The Weird Times

Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces

The Weird Times

Issue #7: June 29, 2020

David Appel: Reasons for Moving Briskly

Social distancing is more effective as policy than lockdowns, a forthcoming paper in the journal Nature shows.

“Bill Barr’s America is not a place that anyone, including Trump voters, should want to go. It is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen."—Donald Ayer, former Deputy Attorney General

Among all the terrible things Trump has done, the attempted de-recognition of the Wampanoag tribe’s reservation in Massachusetts has probably been missed by many Americans. It is a grim and frustrating story, but the Wampanoags have persisted in the face of oppression for 400 years. Please support the tribe in its efforts to be federally recognized. Learn more from David Silverman’s excellent This Land Is Their Land.

“Herbert Hoover was bad at his job as millions suffered during a presidency shaped by the Depression. The nation rejected them. They’re in the process of rejecting Trump.” –David Dayen, The American Prospect

Chris Hayes Demands Donald Trump Resign with Damning Review Of His Presidency

It is “an urgent matter of public health” that Trump quits, the MSNBC host said.

Laurence Tribe @tribelaw

Every possible future points back to and is contained in this moment in time and space, and every possible past culminated in this moment. So all that ever was or will be is right here right now with you and with me.

18 USC Ch. 115: TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES

From Title 18—CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I—CRIMES

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F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald spent the summer in Westport, Connecticut 100 years ago.

Richard Webb’s BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT documents the summer in 1920 that F. Scott and Zelda spent in Westport. Webb and Robert Steven Williams back up Barbara Probst Solomon’s thesis that Westport is the actual setting for THE GREAT GATSBY, not Long Island, as so long believed by scholars. It’s a delightful romp through Westport history and includes many great discoveries. Webb and Williams also made a documentary film, GATSBY IN CONNECTICUT. The book has been updated for the centennial celebration, now interrupted by Covid. Buy it from Connecticut bookseller RJ Julia. You will enjoy many hours of your lockdown with its stories, period photos, and maps.

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Bobby Byrd

ONE MORNING DURING THE PANDEMIC

A Poem for Earth Day, 2020

“Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited classes: animals, trees, water, air, grasses.” —Gary Snyder

One morning during the pandemic

springtime

the city silent with the fear of death

a hedgehog cactus from among its dangerous spines

gave birth to a single luscious pink and white blossom,

the size of a man’s fist,

its sexual core bright yellow and gooey―

“the promised one,”

as stated in the prophecies.

The blossom, once born in the sunshine, began to preach

the gospel of the earth,

its dance through the wide blue sky,

the sermon explaining

exactly

how and why humanity is not needed,

if it ever was, thank you,

for the earth, sun, moon and sky,

the great boundless universe,

to flourish

in the truth of love.

All day long the flower preached,

interrupted from time to time

by a pair of black-chinned hummingbirds,

seasonal migrants from south to north,

who kept coming by

greedy for communion, the body and blood,

take this and eat, take this and drink.

There was that one black bumblebee too,

squat little beast,

ravaging the delicate core of the flower’s being.

The flower continued its sermonizing

unperturbed

while attending to these duties.

Neighbors and friends,

walking up and down the street,

stopped by to experience first-hand

the flower’s message.

What they learned, only time will tell.

We’ll see, won’t we?

The flower preached until sunset

and during twilight it slowly

closed those delicate petals into itself,

packed its bag and disappeared

forever. The cactus

didn’t seem to mind. It had small buds

already perched among its spines,

each with its own truth to tell

―in its own time, of course,

the long hot summer, the winter to come.

―Wednesday 22 April 2020

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No baseball in the pandemic. Sit this one out. Play two tomorrow.