The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 151, April 2, 2023 (V3 #46)
We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.—Carl Sagan
Opening Day
Such fun to run onto the field
and leap over the foul line
into the sun again.
—E. Ethelbert Miller
Books and Culture
Joe Brainard’s Communal Intimacy: While Brainard’s recurring subject was himself, he somehow kept himself at a distance, an object in a world of other bodies, Geoffrey O’Brien, NY Review of Books, 4/20/23 Issue
A Novel is Like a Camp: What Fiction Can Teach Us About Surviving the Slow Apocalypse: on How We Tell Stories in a Time of Catastrophe, Jess Row, LitHub, 3/28/23: “The Covid pandemic illustrated what happens when the home itself becomes a kind of camp, when we are stranded wherever we happen to be.” Book: The New Earth
Kelly Link Makes Fairy Tales Even Weirder Than You Remember: The author of "White Cats, Black Dogs" on why we're drawn to folk tales and how superstitions shape stories, Chelsea Davis, Electric Lit, 3/29/23: “When thinking about imaginary people, a useful approach is to consider what rules they live by, which rules they break, and the consequences or freedoms that occur as a result.”
Is Silicon Valley Beyond Redemption? A new book argues that the region has been hopelessly poisoned by profit. Is there a way to reform it? Ross Perlin, The Atlantic, 3/30/23. Book: Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World.
On the Expectations of Artists: The Keynote Address From Last Night's Whiting Awards Ceremony, Ayad Akhtar, LitHub, 3/30/23: “Know that in the matter of making art it is often right to get it wrong, and on careful reconsideration, to get it wrong again; that doubt, not certainty, is a surer route to the kind of knowledge most useful to you as an artist…” 2023 Whiting Award Winners
Against baseball’s new pitch clock, Alva Noë, LitHub, 3/29/23: “I certainly appreciate that shorter games, like shorter books, have a certain attraction. They are less demanding and more user-friendly. And there is no doubt that games in MLB have gotten much longer than they used to be. But baseball’s executives should avoid ruining the game in order to save it.”
The pitch clock is saving baseball — by returning it to the past, Thomas Boswell, Washington Post, 3/28/23: “For decades, I screamed, “Speed up the game before you kill it!” Now I can’t believe what I’m seeing. MLB has turned back the clock — with a clock — by 60 years.”
Wisconsin school district bans Miley Cyrus-Dolly Parton duet with ‘rainbow’ in title, Scottie Andrew, CNN, 3/28/23
Wouldn't it be nice to live in paradise
Where we're free to be exactly who we are
—from “Rainbowland” by Miley Cyrus, Dolly Parton, Oren Yoel Kleinman
Politics
How to Think about the Trump Indictment(s) and Find Inner Peace, Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 3/31/23: “The administration of the law is how a society speaks to itself about what is acceptable and what is not. And through his actions Donald Trump has left us with only one possible response. As he said himself, it is what it is.”
The Next Stage of Trumpism is Here: Threatened by the law, the former president is saying the quiet part out loud, Luke Hallam, Persuasion, 3/31/23: “As the perceived stakes mount, so does the likelihood that violent rhetoric will translate into violent action.”
The unhinged GOP defense of Trump is the real ‘test’ for our democracy, Greg Sargent, Paul Waldman, Washington Post, 3/31/23
Trustees Report Shows Social Security Expansion a 'Question of Values, Not Affordability:’ "The trust funds are strong because most Americans contribute to them with every paycheck," said one advocate. "They could be even stronger if the wealthiest Americans paid their fair share,” Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, 3/31/23
‘A truly incredible amount of money’: millions ride on one US judicial election: The race for a place on Wisconsin’s supreme court could have major implications for abortion, democracy and the 2024 election, Sam Levine, The Guardian, 4/2/23
It’s the great TikTok panic – and it could accelerate the end of the internet as we know it: Democracies should be maturely debating online safety and data, not making kneejerk responses that risk an idea we all cherish, Emily Taylor, The Guardian, 3/28/23
Why Americans fear the AI future: Five decades of rising inequality and slow growth have made us a less optimistic country, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 3/30/23: “AI could be a big win for the average worker.”
To counter AI-generated disinformation, we need an army of internet culture correspondents, Chris Sutcliffe, Media Voices, 3/28/23
Regular Old Intelligence is Sufficient--Even Lovely: Thinking through the other possible apocalypse, Bill McKibben The Crucial Years, 3/29/23: “Allowing that we’re already good enough—indeed that our limitations are intrinsic to us, define us, and make us human—should guide us towards trying to shut down this technology before it does deep damage.”
Sign the Ethics & Integrity Charter for LLM-Based AI (e.g. ChatGPT, Google Bard, etc.), Change.org
Right-wing pundits, with Musk's encouragement, respond to mass shooting with anti-trans propaganda, Rebecca Crosby, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 3/30/23
Teachers Union Leader Calls for Defending Public Education From 'Dangerous' GOP Attacks: "A great nation does not fear people being educated," said AFT president Randi Weingarten, Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams, 3/28/23
“I’ll Walk Away from Anything:” Kara Swisher Calls the Shots: The ultimate media insider is juggling podcasts, writing a memoir, and texting with “half the planet.” (“She has a coffee before bed,” says Ben Smith.) Swisher opens up to Vanity Fair about her career, including leaving The New York Times, and laments journalists’ lack of business savvy. “If you don’t understand the economics of what’s happening,” she says, “you’re fucked,” Charlotte Klein, Vanity Fair, 4/1/23
The Grift is at the Core of the GOP's Existence: Bannon’s grift in East Palestine is the smallest of the small, after his being busted for a “Build the Wall” scheme and others, but is still emblematic of the Republican strategy at governance...Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 3/30/23
Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times: Historians aren’t supposed to make predictions, but Yale professor Timothy Snyder has become known for his dire warnings – and many of them have been proved correct, Robert P. Baird, The Guardian, 3/30/23
Secret trove offers rare look into Russian cyberwar ambitions: More than 5,000 pages of documents from a Moscow-based contractor offer unusual glimpses into planning and training for security services, including the notorious hacking group Sandworm, Craig Timberg, Ellen Nakashima, Hannes Munzinger, Hakan Tanriverdi, Washington Post, 3/30/23
Conditioning Aid is Better Than Nothing, But Bernie Sanders Should Just Demand the US Cut Off Israel Military Aid Altogether: It’s 2023. What are we doing here? Adam Johnson, The Column, 3/31/23
Can We See the Impact of Automation in the Economics Statistics? Yes, but you need to look at the right place, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 3/28/23: “the creation of most of the good jobs is happening in the online digital economy, and the destruction is happening across other industries.”
"We own our children" but the state owns our bodies: This conservative doctrine is a nightmare even beyond the parental rights movement, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 3/31/23: “It’s a battle at this point over the enslavement of women for the purpose of birthing children. All praise to the Women’s Movement, which in Our Bodies, Ourselves saw this coming long ago.”
How Abortion Bans Are Impacting Pregnant Patients Across the Country: Leading legal scholar Mary Ziegler and Tennessee OB-GYN Dr. Nikki Zite talk to ProPublica about ominous trends and threats to patients’ lives posed by increasingly strict abortion bans, Ziva Branstetter, ProPublica, 3/30/23
it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.—from “Invitation,” Mary Oliver
Science & Environment
Ultramassive black hole discovered by UK astronomers: Durham University scientists say black hole about 30 billion times the mass of the Sun is first to be found with gravitational lensing, PA Media, The Guardian, 3/29/23
Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way: There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants, Lyndie Chiou, Quanta, 3/28/23
China ‘Colonizes’ Space with Its First Rice Harvest: The cultivation of food in orbit is part of a larger push by the Chinese space program toward a lunar base, Peter W. Singer, Thomas Corbett, Defense One, 3/31/23
Archaeology and genomics together with Indigenous knowledge revise the human-horse story in the American West, William Taylor, Yvette Running Horse Collin, The Conversation, 3/30/23: “Partnering archaeological science and Native perspectives ended up telling a very different story of horses in the American West.”
‘Bees are sentient’: inside the stunning brains of nature’s hardest workers: ‘Fringe’ research suggests the insects that are essential to agriculture have emotions, dreams and even PTSD, raising complex ethical questions, Annette McGivney, The Guardian, 4/2/23
‘Rewilding’ Parts of the Planet Could Have Big Climate Benefits: Restoring fish, bison, gray wolves and other animals in key regions is possible without risking food supplies, and could remove nearly 500 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2100, Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, 3/27/23
A shortage of native seeds is slowing land restoration across the US, which is crucial for tackling climate change and extinctions, Julia Kuzovkina, John Campanelli, The Conversation, 3/28/23
An economists' 'answer to everything.' Hint: It takes nature: Economist Partha Dasgupta and our failure to account for the cost of Earth's destruction, Douglas Fischer, Environmental Health News, 3/29/23: “The bottom line: We have to start accounting for Nature.”
Fears of Monarch Butterfly Extinction as Numbers Plummet 22% in Annual Count: "Despite heroic efforts... we could still lose these extraordinary butterflies by not taking bolder action," warned one conservationist, Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams, 3/22/23
A lingering Trump-era regulatory trick could push orcas, salmon to extinction: The Biden EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service are not basing their pesticide risk assessments on the best-available independent science, J.W. Glass, Environmental Health News, 3/30/23
‘What Really Keeps Me Up at Night’: A Climate Scientist’s Call to Action: “Climate change is real and it is here, and it’s not going away. We need your help,” writes Joëlle Gergis in the new book Humanity’s Moment, Tara Lohan, The Revelator, 3/22/23. Book: Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope
The Chemical Menace Inside Glaciers and Icebergs: Ice can trap pollutants and accelerate their breakdown, with troubling environmental consequences, Sophia Chen, Wired, 3/29/23
Environmentalists Praise the EPA’s Move to Restrict ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Water and Wonder, What’s Next?More than two decades after a lawyer alerted federal officials to the substances, scientists and activists are working to assess the scope of their damage, Victoria St. Martin, Inside Climate News, 3/28/23
3D printing promises to transform architecture forever – and create forms that blow today’s buildings out of the water, James Rose, The Conversation, 3/30/23
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space . . .
—from “On Living,” Nâzim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing/Mutlu Konuk
Health & Wellness
We’re inhaling, eating, and drinking toxic chemicals. Now we need to figure out how they’re affecting us: High-profile chemical leaks highlight how important it is to measure the impact of everyday exposures to toxic substances. Exposomics is on the case, Jessica Hamzelou, MIT Technology Review, 3/31/23
Your Speech May Reveal Early Signs of Alzheimer’s: Startup Accexible says the way you talk can indicate preclinical Alzheimer’s or other underlying health conditions, Amit Katwala, Wired, 3/28/23
Alzheimer's May Not Actually Be a Brain Disease, Expert Says, Donald Weaver, Science Alert, 3/31/23: “Based on our past 30 years of research, we no longer think of Alzheimer's as primarily a disease of the brain. Rather, we believe that Alzheimer's is principally a disorder of the immune system within the brain.”
The horrific rise of xylazine, the flesh-destroying drug making fentanyl even deadlier: The tranquilizer is increasingly mixed with the opioid in the US, giving rise to deadly overdoses and disturbing wounds, Wifred Chan, The Guardian, 3/31/23
NY officials detect polio again, warn of possible summer wave: With new detection, officials warn of spring and summer transmission risks, Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 3/27/23
‘Being truthful is essential’: scientist who stumbled upon Wuhan Covid data speaks out: Florence Débarre’s discovery of genetic data online showed for first time that animals susceptible to coronavirus were present at market, Michael Safi, Eli Block, The Guardian, 3/27/23
Chile detects first case of bird flu in a human, Reuters, 3/30/23: “there is no known human-to-human transmission.” (and yet….)
When night draws on, remembering keeps me wakeful
And hinders my rest with grief upon grief returning
—from “When Night Draws On,” al-Khansāʾ trans. by Reynold A. Nicholson
Birds
The brain science of tiny birds with amazing memories, Sophie Cox, Phys.org, 3/27/23: “Chickadees can store thousands of moments across thousands of locations and then retrieve those memories at will whenever they need extra food.”
Why Do Birds Fly in a V Formation? (Fully Explained), Clinton Atkins, Thayer Birding, 3/15/23: “Why do birds flying in V formation have an easier time traveling? This has to do with airflow.” (and several more reasons…)
Ospreys' migration: a guide to when, where and how long these magnificent birds travel for: We reveal the secrets of the osprey's migration, Ben Hoare, Discover Wildlife, 3/31/23
Round the laps of their mothers,
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest;
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.
—from “The Ecchoing Green,” William Blake
April is National Poetry Month, about which many of us have mixed feelings. On the one hand, we are happy when anyone anywhere reads poetry of any kind. On the other hand, why should poetry be put into a commercialized box, where it can be packaged and sold along with national everything else month, week, and day? I suppose in America, it’s just our normal way of dealing with words and what they represent.
“The pure products of America go crazy,” (thank you, WCW):
It is only in isolate flecks that
something
is given off
No one
to witness
and adjust, no one to drive the car
Doing my part to participate in supporting poetry, here’s a special offer from City Point Press: Buy the complete set of Ethelbert Miller’s baseball trilogy, (If God Invented Baseball, When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery, How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask), all for $30 with free shipping. Email me to place your order.
And off we go to a momentous week ahead. As you all know by now, there is no let up to the Weird, radically strange mysteries and off-kilter surprises abound. Are we ready? It’s our new normal. But right now feels even more bumpy and strange than ever. Hold on to your hats, and especially the people whom you care about.
Much love to all through it all. Keep in touch.—David
This one has an overpowering list of nervous making information! Thanks, will get to most of it during this coming week.