The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 69, September 5, 2021 (V2 #17)
Diamonds on the stamens when the sun goes blind —Fanny Howe, from “Margo”
what is the body’s blueprint? imperfect, shifting energy blocks in its own
becoming, a stream & streaming out to the void where rivers lose themselves—Daphne Marlatt, from “Generations, Generations at the Mouth”
“The Court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of Justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand. Last night, the Court silently acquiesced in a State’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents. Today, the Court belatedly explains that it declined to grant relief because of procedural complexities of the State’s own invention. Ante, at 1. Because the Court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent.” Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Breyer and Justice Kagan join, dissenting. Supreme Court Opinions, 9/1/21
“Texas Republicans have trumpeted the importance of personal responsibility and individual liberty when fighting coronavirus-mitigation efforts in a state where several thousand Texans died just last month. But when it comes to abortion, the same Republicans have eagerly invoked the power of the state in one of the most personal decisions someone can make, while seeking to bribe state residents to act as informants against anyone who would exercise their constitutional right to end their pregnancy and anyone who might help them do so.”—Adam Serwer, The Atlantic, 9/3/21
“In 1957, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower used the federal government to protect the constitutional rights of the Little Rock Nine from the white vigilantes who wanted to keep them second-class citizens. In 2021, the Supreme Court has handed power back to the vigilantes.”—Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 9/3/21
Everything is Political (and this week there is not much else to say)
It’s time to brace ourselves for a world without Roe v Wade. Here’s what we must do: We have to stop hoping the rightwing-controlled supreme court will have a change of heart. Instead we must prepare a worst-case-scenario battle plan, Kathryn Kolbert and Julie F. Kay, The Guardian, 9/2/21
“Now is the time to move beyond “saving Roe” and set in motion human rights-infused strategies that can unify abortion rights supporters and the broader women’s, LGBTQ+ and racial justice movements. When rightwing state legislators whip up their base at the expense of reproductive freedoms, we need to cry out with loud and creative protests and demand that corporations and politicians join the call for our rights. As the supreme court diminishes Roe, let’s call for a blitz of laws in Democratic-led states that assert abortion as a right for all who need it.
To counter the chill of this ultra-conservative supreme court, we propose a long-term goal: a constitutional amendment providing for gender equity.”
When human life begins is a question of politics – not biology, Sahotra Sakar, The Conversation, 9/1/21
“…there is neither scientific consensus on the matter of when human life actually begins nor agreement that it is a question that biologists can answer using their science.”
Texas’ abortion ban is against my religion. As a rabbi, I will defy it if necessary: Judaism teaches that potential life is sacred. Nevertheless, our religion also teaches that potential life is not the same as actual life, that a fetus is not a human being, Danny Horwitz, Religion News, 9/2/21
“Judaism teaches that potential life is sacred. Nevertheless, our religion also teaches that potential life is not the same as actual life, that a fetus is not a human being. This is directly derived from Scripture. Therefore, even during labor, the pregnant woman’s life has precedence over the life of the fetus. And if we have reason to believe a pregnancy will be a serious threat to the woman’s well-being, whether that be mentally, physically or otherwise, then she will be counseled to abort the fetus, and to do so in a way that maximally protects her own health.”
Republicans seethe with violence and lies. Texas is part of a bigger war they’re waging: This extremist vigilante abortion law is of a piece with everything else Republicans are doing: overturning democracy itself, Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, 9/3/21
“The American right has been drunk on its freedom from two kinds of inhibition since Donald Trump appeared to guide them into the promised land of their unleashed ids. One is the inhibition from lies, the other from violence. Both are ways members of civil society normally limit their own actions out of respect for the rights of others and the collective good. Those already strained limits have snapped for leading Republican figures, from Tucker Carlson on Fox News to Ted Cruz in the Senate and for their followers.”
The Right-Wing Takeover is Already upon Us: With an unprecedented abortion ban in Texas, a new effort to curtail voting rights in Georgia, and a coordinated, cross-country culture war brigade, the right is gaining ground on all fronts, Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair, 9/2/21
“Democrats may hold both the White House and Capitol Hill right now, but on multiple fronts, it is hard not to feel as though Trumpism is winning. The movement he set in motion, the movement that capitalized on his demagoguery, seems to be gaining momentum, its investments paying off. Its vision for the country may not be the one most Americans want to live in, but that’s beside the point: The GOP is betting that minority rule is possible, as long as they are organized enough.”
Don't despair. The Texas fetal heartbeat law can be beat, Lucian Truscott IV, Lucian Truscott Newsletter, 9/3/21
“Until the Supreme Court hears the Mississippi abortion case seeking to overturn Roe v Wade and decides whether or not to accept their arguments and overturn Roe, that decision stands as the law of the land. The Texas “vigilante” anti-abortion law is a naked attempt to get around that decision and deny women a right found to be “fundamental” under Roe. It’s not even a very smart naked attempt.
The way you fight bad people with bad ideas is with good people and good ideas. The ACLU and the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro Choice America and the National Organization for Women and any number of other liberal organizations must have a whole passel of lawyers as “clever” as those in the Texas legislature. The faster they get busy, the better.”
The Supreme Court Will Not Save Us From the Decimation of Abortion Rights: With Texas all but banning abortion and endorsing a repugnant vigilantism, we need to look for other ways to protect access to abortion, Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, 9/1/21
“We must be willing to act collectively to share resources and enable those who need to cross state lines for abortions to do so. We must get behind the underground networks that make abortion materials available through whatever routes possible. And we must be willing to throw our full support behind those abortion providers and enablers acting against the law. We can and should fight for the law to be on our side. In Texas and beyond, however, it’s not. The abortion-seekers, providers, and other allies who may need to break the law for reproductive justice deserve our full solidarity.”
Critical Race Theory Might Actually Save Us, Brittney Cooper, The Cut, 8/30/21
“In fact, critical race theory is the sort of vital truth-telling that is necessary if American democracy is meant to survive the 21st century. Don’t think of it as a theoretical exercise — many conservative white people fear CRT precisely because it is not theoretical at all. As the Critical Race Theory editors argued, “Legal scholarship about race in America can never be written from a distance of detachment or with an attitude of objectivity,” because “racial power is exercised legally and ideologically.” Simply put, the law is not some neutral force for social good. Just look at the national tug-of-war over voting rights — it’s the clearest evidence around that the law is not always on the side of “equal protection.””
Heeding Steve Bannon’s Call, Election Deniers Organize to Seize Control of the GOP — and Reshape America’s Elections, Isaac Arnsdorf, Doug Bock Clark, Alexandra Berzon, Anjeannette Damon, ProPublica, 9/2/21
“The new movement is built entirely around Trump’s insistence that the electoral system failed in 2020 and that Republicans can’t let it happen again. The result is a nationwide groundswell of party activists whose central goal is not merely to win elections but to reshape their machinery.
“They feel President Trump was rightfully elected president and it was taken from him,” said Michael Barnett, the GOP chairman in Palm Beach County, Florida, who has enthusiastically added 90 executive committee members this year. “They feel their involvement in upcoming elections will prevent something like that from happening again.””
(Ed. Note: Is anything like this happening on the other side? Are progressives as committed and organized as conservatives?)
“Since the 1980s, Republicans have sought to hamstring federal power and return power to the states, which have neither the power nor the inclination to regulate businesses effectively, and which can discriminate against minorities and get away with it, so long as the federal government doesn’t enforce equal protection.
Today’s events make that a reality.
Worse, though, the mechanisms of the Texas law officially turn a discriminatory law over to state-level vigilantes to enforce. The wedge to establish this mechanism is abortion, but the door is now open for extremist state legislatures to turn to private citizens to enforce any law that takes away an individual’s legal right…like, say, the right to vote. And in Texas, now, a vigilante doesn't even have to have a permit to carry the gun that will back up his threats.” —Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 9/1/21
“The Right has now gained enough power to move America decisively in its direction on issues that are no longer niche, but of existential concern to the American people. Try though the Republicans may to insulate themselves from public sentiment, they’re going to have to suppress tens of millions of votes to get away with this.” —Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect, 9/2/21
“Yesterday, in an event hosted by the Macon County Republican Party, Representative Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) insisted that the January 6 rioters are “political hostages” and said he wanted to “bust them out.” When someone in the audience asked “When are you going to call us to Washington again?” he said, “We are actively working on that one…. We have a few plans in motion that I can’t make public right now.” He called for removing Biden from office under the 25th Amendment and added, “when Kamala Harris inevitably screws up, we will take them down, one at a time.” He concluded by saying: “The Second Amendment was not written so that we can go hunting or we can shoot sporting clays…. The Second Amendment was written so that we can fight against tyranny.” —reported by Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 8/31/21
Precipitation Meditation V
Plutarch
is an oligarch
on Noah's ark
now in Central Park
Horace
doesn't bore us
and Ovid
can't catch covid
Browning
may be frowning
while So-shu is drowning
Inanna comes crowning
We read at random the world
as our disease
because it is
and our dis-ease
because we are
—Charles Alexander
Looking Ahead
Can Birds Help Us Avoid Natural Disasters? Researchers think birds can hear hurricanes and tsunamis—a sense they’re hoping to tap into to develop a bird-based early warning system, Jason Gregg, Hakai Magazine, 9/1/21
Meet the Blind Birdwatcher Who Created a Sound Map of the Birds of Uruguay 'Recording the sound of nature is my passion and life's work.' Santiago Florez, Discover, 8/31/21
In British Columbia, the Fight for Old Growth Rages On: Many Canadians think old growth forests are protected from logging. Turns out, indigenous people and a scrappy band of activists called the Rainforest Flying Squad are all that stands between Vancouver Island's last old growth and logging companies, Jayme Moye, Outside, 8/28/21
Teaching Machines to ID Birdsongs to Help Save Imperiled Species, Kara Holsopple, Allegheny Front, 8/27/21
They're spawning! Researchers celebrate the return of native lake trout to Lake Erie, John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/27/21
Cities can play a key role in the transition to electric vehicles: A push for EVs in Columbus, Ohio, offers a glimpse of what transportation electrification could look like on the ground, Sarah Wesseler, Yale Climate Connections, 8/30/21
Floating wind turbines could open up vast ocean tracts for renewable power: Technology could help power a clean energy transition if it can overcome hurdles of cost, design and opposition from fishing, Paola Rosa Aquino, The Guardian, 8/29/21
Is algae a magic climate solution? Plastic, fertilizer, fuel, even cow farts ... algae can make all this more sustainable. Here's why we're on the brink of an algae revolution, Eco India, DW, 8/26/21
Brazil’s Indigenous Groups Mount Unprecedented Protest Against Destruction of the Amazon: Brazil’s largest-ever Indigenous protest came amid efforts by Jair Bolsonaro and his allies to pave the way for industry in the Amazon, Andrew Fishman, The Intercept, 8/28/21
Unstoppable movement: how New Zealand’s Māori are reclaiming land with occupations, Don Rowe, The Guardian, 8/31/21
Old-growth forests of Pacific Northwest could be key to climate action, Justin Catanoso, MongaBay, 9/1/21
Enhancing biodiversity through the belly: Agroecology comes alive in Chile, Costanza Monterrubio Solis, MongaBay, 8/30/21
In-Hive Sensors Could Help Ailing Bee Colonies: The technology could help beekeepers reduce short-term losses, but it doesn’t address long-term problems facing honeybees, Allison LaSorda, Scientific American, 8/31/21
In California, the World’s Largest Battery Storage System Gets Even Larger: The rapid expansion of batteries paired with wind and solar is transforming the grid and accelerating the transition to clean energy, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 9/2/21
Could the Wisdom of Crowds Help Fix Social Media’s Trust Problem? A new study finds that small groups of laypeople can match or surpass the work of professional fact checkers—and they can do it at scale,Gilead Edelman, Wired, 9/2/21
Biden administration aims to cut costs for solar, wind projects on public land, Reuters, 8/31/21
Costa Rica’s environmental minister wants to build a green economy. She just needs time: Andrea Meza has ambitious plans for the country’s fight against climate change. But between a warming planet and limited time in her role, she’s on a tight deadline, Samantha Schmidt, Washington Post, 8/31/21
Feel, See, Touch
The Land We Came From: My People Are My Homeland, I hate to think the place I played in as a child might someday become unrecognisable, but I still give thanks, Terese Marie Mailhot, Aljazeera, 8/29/21
“White people dug up the things my grandmother planted. I felt betrayed by my own family for letting it happen. How could they rent the land to those Yé xwelítem (white) farmers? But I love my people. My God – they are as much my homeland as the land itself. How could I fault them for exchanging the blueberry bush for groceries? An apple tree for meat? Our snowball tree, and the cedar – for rent? My mother did the same when I was young. I remember summers in a white man’s cow corn, running through the field with my brother, kicking stalks, feeling less like it was our land, and more like it was theirs. Even to a baby, like I was then, it seemed unfair that money can snatch up every sacred thing.”
So … What If Aliens’ Quantum Computers Explain Dark Energy? A wild thought experiment by Jaron Lanier and physicist Stephon Alexander concerning gravitons, virtual reality, and Incan khipu, Stephon Alexander, Wired, 8/31/21
“First, alien quantum computers could explain the mystery of dark energy, because computation by multitudes of alien creatures across the universe bends (or rather unbends) the universe as a whole. Because we can observe the effect of dark energy, accelerating the expansion of the universe, this implies that we have already seen evidence that our universe is alive beyond us—we just haven’t recognized it as such! And we found, fortunately, that contemplating this almost imponderable notion has a human-scale practical payoff: It helps us clarify how we think about plausible relationships between gravity and quantum information.”
Poetry professor helps students process climate change: Craig Santos Perez was inspired to go beyond classic poetry themes such as love and death, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 9/1/21
“I could see the look of concern on my students’ faces, where they had never witnessed this kind of weather before,” he says. “And so, I knew at that point, I couldn’t just teach the classics of poetry, or themes like love and death, but I also had to teach climate change.””
What We Know About Women in the Viking Age Is Steeped in Cultural Bias: How Gender Effects the Interpretation of History, Nancy Marie Brown, Lithub, 9/2/21
“History books are not “true.” They do not, and cannot, capture the totality of what happened in any one place or time. Historians choose what to tell and what to leave out … History books are not collections of facts; they are not lists. They are stories that stitch facts together. The more facts, the closer the story may approach reality. But no matter how many facts a historian recounts in her book, it remains a story—an interpretation. And as such, it reflects her cultural biases….
What does the Viking world look like if we abandon the stereotypes? What does it look like if roles are assigned, not according to Victorian concepts of male versus female, but based on ambition, ability, family ties, and wealth? It’s a world in which women were more powerful and had more possibilities than you might have imagined. One in which women did not stay at home, minding the housekeys, but traveled far: east through Russia to Byzantium and beyond, west across the Atlantic to North America. It’s a world in which queens ruled kingdoms and warrior women—valkyries—were not merely myths.” —excerpt from The Real Valkyrie: The Hidden History of Viking Warrior Women
‘Work with hope’ – a poet and classics scholar on facing the flood of bad news, Rachel Hadas, The Conversation, 9/2/21
“I’m grateful that – in person, remotely or some confusing combination of the two – I have a chance to keep on teaching literature. To revise Coleridge’s bleak formulation: Work with hope. Hope with an object.”
New books from City Point Press this month:
When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery and Other Baseball Stories by E. Ethelbert Miller – a wonderful collection of poems just mentioned by Publishers Weekly: “But it is in matters of race where Miller hits it out of the park, as evidenced by poems like “Lost in the Sun,” where “Black fathers no longer standing in a field of dreams. Their Black boys’ sunglasses unable to hide their grief.””
If You Want to Know How I Got Brainwashed, by Betsy Dovydenas is an extraordinary story told through Betsy’s paintings and short text about her capture by a cult, and finally deprogrammed to return to a healthy life. This book that will grip you from the moment you pick it up and you will not put it down again until you have read it through. An artist’s book truly like no other.
You can help Afghan refugees by supporting the Marie Colvin Memorial Foundation.
“To that end, we are working with a network of trusted extra-governmental partners in Afghanistan to evacuate vulnerable civilians in dire need of protection and help guide them to safety. Please consider a gift in any amount to help MCMF carry out this vital work and make a positive difference in the lives of displaced Afghan families. To make a donation, visit the MCMF website at mariecolvin.org.”
(Marie Colvin reported from the front lines of war zones around the world and was renowned for her bravery, her tenacity, her skill and her compassion. She received many awards and honors during her career, including the Courage in Journalism Award, the British Press Award and Foreign Press International’s Journalist of the Year Award. Many have called her the “greatest war correspondent of her generation.” She was killed in Syria in 2012).
The Baseball Hall of Fame’s 2021 Induction Ceremony will honor the members of the Class of 2020: Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons and Larry Walker.
(Ed. Note: Much as I appreciate the achievements of the three players, today especially, it is important to recognize Marvin Miller, who changed the face of baseball with his representation of players as workers. “The biggest problem in the beginning was the low self-esteem of the players,” Miller said. “They had been so beaten down that they really didn’t understand their value in the game.”)
“Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” performed by the wonderful Scrapper Blackwell, recorded just before he was shot and killed in 1962. Song written by Jimmy Cox in 1926.
Now i'm so scared about mystery
I fear i smell extinction
In the folds of this novocaine age coming on
—Neko Case, “The Curse of the I-5 Corridor”
“Which Side Are You On?” A new arrangement of an old labor classic, written by Florence Reese in the 1930s, new arrangement by George Mann. Thanks to David Bonior for sending this to me and for sending a link to Robert Pinsky’s terrific poem, “Shirt” recently reprinted in Portside:
The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.
—Robert Pinsky, from The Want Bone
And thanks to Arthur Klebanoff for telling me about his uncle, Joe Glazer, troubadour of labor. “Dump the Bosses off Your Back,” a great old song from the IWW.
Boob why don't you buck like thunder
And dump the bosses off your back
All the agonies you suffer
You could end with one good whack
Stiffen up you ornery duffer
And dump the bosses off your back
Happy Labor Day to All. Keep in touch. Send news, poems, stories and above all, stay well and engaged, and ready with all your hope and energy to make it through to wherever it is we are headed.