The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 173, September 3, 2023 (V4 #17)
Where is the media that never holds either McConnell or McCarthy accountable now for what they said in the immediate aftermath of January 6th?—Michael Podhorzer
For I have sworn upon the Altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.—P.T. Barnum
Books, Art, Music, and Culture
We Need to Make More Readers: School, sadly, kills the love of reading, John Warner, Biblioracle Recommends, 9/3/23: “We are courting a phenomenon known as “Campbell’s Law,” which states, “the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.””
Forgotten Winnie-the-Pooh Sketch Found Wrapped in an Old Tea Towel: A rediscovered drawing of the iconic children’s book character and his friend Piglet could sell for thousands at auction, Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian, 8/28/23
Sung Neung Kyung: ‘All art is fundamentally at least a bit political:’The eccentric 79-year-old South Korean performance artist talks about his incredible career and why it’s important to mix the light with the dark, David Smith, The Guardian, 9/2/23: “I have always been truthful to myself and I have not been swayed or influenced by any different kinds of trends over the years.”
Rereading George Eliot One Year After “Dobbs,” Dara Rossman Regaignon, LA Review of Books, 8/28/23: “Eliot opens up questions about what we can know about any pregnancy, or about its end.”
Judge Blocks Texas Book Ban Law, Ed Nowotka, Publishers Weekly, 8/31/23: “HB 900 requires book vendors to review and rate books for sexual content under a vaguely articulated standard as a condition of doing business with Texas public schools.”
The chaos in Florida school libraries, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 8/29/23: “Despite the fact that Florida education officials have clarified that “Don’t Say Gay” does not apply to school library books, school districts across Florida have still not put books that were removed for LGBTQ content back on shelves.”
Georgia School District Canceled an Author’s Talks After He Said ‘Gay’: An elementary school principal in Forsyth County emailed parents to apologize last week after Marc Tyler Nobleman used the word in a presentation about the origins of Batman, Anushka Patil, NY Times, 8/29/23 (gift article)
The Gutenberg Parenthesis’ Review: Printing Press to ChatGPT: The social and political upheavals put in motion by movable type could not have been predicted. IIs a new revolution happening with AI? Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal, 9/1/23 (gift article): “I see a rug being pulled out from under our understanding of the world: a crisis of cognition.” Jeff Jarvis: The Gutenberg Parenthesis
‘I hope I’m wrong’: the co-founder of DeepMind on how AI threatens to reshape life as we know it: From synthetic organisms to killer drones, Mustafa Suleyman talks about the mind-blowing potential of artificial intelligence, and how we can still avoid catastrophe, David Shariatmadari, The Guardian, 9/2/23: “If the printing press allowed ordinary people to own books, and the silicon chip put a computer in every home, AI will democratise simply doing things. So, sure, that means getting a virtual assistant to set up a company for you, or using a swarm of builder bots to throw up an extension. Unfortunately, it also means engineering a run on a bank, or creating a deadly virus using a DNA synthesiser.”
Consciousness is a great mystery. Its definition isn't: In fact, pretty much all the experts agree, Eric Hoel, Intrinsic Perspective, 8/30/23: Thomas Nagel: “Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simpler organisms, and it is very difficult to say in general what provides evidence of it. (Some extremists have been prepared to deny it even of mammals other than man.) . . . But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism.”
When Sci-Fi Anticipates Reality: The relationship between imagined futures and real technology goes both ways, Lora Kelly, Atlantic, 8/31/23: “Writers have a unique power to explore moral questions about any new invention. Even more than new gadget ideas, the real world of tech could stand to learn from that.”
"We Have to Teach Young People to Think:” Lessons from a James Baldwin interview with Studs Terkel, John Warner, Biblioracle Recommends, 8/30/23: “And to teach young people, in order to teach young people to think you have to teach them to think about everything. There mustn't be something they cannot think about. If there's something, if there's one thing they can't think about then very shortly they can't think about anything, you know. Now, there's always something in this country, of course, one cannot think about. What one cannot think about is the Negro, you know. Now, this may seem like a very subtle argument but I don't think so. I think that, really, time will prove the connection between the level, you know, of the lives we lead and this extraordinary endeavor to avoid Black men.”
What Are Dreams For? Converging lines of research suggest that we might be misunderstanding something we do every night of our lives, Amanda Gefter, New Yorker, 8/31/23: “It’s through recognizing the contributions of the body, Windt said, that we can begin to understand why dreams feel the way they do.”
With ‘Goodbye Mary,’ Molly Tuttle extends country music’s lineage of reproductive rights songs to the post-Roe era, William Nash, The Conversation, 8/29/23: “Tuttle creates an intimate portrait of a woman’s struggle for bodily autonomy that captures the potential terrors of a post-Roe America.”
Jimmy Buffett, musical ‘mayor of Margaritaville,’ dies at 76: The singer-songwriter sold 20 million records from his greatest hit, ‘Margaritaville’ and created a lifestyle brand of tropical breezes, frozen cocktails and laid-back escapism, Glenn Rifkin, Washington Post, 9/2/23 “Searchin’ for my lost shaker of salt”
Other passings this week: poets Ed Ochester and Maureen Seaton.
Remembering William Stafford, Whose Poetic Region Was All the World: On the Enduring Memory of One of America's Greatest Contemporary Poets, Steve Paul, LitHub, 8/28/23: “To read Stafford today is to appreciate the richness and diversity of modern and contemporary poetry and to understand how he managed to make human connections, as if that were the absolute mission of his work.”
At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border
This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.
Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed—or were killed—on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.
—William Stafford
Politicks and Economicks
American Grand Strategy, Realism, and the Russo-Ukraine War: No, it's not another Vietnam, Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed, 9/3/23: “The choice faced now is whether to continue to support Ukraine fighting a messy, tragic war, which it may take time to win, or to let it carry on alone, with the prospect of an even more tragic conclusion from which the Western Alliance, let alone Ukraine, might never recover…in the end this is not that difficult a choice to make.”
Lessons from Gramsci: The Italian theorist continues to offer important insights for organizers in the socialist lineage, Mark Engler, Paul Engler, Dissent, 8/29/23: “…revolutionary change will not inevitably come thanks to the preordained laws of history.”
Fifty years on: the lasting tragedy of Chile’s coup: The brutality with which an elected government was deposed inspired military takeovers across Latin America – but also galvanised the human rights movement and spotlighted the dark activities of the CIA, Julian Borger, The Guardian, 9/3/23 (and let us not forget the involvement by the Koch brothers network in formulating the revised constitution put in place under Pinochet that still restricts freedom and democracy in Chile, and is what they want to impose in the US as well, per Nancy McLean in Democracy in Chains).
Decoupling isn't phoney: The global trading system is starting to rearrange itself, and it's mostly not Biden's doing, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 8/30/23: “This is only the very beginning of the decoupling story.”
If the U.S. economy is doing well, why do so many Americans say it's terrible? Judd Legum, Popular Information, 8/28/23: “despite slowing inflation and consistent job growth, a majority of Americans say the economy is getting worse.”
How Big Tech Helps Promote Disinformation—And How It Can Help Stop It: On Media Literacy (Or Lack Thereof) in the Internet Age, Lee McIntyre, LitHub, 8/30/23: “One doesn’t fix a polluted information stream simply by diluting it with truth.”
Right-Wing Billionaires & the GOP Want a Nation of Uneducated, Compliant Serfs: They’re getting their way and now we have the perfect storm...Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 8/30/23: “Public education in about half of America is in a crisis and has been for some time. It’s a crisis Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to make worse.”
Possibilities for Propaganda: The founding and funding of conservative media on college campuses in the 1960s, Lauren Lassabe Shepherd, Lapham’s, 8/30/23: “During the Nixon administration, College Republican clubs greatly expanded and professionalized conservative campus news and radio with explicit direction from the White House and GOP advisers.”
The Christian home-schooler who made ‘parental rights’ a GOP rallying cry: On a private call with Christian millionaires, home-schooling pioneer Michael Farris pushed for a strategy aimed at siphoning billions of tax dollars from public schools, Emma Brown, Peter Jamison, Washington Post, 8/29/23
The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy review: necessary chronicle of US racist history: Robert P Jones vividly condemns America’s history of racist oppression – but risks misreading political realities today, Lloyd Green, The Guardian, 9/3/23. Order the book.
What Is Integralism? The Catholic movement that wants to use government power in the name of public morality, William Galston, Persuasion, 8/28/23: “Surely a government that can tell us what to believe about God and how to worship God is a tyranny.”
The Open Secret of Trump’s Power: The former president’s messaging is simultaneously wilder and clearer than ever, John Hendrickson, Atlantic, 8/30/23: “Trump has shrewdly ascertained that, even eight years later, America can’t look away from the epic saga that is his life.”
America’s Trumpiest court just put itself in charge of nuclear safety: This decision is radioactive, even by the very low standards of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Ian Milhiser, Vox, 8/29/23
The Shocking GOP Plan to Dismantle the American Government Revealed: The merger of billionaire wealth with Republican governance — the public be damned — threaten the integrity and future of the American experiment…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 8/31/23: “They call it Project 2025. With it, they intend to finally and fully seize control of and transform America. With it, they will rule.”
A stranger may have found you
Where the angels have lulled you to sleep
They swallow you whole
Like a whale from your head to your feet—from “Gonna Be Darkness,” The Jayhawks, written by Jakob Dylan
Science & Environment
Hurricane Idalia’s Explosive Power Comes from Abnormally Hot Oceans: By burning fossil fuels, humans force the oceans to soak up the heat equivalent of a Hiroshima-size bomb, over and over again, Bill McKibben, New Yorker, 8/30/23
Turtles Carry Signs of Humanity’s Nuclear History in Their Shells: Turtles’ shells contain a chemical record of the environment—including highly enriched uranium, an indicator of nuclear weapons development. What can we learn from these accidental archivists? Celia Ford, Wired, 8/30/23: “The bodies of these creatures have been keeping score for millennia.”
Empire of dust: what the tiniest specks reveal about the world: Nobody normally gives a second thought to dust, but it is inescapable. And if we pay close attention, we can see the biggest things – time, death and life itself – within these tiny floating particles, Jay Owens, The Guardian, 8/31/23: “Living with dust – as we must – is a slow lesson in embracing contradiction: to clean, but not identify with cleanliness; to respect the material need for hygiene while distrusting it profoundly as a social metaphor.”
New Research Shows Direct Link Between Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Polar Bear Decline: Scientists say their findings could help close a legal loophole that enables the federal government to avoid considering greenhouse gas emissions impacts on threatened and endangered species, Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, 9/3/23
Can Agroforestry Breathe New Life Into Carbon Markets? Most carbon offset programs aimed at farmers have focused on large monocrop corn and soy operations. But in Southern Appalachia, Carbon Harvest is developing an alternative market for small farms that integrates trees, Daniel Walton, Civil Eats, 8/29/23
The true cost of climate pollution? 44% of corporate profits: Yet governments are still pouring $7 trillion into subsidies for fossil fuels, Kate Yoder, Grist, 8/28/23: “governments around the world are pouring more money into support for fossil fuel companies than ever before.”
What Your Insurer Is Trying to Tell You About Climate Change: Insurers are trying to send a message. The government is trying to suppress it, Juliette Kayyem, Atlantic, 8/28/23: “I understand people love their homes but we should be telling them to love their kids who are at risk of climate disasters.”
Scientists Find Success With New Direct Ocean Carbon Capture Technology: In a research paper, the scientists say capturing carbon dioxide directly from the oceans could have advantages over direct air capture, Anaya Chetia, Inside Climate News, 9/2/23
The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It: New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain separately from those recording unusual events, Saugat Bolokhe, Quanta, 8/30/23: “How do we build up reliable knowledge and make informed decisions?”
She Sacrificed Her Youth to Get the Tech Bros to Grow Up: As a young industrial designer, Patricia Moore undertook a radical experiment in aging. Her discoveries reshaped the built world, Lexi Pandell, Wired, 8/31/23: “With each passing year, we need more and more stuff in order to maintain our autonomy and independence.”
Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact: Number theorist Andrew Granville on what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach, Jordana Cepelewicz, Quanta, 8/31/23: “I think I know everything there is to know about a triangle, but who’s to say I do?”
Batman, you are bigger than a palm tree.
You are Egyptian with your ears
and your pretty gold belt.
The sea laps your thighs, Batman.
Look how long your gloves are.
—from “Fibonacci Batman,” Maureen Seaton
Health & Wellness
Americans are coping ourselves to death: Our low life expectancy is partly a function of the ways we deal with stress, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 8/28/23: “An American 29-year-old has a chance of dying that’s four times higher than a British 29-year-old.”
In utero exposure to plastic chemicals tied to developmental problems in toddlers: Israeli researchers find that higher levels of ubiquitous phthalates in the urine of pregnant mothers correlate with emotional and social difficulties in boys — but not girls, Renee Ghert-Zand, Times of Israel, 8/28/23
The long tail of toxic emissions on the Navajo Nation: Communities contend with ongoing air quality issues tied to gas and oil wells, Mark Armao, High Country News, 8/31/23
Fall
Crows, crows, crows, crows
then the slow flapaway over the hill
and the dead oak is naked
—Ed Ochester
Birds
A tiny Hawaiian bird was nearing extinction. Then the Maui fires came: With only five left in the wild, a Hawaiian bird called the 'akikiki is the country’s most endangered bird, with the Maui fires posing a new and unexpected threat, Dino Grandoni, Washington Post, 8/21/23
Birds – and ornithologists – flock to huge rubbish dump in Spain: Storks, black kites and vultures feed at Los Barrios before migrating to Africa – but many now decide to stay, Stephen Burgen, The Guardian, 8/28/23: “A vast rubbish dump in southern Spain has become a magnet for ornithologists as thousands of storks, black kites and vultures make a stopover to feed on food waste before beginning their journey across the Strait of Gibraltar.”
Peregrine falcons, once extremely endangered, now stable in Iowa skies: Falconers and researchers have worked together to restore their populations throughout the Midwest, Brittney J. Miller, The Gazette, 8/27/23
For Migrating Birds, It’s the Flight of Their Lives, Emily Anthes, NY Times, 8/29/23 (gift article): “If we lose Central America’s forests, we can lose North America’s birds.”
Migratory Birds Are in Peril, but Knowing Where They Are at Night Could Help Save Them, Jacob Job, Scientific American, 8/28/23: “It is thought that artificial light contributes to the deaths of millions of birds each year.”
I am trying to get my podcasting onto a regular schedule - last week I posted a new author interview on Writerscast.com – my conversation with Sam Gwynne about his excellent His Majesty’s Airship —I hope you will give it a listen. It is great fun talking to authors about their books.
I hope you are all enjoying the end of summer. Do keep in touch. Keep working to make things better. Find beauty and take the time to enjoy it. And stay safe - Covid is on the rise again and many of our fellow citizens don’t seem to care. Love to all—David