Kitchener, Robert Barnes, Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post, 4/15/23. (Ed.: it appears pretty clear that most Trump-appointed judges lied during their confirmation hearings. We deserve some accountability.)
What Friends Are For: For decades Justice Clarence Thomas has received lavish gifts from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow. What’s Crow been getting in return? Garry Wills, NY Review of Books, 4/11/23
What Do Pornography, Ginni Thomas, & Thomas Jefferson Have In Common? Besides talking about Impeaching Clarence Thomas - the Biden administration and Democrats in the Senate might be better served investigating Ginni’s corruption and attempted sedition...Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 4/10/23: “The last time an authoritarian toady on the Supreme Court was held to account was in 1803, and the analogies to today are startling.”
In moonlight lies
the river passing—
it's not quiet
and it's not laughing.
AI
The Aliens Have Landed, and We Created Them: The Cassandras are out in force claiming artificial intelligence will be the end of mankind. They have a very good point, Niall Ferguson, Bloomberg, 4/9/23: “we are talking here not about artificial intelligence (i.e., synthetic humanlike intelligence) but inhuman intelligence, which we have designed and trained to sound convincingly like us.”
What Kind of Mind Does ChatGPT Have? Large language models seem startlingly intelligent. But what’s really happening under the hood? Cal Newport, New Yorker, 4/13/23: “Only by taking the time to investigate how this technology actually works—from its high-level concepts down to its basic digital wiring—can we understand what we’re dealing with.”
A New Approach to Computation Reimagines Artificial Intelligence: By imbuing enormous vectors with semantic meaning, we can get machines to reason more abstractly — and efficiently — than before, Anil Ananthaswamy, Quanta, 4/13/23
Is AI a demon or what, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 4/14/23: “…what we’re facing is an evil that arose well before ChatGPT. It’s the concentration of power and wealth, the growth-at-any-cost ethic, the rationalizing of all sorts of predation and violence, even genocide. AI systems are just an outgrowth of a more ambient, insidious threat that is enmeshed and entangled in our daily lives. If we really want to slay the demon, we should do something about Big Tech.”
There we are: boredom, beautiful parallels, ah! how beautiful the parallels are under God's perpendicular.—from “Less Time,” Andre Breton
Science and Environment
We're in for a stretch of heavy climate: Ominous signs that the next step phase of global warming is starting, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 4/15/23: “Hope is not the guarantee that things will be okay. It’s the recognition that there’s spaciousness for action, that the future is uncertain, and in that uncertainty, we have space to step into and make the future we want.” Book: Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility
Carbon Notes #3 Four trillion dollars per annum - The shock of reality from sustainable development thinking, Adam Tooze, Chartbook, 4/9/23: “At least $ 4 trillion per annum for the foreseeable future. In new investment. Every year. We should learn to live with that number and use it as a benchmark.”
Chemists use bacteria to convert CO2 in the air into bioplastic: A new simple hybrid setup allows bacteria to capture CO2 and produce biodegradable plastic for days, boosting output by 100x previous efforts, Prachi Patel, Anthropocene, 3/30/23
Bacteria can be engineered to fight cancer in mice. Human trials are coming: We’re crawling with microbes, and scientists want to use them to treat disease, Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review, 4/13/23
Conservation Tends to Ignore the Most Common Type of Life: The field frets about endangered polar bears and tigers. Why not also bacteria? Emma Maris, The Atlantic, 4/12/23
Emissions from global electricity generation may have now peaked: Wind and solar reached a record 12 per cent of global electricity generation in 2022 - and look set to keep growing, Madeleine Cuff, NewScientist, 4/12/23
Biden wants to coax Americans into electric cars. These 3 groups have other ideas: The automakers themselves expressed wary resignation about Wednesday’s proposed pollution standards, Tanya Snyder, Ben Lefebvre, Kelsey Tamborrino, Politico, 4/14/23. (Ed.: The empire always strikes back.)
Climate Change Wiped Out Thousands of the West’s Most Iconic Cactus. Can Planting More Help a Species that Takes a Century to Mature? Heat, drought and an invasive grass are driving wildfires killing the giant saguaros in Arizona, raising concerns about how the cactus will recover without human intervention, Wyatt Miskow, Inside Climate News, 4/10/23
Wheat disease’s global spread concerns researchers: Genomic analysis reveals that the wheat blast fungus spread independently from South America to two other continents, Ewen Callaway, Nature, 4/11/23
Earth’s core seems to be surrounded by enigmatic layer, geologists say: Jagged region sits at boundary between liquid and solid rock and might be remnants of ancient seafloor, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post, 4/11/23
The Massive ‘Batteries’ Hidden Beneath Your Feet: Aquifer thermal energy storage can use groundwater to heat and cool buildings—decarbonizing homes and businesses in the process, Matt Simon, Wired, 4/12/23
Let me enter the afterlife lithe not plodding.
Rise out of this heavy peasantry. Lithe
and cool as a battery-powered flame,
not fire.—from “Folk Song,” Diane Seuss
Health & Wellness
Bats Shrug Off Viruses and Rarely Get Cancer. We’re Trying to Learn From Them: To many people, bats are a terrifying menace. But to researchers, they are a miracle mammal, Betsy McKay, Wall Street Journal, 4/4/23 (Free article, no paywall).
What SuperAgers show us about longevity, cognitive health as we age: These ‘Betty Whites’ are showing us that with a healthy lifestyle, social connections and resilience, we can lower our risks of cognitive decline, Richard Sima, Washington Post, 4/13/23
Stem Cell ‘Junk Yards’ Reveal a New Clue About Aging: New research shows that the cells’ garbage-clearing function deteriorates with age—and opens the door to reversing the process, Max G. Levy, Wired, 4/10/23
What to know about Arcturus, a new coronavirus subvariant the WHO is tracking, Victoria Bisset, Washington Post, 4/14/23: “one additional mutational mutation in the spike protein, which in lab studies shows increased infectivity, as well as potential increased pathogenicity.” (Ed.: Pandemic? What pandemic?)
The surprising science of how pregnancy begins, Selena Simmons-Duffin, LA Johnson, NPR, 4/12/23: “The more scientists learn, the more they realize that the start of pregnancy isn't a moment, but a process that often ends before it really begins.”
Birds
Cavorting cranes: Powell citizen scientist and photographer John Campbell captures sandhill cranes in the midst of spring migration, Katie Klingsporn, WyoLife, 4/14/23
Purple martin, a big swallow, has a taste for apartment living, Mike Burke, Bay Journal, 4/14/23: “In the winter, all purple martins head to South America. Regardless of where they live, purple martins eat nothing but flying insects.”
Calling in the Seabirds: A tiny Hawaiian island is finally free of invasive rats. Now scientists are trying to coax back lost seabird colonies, Tim Lydon, Hakai, 4/10/23
The world is at a loss and I am part of it
migrating daily.
Everything is up for grabs
—from “Indian Summer,” Diane Glancy
We’ve been watching Transatlantic, based on the true story of Varian Fry, Mary Jayne Gold and the International Rescue Committee’s extraordinary effort in Vichy France to save some of Europe’s most important artists, poets and intellectuals from the Nazis. While it’s not transcendently good, the show entertains, while portraying this important period fairly accurately. It’s great to see a literary story with some depth – though it probably helps to be familiar with pre-war Europe: Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Lisa Fittko, Jacqueline Lamba, even Breton’s fantastic “Le Jeu de Marseille” surrealist/political tarot deck, all appear. Claude Levi-Strauss (Triste Tropiques) was there, but sadly seems not to be featured in this show.
How the Stars of Transatlantic Compare to Their Real-Life Counterparts, Emily Burack, Town & Country, 4/14/23
Defying the Holocaust didn’t just mean uprising and revolt: Remembering Jews’ everyday resistance, Chad Gibbs, The Conversation, 4/11/23: “In a place meant to destroy all Jewish life, the smallest acts of support and comfort were resistance.”
April 17 is Yom HaShoah, “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.”
Black milk of dawn we drink you at night
we drink you mornings and noontime we drink you evenings
we drink and we drink
—from “Death Fugue,” Paul Celan, translated by Pierre Joris
It’s Spring for almost everyone, even though it is snowing in Minnesota and Wisconsin as I write this.
Today I will ceremonially turn over dirt in the garden to prepare for early planting.
Please do read Bill McKibben’s piece referenced above. As he says: “We need to be psychologically prepared for the fact that, for all we’ve tried to do together, this crisis is about to worsen.”
As we have learned from those who have gone through crises before us, we can choose to live with joy and hope in the face of whatever grim news lies ahead. Gardening gives me hope. Weddings and babies, and local farmers all give me hope. Baseball too.
Play Ball!
Be joyous, be well! Find hope where you can.
And thanks to all who wrote last week. Hearing from you, knowing you are there, gives me joy as well. Much love to all—David