The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 172, August 27, 2023 (V4 #16)
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.—From MLK Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963
It always seems impossible until it’s done.—Nelson Mandela
Books, Music, Art & Culture
Greta Gerwig’s Paradise Lost: on the Deep Parallels Between Barbie and John Milton’s Late Renaissance Epic, Orlando Reade, LitHub, 8/23/23: “That Gerwig is thinking about Milton’s radical retelling of the Book of Genesis should come as no surprise.”
Why have you read ‘The Great Gatsby’ but not Ursula Parrott’s ‘Ex-Wife’? Marsha Gordon, The Conversation, 8/25/23: “I’m convinced that the reason Fitzgerald’s novel is so ingrained in American life and letters has little to do with its originality, craft or quality and everything to do with the way books were marketed and promoted over the arc of the 20th century.”
Inside the unsavory, unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson musical with Broadway in its sights, Ashley Leigh, LA Times, 8/24/23: “Am I out of my mind by having this person to be our leading character? Because it’s really scary to put someone like him at the center of a musical today.”
The Enemy of My Enemy Is Not My Friend: On Sohrab Ahmari’s “Tyranny, Inc.” and Patrick J. Deneen’s “Regime Change,” Jodi Dean, LA Review of Books, 8/25/23: “They want to wage all-out political war.”
How a small-town feud in Kansas sent a shock through American journalism: A police raid without precedent on a weekly newspaper alarmed First Amendment advocates. The real story of how it happened, though, is rooted in the roiling tensions and complex history of a few key community members, Jonathan O'Connell, Paul Farhi, Sofia Andrade, Washington Post, 8/26/23
Google and YouTube are trying to have it both ways with AI and copyright: Google has made clear it is going to use the open web to inform and create anything it wants, and nothing can get in its way. Except maybe Frank Sinatra, Nilay Patel, The Verge, 8/22/23: “Google is signaling that it will pay off the music industry with special deals that create brand-new — and potentially devastating! — private intellectual property rights, while basically telling the rest of the web that the price of being indexed in Search is complete capitulation to allowing Google to scrape data for AI training.”
Letting a Psychic Into the Space Between Me and My Mother: on Astrology and Understanding Her Family, Kyo Maclear, LitHub, 8/23/23: “From the moment I arrived on the planet, I had been locked in a “soul contract” with my mother.” Book: Unearthing, A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets
In the Land of the World's Oldest Bread, a Return to an Ancient Baking Culture: Around Jordan, farmers and chefs are reviving traditional breads—and returning them to their central place in the community, Yulia Denisyuk, Conde Nast Traveler, 8/23/23: “…the ingredients for bread, particularly wheat, are considered sacred in Jordan.”
Let’s get physical - why digital has its limits: Can we use modern technology to help consumers access a physical interaction rather than replace it? Phil Rowley, Media Leader, 8/22/23: “Though rampant in its acceleration, technology has laid bare the limits of mediated representation. Despite being of value, attempts to provide an imitation experience to educate us on its real-world equivalent can only go so far.”
The One-Hit Wonder File: “Romeo’s Tune,” John Visconti, Culture Sonar, 8/23/23: “it still has the power to get stuck in your head.”
We'll weather down behind the light
And fade like magazines
Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say, "Everything's okay"
—from “Romeo’s Tune,” Steve Forbert
Politicks & Economicks
How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—Four Billionaire Techno-Oligarchs—Are Creating an Alternate, Autocratic Reality: In an excerpt from his new book, The End of Reality, the author warns about the curses of AI and transhumanism, presenting the moral case against superintelligence, Jonathan Taplin, Vanity Fair, 8/22/23: “Their vast digital domain controls your personal information; affects how billions of people live, work, and love; and sows online chaos, inciting mob violence and sparking runs on stocks.”
Meet General Elon Musk, Lucian Truscott IV, Newsletter, 8/21/23: “He’s welcoming Defendant Trump to use the platform some are now calling TwitX, and he’s endorsing Vladimir Putin’s aims in Ukraine. In ways large and small, he is flying the plane on which we and a larger and larger number of the world’s citizens are mere passengers.”
America on Trial: If Trump walks, we’re all guilty, Michael Podhorzer, Weekend Reading, 8/20/23: “In reality, the universe has no moral arc – only a thick rope for an eternal tug of war between human freedom and dignity on one side, and fascism, unfettered greed, and inherited caste on the other. If Trump – or another MAGA nominee – wins in November of next year, what we say and do now can and will be used as evidence against us by future generations.”
The Mobster Cosplay of Donald Trump: He’s been indicted on RICO charges, but how does the former President stack up against actual dons? David Remnick, New Yorker, 8/22/23: “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. Loyalty oaths.”
Is Trump to the GOP like a Parasitic Wasp to a Caterpillar? They put an egg into a caterpillar or spider and when the wasp larvae hatches it eats its host, leaving behind only a husk....Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 8/24/23: “Trump was only able to finally take over the GOP in 2016 because a group of corrupt politicians and rightwing billionaires got there first, setting up the party’s faithful to believe absurd lies and step into alternate realities.”
US thinktank linked to billionaires behind supreme court wealth tax case lobbying: Manhattan Institute one of eight conservative advocacy groups that filed amicus briefs urging the court to hear Moore v US, Stephanie Kierchgaessner, The Guardian, 8/25/23: “Why are the billionaires being able to pull the strings of the US supreme justices like puppets?” DW: This is the corruption of our political and legal system on full display.
Republicans Pushed Almost 400 “Education Intimidation” Bills in Past Two Years: Lawmakers in all but four states introduced bills that indirectly censor what’s taught in schools, according to a new report from PEN America, Prem Thakker, The Intercept, 8/23/23
As Moms for Liberty Expands in Wisconsin, School Board Elections Become Proxies for a National Culture War, Opposition to the "extremist" group grows ahead of the 2024 election, Rachel Hale, Barn Raiser, 8/24/23
From Quashing Teachers Unions to Pardoning Trump, Voters Reject GOP Positions: Poll: "The first Republican debate was nothing but a race to the bottom," said the head of Data for Progress. "Major candidates succeeded in turning off Independent voters and failed to offer voters a positive vision," Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, 8/25/23
Humanity is going to shrink: No one has any idea how to stop the decline, so we need to prepare for the consequences, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 8/22/23: “The whole world is heading toward negative population growth.”
We don't need to "degrow" the economy: To save the environment, Elle Griffin, The Elysian, 8/21/23: “The economy” is important because it’s how we make money—that’s why we have jobs and the ability to support our families, and yes, the ability to make scientific advances and technological progress. But we don’t need the whole thing to “grow” or “degrow.” Rather, we need to decrease the economy’s dependence on the environment, and we can do that even if we grow the overall economy if we need to.”
‘Warped history’: how the US supreme court justified gutting gay rights: Rightwing justices claim to rule in the Founders’ image. In reality, they disregard 250 years of constitutional law, simply to punish fellow Americans who do not share their values, Marci A. Hamilton, The Guardian, 8/26/23: “For the court to reach its holding that an evangelical website designer has a constitutional right to engage in invidious discrimination against same-sex couples, the majority fraudulently inflated the value of Smith’s speech from expressive conduct (regulatable) to highly valued “pure speech” (untouchable).”
No OB-GYNs left in town: what came after Idaho’s assault on abortion: In Sandpoint, Idaho, the maternity ward closed down. Within months, medical care for women in the rural community was hollowed out, Kathleen McLaughlin, The Guardian, 8/22/23
Science & Environment
Anger is most powerful emotion by far for spurring climate action, study finds: Link to climate activism is seven times stronger for anger than it is for hope, say Norwegian researchers, Ajit Niranjan, The Guardian, 8/21/23
The Road to Extinction: Paying attention to nature and the environment is every bit as important as paying attention to the marketplace, Laura Erickson, For the Birds, 8/21/23
The US and China must unite to fight the climate crisis, not each other: Cooperation is not only in the best interests of all countries, but is absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet, Bernie Sanders, The Guardian, 8/21/23: “If we are to save the planet, now is the time for bold action.”
What’s the fairest climate policy of all? Huge disparities in wealth and carbon emissions are obvious. How best to manage carbon inequality isn’t, Mark Harris, Anthropocene, 8/21/23: “We Need a Sliding Scale for Carbon”
Ecuadorians reject oil drilling in the Amazon, ending operations in protected area, EHN Staff, Daily Climate, 8/22/23: “Ecuadorians have come together for this cause to provide a life opportunity for our Indigenous brothers and sisters and also to show the entire world, amidst these challenging times of climate change, that we stand in support of the rainforest.”
Rolling car tires into the global circular economy, Sean Mowbray, MongaBay, 8/22/23: “A tire redesign is greatly needed to increase longevity, as is the cultivation of new sources of deforestation-free rubber, and alternative end-of-life strategies that emphasis recycling of the dozens of components found in tires. But given the complex makeup of today’s tires, there won’t be one simple solution.”
The race to save ‘awe-inspiring’ giant sequoias: Since 2020, extreme fires have killed more than 10% of California’s mature giant sequoias, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 8/23/23
A tale of two biomes as deforestation surges in Cerrado but wanes in Amazon, Sarah Brown, Monga Bay, 8/23/23: “Given the importance of the Cerrado to replenish watersheds across the continent, its destruction would affect not just Brazil but South America too, experts warn, adding that the region’s water, food and energy security are at stake.”
The EPA Ignored the Endangered Species Act for 50 Years. That’s Changing, But Is Time Running Out? The agency admits that it has almost entirely failed to evaluate how pesticides affect at-risk animals and plants. Under the Biden administration, it is finally changing course, but the new approach could have unintended consequences, Lisa Held, Civil Eats, 8/22/23
Beavers Are Remaking Microbial Ecosystems in the Arctic: As beavers expand their range northward into the Arctic tundra, changes in bacterial, archaeal, and fungal communities appear to be following, Saima May Sidik, EOS, 8/23/23
Healthy mangrove forests can help protect inland areas from hurricane damage: But coastal development and shrimp farming disrupt mangrove ecosystems, weakening those protections, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 8/24/23
How Centuries of Extractive Agriculture Helped Set the Stage for the Maui Fires: The sugar and pineapple plantations that dominate the Hawaiian island changed the landscape, how the water flows, and contributed to the devastation of the fire, Katie Rodriguez, Civil Eats, 8/23/23: “They diverted the river in its entirety and eliminated the tree cover. I think the long-term ecological implications of those changes were a huge factor in [the conditions that led to] the fire.”
After the blaze, coping with ‘fire brain:’ Research suggests that survivors of the Maui wildfires face a long road of physical and cognitive challenges after the trauma and physical effects of fire and smoke particles, Marlene Cimons, Kim Bellware, Washington Post, 8/20/23
'The Pyrocene Is Well and Truly Here': Climate Crisis Made Eastern Canada's Fires 2 Times More Likely: Seasons like this one will only become more likely and intense if policymakers allow global temperatures to rise by 2°C above preindustrial levels, Olivia Rosane, Common Dreams, 8/23/23: "Climate change made the cumulative severity of Quebec's 2023 fire season to the end of July around 50% more intense, and seasons of this severity at least seven times more likely to occur.”
Looking for a US ‘climate haven’ away from heat and disaster risks? Good luck finding one, Julie Arbit, The Conversation, 8/23/23: “In 2023 alone, “haven” regions in Wisconsin, Vermont and Michigan suffered significant damage from powerful storms and flooding.”
California’s Undisturbed Gaviota Coast Draws a Shocking Range of Wildlife: Mountain lions and bears and pigs, oh my! Charting the unexpected denizens of California beaches, Marina Wang, Hakai, 8/24/23: “…understanding how wildlife uses coastal landscapes—either to look for food or as a throughway between habitats—can be important for protecting species.”
New Codes Could Make Quantum Computing 10 Times More Efficient: Quantum computing is still really, really hard. But the rise of a powerful class of error-correcting codes suggests that the task might be slightly more feasible than many feared, Charlie Wood, Quanta, 8/25/23
The Internet’s Next Great Power Suck: AI’s carbon emissions are about to be a problem, Matteo Wong, The Atlantic, 8/23/23: “Now AI threatens to push the web’s emissions to a tipping point.”
Colorful paints could slash heating and cooling energy use: By reflecting infrared heat, these new paints could could keep buildings cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter without using energy, Prachi Patel, Anthropocene, 8/24/23
Iowa skipper butterfly ‘canary in coal mine’: A warning sign of prairie loss consequences for farmers, wildlife alike: Nearly 250 million acres of the Great Plains have been converted to cropland as of 2020. Farmers and wildlife both suffer from the depletion of prairies, Ava Mandoli, Investigate Midwest, 8/17/23
Next comes the grave, in many a
poem about green. But this is not a poem. This is a
billboard for frozen green peas. Frozen green peas
are good for pain.
—from “Short Talk on Pain,” Anne Carson
Health & Wellness
The key to depression, obesity, alcoholism – and more? Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists: This ‘electrical superhighway’ helps to control everything from our breathing to our immune system. Could stimulating it transform physical and mental health? Linda Geddes, The Guardian, 8/23/23
Brain Implants That Help Paralyzed People Speak Just Broke New Records: Two new studies show that AI-powered devices can help paralyzed people communicate faster and more accurately, Emily Mullin, Wired, 8/24/23
Top review says COVID lockdowns and masks worked, period: They might not be popular, but a major report shows combining these interventions can keep case numbers low, Ashleigh Furlong, Politico, 8/24/23
Americans at high risk advised to wear masks as new Covid variant detected: CDC said that scientists discovered a new coronavirus variant, BA 2.86, and that higher-risk individuals should be cautious, Victoria Bekiempis, The Guardian, 8/24/23
The Battle Against the Fungal Apocalypse Is Just Beginning: Fungal infections are rising worldwide and climate change may be to blame. Medicine isn’t ready, Maryn McKenna, Wired, 8/25/23
New flame retardants found in breast milk years after similar chemicals were banned, Bec Roldan, NPR, 8/24/23: "PBDEs have been associated with adverse neurodevelopmental health outcomes in children when exposed in utero.”
Digestion issues could be warning sign of Parkinson’s disease, research suggests: Study shows higher risk of condition for patients with gut problems, Anna Bawden, The Guardian, 8/24/23
Strong men, tinkling women, and dripping, squealing children
Stroll past us, or into the shops.
They greet the shopkeepers, and touch their hats or foreheads to me . . .
Some evening I shall not return to my people.
—from “Old Age,” Maxwell Bodenheim
Birds
In the Gulf of Maine, scientists race to save seabirds threatened by climate change: “I could see that, if successful, the methods developed could likely help these species,” Derrick Z. Jackson, Daily Climate, 8/25/23
What’s More Harmful to Birds in North Dakota: Oil and Gas Drilling, or Corn and Soybeans? A new study based on Breeding Bird Surveys found that grassland birds reacted even more negatively to corn and soybean fields than they did to land used for oil and gas development, Lydia Larsen, Inside Climate News, 8/25/23
What Does It Mean to Love the Earth? One answer: cultivate reverence for animals and plants, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 8/22/23: “Cherish your body and your garden and your favorite animals with the same attentive nurturing you would provide for a ten-million-dollar Jackson Pollack painting hanging on your wall.”
We can feel summer coming to an end. Garden plants are wilting, baseball season is about to enter its final month, and schools are already open in some places. And Covid is back for another run at us all. It’s recommended (again) to wear masks when you spend time indoors in public places. I hope you will.
Stay healthy, stay safe, and stay alert for ways to oppose the rising wave of fascism. Did you see that mug shot of TFG? It’s a purposeful reminder of who he really is.
Stay in touch. Love to all—David