The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 152, April 9, 2023 (V3 #47)
Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real.—Iris Murdoch
Politics
A dizzying, divisive week in politics spotlights America’s raging battle: Trump’s indictment, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, Tennessee’s expulsion of Democratic lawmakers and abortion pill decisions are a reminder of how unsettled the country is and what’s at stake in 2024, Dan Balz, Washington Post, 4/8/23 (no paywall)
Tennessee, Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 4/6/23: “What happened in Tennessee on Thursday was outrageous and stupid and petty, and then the legislature went on to advertise their racism. It was also illegal. It shouldn’t take long for the next stage of this to play out in the courts. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened in the first place.”
The opaque $70 million scheme that could make Trump the next president, Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 4/4/23: “No Labels' efforts could be a way for the Wall Street crowd to vent their frustrations — and keep Biden from winning a second term.” (Ed.Note: money talks louder than voters. End Citizens United now!)
No More Mifepristone, Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 4/8/23: “a federal judge in Amarillo decided that Mifepristone, one of two key drugs used for medicated abortion, should be banned. This despite 20 years of data showing it’s safe and effective. Mifepristone has a lower rate of complications than Tylenol.”
Ed. Note: The judge is Matthew Kacsmaryk. “Since Kacsmaryk took the bench in 2019, he’s helped make Texas a legal graveyard for policies of President Joe Biden’s administration, largely due to the fact that Texas’ rules for how federal cases are assigned in the state have allowed conservatives to file there strategically, almost guaranteeing their complaints will be before sympathetic judges. Kacsmaryk is assigned every case filed in his division.” (CNN)
A Specter Is Haunting the GOP – The Specter of Abortion: Ignore the headlines — all signs suggest that abortion rights are going to be the defining issue of the 2024 presidential election, Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 4/6/23
The Court Kills: Why do we slaughter our own children? Because the Supreme Court condones it, Garry Wills, NY Review of Books, 4/4/23: “Are we just killers by breeding or tradition?”
CNN, Sunday Morning Shows Completely Ignore Up To 15 Million Americans Being Thrown Off Medicaid: In a pattern that’s been repeated many times since 2021, millions being driven further into poverty simply doesn’t register in our “national debate,” Adam Johnson, The Column,, 4/3/23
US Voters—Including Majority of GOP—See Attack on LGBTQ+ Rights as 'Political Theater' Democratic voters want to see elected lawmakers do more to halt the nationwide onslaught by Republicans, a new poll shows, Jon Queally, Common Dreams, 4/3/23
Rightwing legal activist accused of misusing $73m from non-profit groups: A watchdog complaint filed with the IRS presents an accounting of the money paid to Leonard Leo’s for-profit businesses, David Smith, The Guardian, 4/6/23
How to rig an election — with deadly, racist consequences, Tom Hanks, Jeffery Robinson, Washington Post, 4/3/23: “Tom Hanks, an actor, filmmaker and author, and Jeffery Robinson, founder and executive director of “The Who We Are Project,” collaborated on the new animated documentary “How to Rig an Election: The Racist History of the 1876 Presidential Contest.””
How Love of Money Replaced Love of Nation & Spirit: Patriotism & religion are luxuries. When you can’t pay the rent or feed your family, when you’re pestered by bill collectors, it’s hard to think of anything other than money…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 4/5/23: “…the Reagan Revolution didn’t just reorder our economy… It reset our values away from loving our nation and each other and toward loving — and needing — money.”
Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire, Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica, 4/6/23: “Thomas didn’t report any of the trips ProPublica identified on his annual financial disclosures. Ethics experts said the law clearly requires disclosure for private jet flights and Thomas appears to have violated it.”
Justice Thomas and his regular guy vacations, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 4/7/23: “He’s just a regular guy, Clarence Thomas, with regular guy tastes and regular guy needs that were met by his friend Harlan Crow as they enjoyed trips over the last 20 years…”
Empire, Integration, and Ukraine: A lecture on the historical, political, and moral stakes of the war, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 4/7/23: “Russia’s invasion is obviously a colonial war…”
Sometimes people comment on how
beautiful my solitude is and sometimes my solitude replies
with a heart. It begins to follow the accounts of solitudes
that are half its age. What if my solitude is depressed? What
if even my solitude doesn’t want to be alone?
—from “Grass, 1967,” Victoria Chang
Books and Culture
How to fight book bans — and win, Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post, 4/5/23: “Showing up matters.”
Judge Finds Texas Library's Book Bans Unconstitutional, Orders Books Returned, Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly, 4/3/23
My undergrads struggle to read – I think I know why: Thanks to the likes of TikTok and Instagram, young people are experiencing a devastating crisis of attention, Greg Wrenn, Aljazeera, 4/6/23
Writing History Showed Me a New Way to View Climate Change: On the Flaws in Our Contemporary Climate Behavior, Christopher de Bellaigue, LitHub, 4/3/23: “The art of the historian is to create a temporary effect in which behavior that is pretty peculiar seems normal, and to use this effect to bridge the gap between the present and the past.”
Ancient Shamans Tripped on Hallucinogens in a Spanish Cave: “Out-of-body experiences and a feeling of alteration of the skin, as if growing fur or feathers, are usually reported,” Maddie Bender, Daily Beast, 4/7/23
Dee Snider talks Trump, taking back 'We're Not Gonna Take It' and drag bans: 'My band would not be allowed to perform in Texas:’ Expect Twisted Sister, who just performed for the first time since 2016, to reunite again in the election year 2024, as they attempt to take back a song that’s been used in ways they never intended, Lindsey Parker, Yahoo News, 4/6/23
ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it: The narrative around cheating students doesn’t tell the whole story. Meet the teachers who think generative AI could actually make learning better, Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review, 4/6/23
This economist won every bet he made on the future. Then he tested ChatGPT: Bryan Caplan was skeptical after AI struggled on his midterm exam. But within months, it had aced the test, Matthew Cantor, The Guardian, 4/7/23: “All progress is bad for somebody.”
It takes a body to understand the world – why ChatGPT and other language AIs don’t know what they’re saying, Arthur Glenberg, Cameron Robert Jones, The Conversation, 4/6/23: “Humans are biological entities that evolved with bodies that need to operate in the physical and social worlds to get things done. Language is a tool that helps people do that. GPT-3 is an artificial software system that predicts the next word. It does not need to get anything done with those predictions in the real world.”
The AI State of the Union: What's Happening in AI's Budding Application Layer, Rex Woodbury, Digital Native, 4/7/23: “Computers used to be really good at one thing: computing. In other words, doing calculations. Now they’re becoming good at learning (hence the term “machine learning”), operating more like the human brain.”
What's Missing From the Cultural Narrative About Gen Z: Young people today display remarkable maturity under economic stress, Alfie Robinson, Persuasion, 4/7/23
Becoming Enid Coleslaw: In each dense and delirious issue of Eightball, Daniel Clowes was driven to perfectionism, ricocheting like mad from story to story and foretelling some of the comic medium’s possible futures, Ed Park, NY Review of Books, 4/6/23 issue. Book: The Complete Eightball
MLB home run counts are rising – and global warming is playing a role, Christopher W. Callahan, Justin S. Mankin, The Conversation, 4/7/23: “…we used data from over 100,000 Major League Baseball games and 200,000 individual batted balls, alongside observed game day temperatures, to show that warming temperatures have, in fact, increased the number of home runs.”
The Ups and (Mostly) Downs of the 13th Floor Elevators, Mark Daponte, Culture Sonar, 4/4/23: “Everything I wrote was inspired through my taking LSD. I invented the electric jug out of my desire to find a place onstage with this group.”—Tommy Hall
I gave you the warning
But you never heeded it
How can you say you miss my lovin'
When you never needed it?
—“You’re Gonna Miss Me,” written by Sam Hopkins
Science and Environment
Just say no: When it comes to oil and gas, it's the one crucial word. But our leaders can't bear to utter it, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 4/7/23
Plants make ultrasonic popping sounds. They might be cries for help: According to a study by researchers in Israel, distressed plants make noises that are inaudible to humans, Kyle Melnick, Washington Post, 4/4/23: “According to a study released last week, plants emit popping sounds when they’re cut or when they become dehydrated or infected — noises that researchers say might be their version of a call for help.”
Scientists find deepest fish ever recorded at 8,300 metres underwater near Japan: Footage of unknown snailfish captured by researchers from Western Australia and Tokyo in Izu-Ogasawara trench, Donna Lu, The Guardian, 4/3/23
How Plastic Opens Fish Up to Disease: Higher death rates, bigger viral loads, and more viral shedding—plastic causes big problems for rainbow trout trying to fend off a common disease, Elise Cutts, Hakai, 4/5/23
Another Casualty of Climate Change: Dissolved Oxygen: Vast oxygen-depleted deserts are an expected feature of our warming oceans, Lance Frazer, Hakai, 4/3/23
‘Scary’ new data on the last ice age raises concerns about future sea levels: A new study shows an ancient ice sheet retreated at a startling 2,000 feet per day, shedding light on how quickly ice in Antarctica could melt and raise global sea levels in today’s warming world, Kasha Patel, Chris Mooney, Washington Post, 4/5/23
A Toxic Time Bomb Is Ticking in the Arctic: Thousands of contaminated sites are sitting on permafrost that'll soon thaw, a looming disaster that could spread beyond the region, Matt Simon, Wired, 4/4/23: “This idea that somehow we have, functionally, a number of potential Superfund sites that were completely unknown…is pretty terrifying.”
On Vinyl: A brief history of East Palestine’s toxic train disaster, Rebecca Altman, Orion, April 2023: “PVC is garden hoses. Is water pipes. Is shower curtains. Is siding and decking and flooring and toys. It is medical tubing and IV bags.”
Plastics touching our food may be making us gain weight: Hormone-disrupting chemicals are entering our bodies. We eat 44lbs of plastic in our lifetimes, Adrienne Matei, The Guardian, 4/7/23
Record-breaking sea temperatures set to bring supercharged storms: The global average sea surface temperature has hit a record high of 21.1°C, which could lead to fiercer hurricanes and typhoons, Madeleine Cuff, NewScientist, 4/6/23
Animal Mutation Rates Reveal Traits That Speed Evolution: The first large-scale comparison of mutation rates gives insights into how quickly species can evolve, Yasmin Saplakoglu, Quanta, 4/7/23
Special pavement coating helps Los Angeles neighborhood stay cool: A coating applied in summer 2022 is designed to reflect the sun’s infrared rays, reducing heat in urban areas, YCC Staff, Yale Climate Connections, 4/6/23
Strategic EV charging could eliminate the need for costly new infrastructure: If everyone charges their EV at the same time, it could break the grid. Researchers have come up with a simple, elegant solution to the problem, Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 4/4/23: “At-work charging will also reduce the surge in electricity demand for car charging during peak hours of the early evening.”
This Dime-Sized Battery Is a Step Toward an EV With a 1,000-Mile Range: Two Chicago-area institutions teamed up to develop a solid-state battery that packs a huge energy punch—one that could eventually even power airplanes, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 4/6/23
America Is Missing Out on the Biggest EV Boom of All: Consider the electric rickshaw, Emma Marris, The Atlantic, 4/5/23
The most detailed life cycle analysis of food waste ever offers eye-popping revelations: Food waste contributes half of the annual carbon released by the entire global food system—a staggering 9.3 gigatons, double previous estimates, Emma Bryce, Anthropocene, 3/24/23
We Need a New Farm Bill—for My Iowa Farm and Beyond: Wendy Johnson has spent more than a decade building diversity on her Iowa farm, despite financial and cultural pressure to stick to the status quo. Now, she’s pushing for system change, Wendy Johnson, Civil Eats, 4/5/23
‘The miracle that disrupts order’: mathematicians invent new ‘Einstein’ shape: Called ‘the hat’, the 13-sided shape can be arranged in a tile formation such that it never forms a repeating grid, Matthew Cantor, The Guardian, 4/4/23
Bizarre Quantum Tunneling Observation Throws Out All the Rules: The strange phenomenon of quantum tunneling has been observed in a chemical reaction that defies classical physics, Elise Cutts, Scientific American, 4/4/23: “…capturing this tiny tunneling rate for the first time shows that physicists are on the right track with their quantum molecular theories.”
There is sad green and there is scared green and a green
for dread and one for when we can’t get out of bed
in the afternoon. We used to feel nostalgic at the smell
of cut grass, but now the sweet half is gone. Now we feel lonely
and panicked as sirens when we pass a fresh lawn.
—from “The New Horticulture” in Meltwater: Poems, by Claire Wahmanholm
Health and Wellness
Artificial Wombs Will Change Abortion Rights Forever: Ectogenesis—gestation using an artificial womb—is fast approaching reality. Yet without legislation, this innovation also has the potential to cause harm, Rosalind Moran, Wired, 4/3/23
How exercise leads to sharper thinking and a healthier brain: New findings from 350,000 people make the strongest case yet that exercise improves cognition. A small study shows it raises BDNF, a brain chemical, Gretchen Reynolds, Washington Post, 4/5/23
From Bad to Worse: How the avian flu must change before it can trigger a human pandemic, Kai Kupferschmidt, Science, 4/6/23
Birds
Why Should We Care About Penguins? The Importance of Species Conservation in Antarctica, Naira de Gracia, LitHub, 4/7/23: “The decrease in sea ice is causing cascading changes across the antarctic ecosystem—some of which we are only just beginning to discover.” Book: The Last Cold Place: A Field Season Studying Penguins in Antarctica
At Famed Walden Pond, Spring Is Coming Earlier Than It Did In Thoreau’s Day, Amanda S. Gallinat, Richard B. Primack, All About Birds, 4/5/23
The birds are back in town. Spring migration could fuel spread, evolution of avian flu, scientists warn: Some birds migrate normally while infected, said biologist Andrew Lang, while others get 'extremely' sick, Lauren Pelley, CBC News, 4/7/23
This week I am angry. About Clarence Thomas. About the Tennessee legislature and their dishonest racism and gerrymandering. About right wing judges and the ongoing attacks on women and their rights. I am angry and frustrated about the amount of plastic in our food and in the air, and our continued dependence on fossil fuels, and what is happening in the oceans and the Antarctic, and so much more. Making this newsletter is an attempt to channel that anger and frustration into something meaningful. I hope it matters, even if it is a small contribution to constructive change.
And not everything here leads to anger or sadness. There is joy and positivity and hope all around us. But we have got to work together to defend everything we believe in now. Please share The Weird Times, this tiny effort to foster hope, and to keep us moving forward, always, together. Always together. There is inevitably more to come. Much love to all through it all—David
The mode of locomotion should be slow, the slower the better, and be often interrupted by leisurely halts to sit on vantage points and stop at question marks.—Carl Sauer