The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 92, February 13, 2022 (V2 #40)
“At the same time, to have any chance of success at this means being honest about where the inhumanity at the heart of our problems is coming from. For quite some time now it’s been inescapable that Republican fingerprints are all over this inhumanity. These days half the time, on issues like climate change and vaccine lies, it’s the Republican Party intentionally blocking the path of solving our problems. The other half of the time, when it comes to racism and the January 6th threat to our democracy, the Republican Party is the problem.”—Bill at Penzeys Spices
“The world is not a problem to be solved; it is a living being to which we belong. The world is part of our own self and we are a part of its suffering wholeness. Until we go to the root of our image of separateness, there can be no healing. And the deepest part of our separateness from creation lies in our forgetfulness of its sacred nature, which is also our own sacred nature.” ―Thích Nhất Hạnh, Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
—from “Song” by Allen Ginsberg
Art, Culture, Music
Trump Produces Podiatrist’s Letter to Avoid Serving in Russian Army, Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker, 2/7/22: “Although Trump has not yet been drafted into the Russian Army, he has been “living in terror” of receiving a draft notice from Vladimir Putin, a source close to the former President said.”
More Than the Myth: The Craft of Townes Van Zandt, Cameron Gunnoe, Culture Sonar, 1/28/22: “Van Zandt was an artist beyond summation by the language he meticulously wielded as the tools of his craft.”
Grotesque Inequity: Christopher Newfield on Higher Education, Jeffrey J. Williams, LA Review of Books, 2/1/22: “In this interview, Newfield discusses the shift from a public to privatized model of higher education, his version of critical university studies, and his belief in higher education as an emancipatory project.”
Inside Mississippi’s only class on critical race theory: As Republican lawmakers push to ban critical race theory, here’s how the class changed the mind of one conservative Mississippian, Molly Minta, Mississippi Today, 2/2/22: “…this course has been the most impactful and enlightening course I have taken throughout my entire undergraduate career and graduate education at the State of Mississippi’s flagship university.”
‘Adults are banning books, but they’re not asking our opinions’: meet the teens of the Banned Book Club: Conservatives are pushing to ban books from school libraries. At a time of crisis, a group of Pennsylvania teenagers are fighting back, Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian, 2/7/22
“Aw, Partners, It’s Been a Bitch.” A Letter from Ken Kesey After His Son’s Death: The Author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Recounts the Last Days of His Son’s Life, Shaun Usher, LitHub, 2/10/22
On the Persistence of Magical Thinking in the Face of Grief: The Mutually Exclusive Truths Our Grieving Brains Can Hold, Mary-Frances O’Connor, LitHub, 2/7/22
Rewilding Asks Players: What Will You Do After the Climate Apocalypse? The upcoming indie game puts you in charge of rebuilding a destroyed ecosystem—not as a hero, but as a gig worker for a profit-hungry corporation, Ethan Davison, Wired, 2/5/22
Maeve Higgins on the Toxic Power of the Political Euphemism: On the Origins of “Tree Hugger” and “Climate Change” Maeve Higgins, LitHub, 2/11/22: “Being a grown-up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. All the knowledge I gained made me forget that the city is nature too, and I am nature, and separations are simply illusory.”
Science and Environment
Mathematician cracks 150-year-old chess problem: The problem first appeared in 1869, Ben Turner, LiveScience, 2/4/22
Scientists discover new planet orbiting nearest star to solar system: Proxima d is the third planet to have been spotted circling Proxima Centauri four light years away, Ian Sample, The Guardian, 2/10/22
Paralysed man with severed spine walks thanks to implant, Pallab Ghosh, BBC News, 2/7/22
Major breakthrough on nuclear fusion energy, Jonathan Amos, BBC News, 2/9/22: “If nuclear fusion can be successfully recreated on Earth it holds out the potential of virtually unlimited supplies of low-carbon, low-radiation energy.”
Can Super-Fast Battery Charging Fix the Electric Car? The dominant trend in EV batteries is that bigger is better. Maybe with speedier charging, automakers could do more with less, Gregory Barber, Wired, 2/9/22
New plant-derived composite is tough as bone and hard as aluminum: The material could pave the way for sustainable plastics, Jennifer Chu, MIT News, 2/10/22
What should desert farmers grow? As the Colorado River withers, a Japanese rubber company tries to persuade Arizona farmers to grow a latex-producing crop that’s adapted to desert conditions, Stephen Robert Miller, Food & Environment Reporting Network, 2/7/22
Mountain glaciers may have less ice than estimated, straining freshwater supply: Glaciers could be tapped dry sooner than expected as climate change melts ice fields faster, Kasha Patel, Ellen Francis, Washington Post, 2/7/22
Free online tool identifies climate risks in your neighborhood: ‘Neighborhoods at Risk’ helps you learn about potential flooding, heat waves, and other threats to your community, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 2/8/22
Solar stills help people obtain clean water using the power of the sun: As droughts make water more scarce, every drop counts, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 2/9/22
Quantum Complexity Tamed by Machine Learning: If scientists understood exactly how electrons act in molecules, they’d be able to predict the behavior of everything from experimental drugs to high-temperature superconductors. Following decades of physics-based insights, artificial intelligence systems are taking the next leap, Charlie Wood, Quanta Magazine, 2/7/22
New Map of Meaning in the Brain Changes Ideas About Memory: Researchers have mapped hundreds of semantic categories to the tiny bits of the cortex that represent them in our thoughts and perceptions. What they discovered might change our view of memory, Jordana Cepelowicz, Quanta Magazine, 2/9/22
New research suggests modern humans lived in Europe 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, in Neanderthal territories, Ludovic Slimak, Clement Zanolli, Jason E. Lewis, Laure Metz, The Conversation, 2/9/22
Scientists unveil 'most accurate' virtual representation of universe, backing Cold Dark Matter model: The simulations, which were unveiled at Durham university, show how our part of the universe evolved from the Big Bang to the present and provide proof that the current theories to explain the forces that shape the cosmos are on the right lines, Sky News, 2/10/22
Bonefish on Drugs: A new study shows that some Florida gamefish—and their prey—are laden with prescription medications, T. Edward Nickens, Garden & Gun, 2/2/22
The tiny vaquita porpoise now numbers less than 10. Can they be saved? The rare marine mammal is facing an existential threat from fishing nets. Scientists hope they can be saved, but time is running out, Gabrielle Canon, The Guardian, 2/12/22
Judge orders federal protection for gray wolves be restored, Paul A. Smith, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2/10/22
Our oceans are hotter than ever. Scientists say they worry about what that means for our future: Species such as coral, oysters and crabs are struggling after seven years of record ocean heat, Nicole Mortillaro, CBC News, 2/9/22
Date set for first youth-led climate trial in U.S. history: In Held v. State of Montana, 16 youth plaintiffs have sued the state over its energy policy, alleging that fossil fuel development accelerates climate change, Lucas Thompson, NBC News, 2/8/22
The simple diet switch that could add almost a decade to your life: Norwegian researchers claim to have the answer to boost life expectancy – but it does involve midlifers removing some old favourites, Joe Pinkstone, The Telegraph, 2/8/22
Doing yoga at least once a week may help to lower blood pressure: A large real-world study adds to clinical trial evidence that people who do yoga tend to have lower blood pressure, which may prevent heart attacks and strokes, Alice Klein, NewScientist, 2/9/22
Sustainability Is Not as New an Idea as You Might Think—It’s More Than 300 Years Old, Modern sustainability evolved from forest management of the 18th century, and its ancient roots go back even further. Could it help with today’s climate crisis and lumber shortage? Erica Schelby, Independent Media Institute, 2/8/22
Biden’s Biggest Idea on Climate Change Is Remarkably Cheap: It’s one of the most cost-effective climate policies the U.S. has ever considered, according to a new analysis, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 2/9/22: (Ed. Note: clean-energy tax credits)
And for that Matter
No Island is an Island either
but each with its Beaches and its Groves
is a Ship that went aground amid the Reefs
that surround it and now a part of the whole
Global Community whose miserable proles
spend their long work-days toiling
at knitting machines cleverer than they are.
It's not as though if they were that bit
more clever they might escape to an Island
somewhere the Sea would not soon
engulf them again. We are all sinking
together, the Ships, the Crews, the Islands.
Solidarity forever. That's the News.
Pandemic
The 1918 flu didn’t end in 1918. Here’s what its third year can teach us, Jess McHugh, Washington Post, 2/6/22: “ In New York City, more people died in the period from December 1919 to April 1920 than in the first and third waves, according to a research paper on influenza mortality in the city.”
Preventing future pandemics would cost just 5% of the cost they inflict: Every year, the world loses about $500 billion in terms of lives lost and economic slowdowns due to emerging zoonotic diseases. The cost to take preventative actions: $20 billion, Kristin Toussaint, Fast Company, 2/4/22
Did Omicron Come from Mice? Throughout the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 has transmitted easily from humans to other species. Some scientists now believe that animals could spread new variants back to us, Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker, 2/10/22
Early ‘lab-grown’ Covid virus found in sample lends weight to Wuhan theory: Hungarian scientists claim that samples of Antarctic soil sent to a Shanghai firm in 2019 became contaminated with an unknown variant, Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph, 2/9/22
Money and Politics
From Hayek to left populism - how price changes deliver an information bomb, Adam Tooze, Chartbook, 2/6/22
Inflation is forgetting: When dollars shrink, so do debts, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 2/10/22: “The monetary economist Narayana Kocherlakota once said that “money is memory”. If so, inflation is forgetting.”
We must not murder the recovery: inflation will soon take care of itself: Central bankers were to blame for soaring prices – but it’s too late now to slam hard on the brakes, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The Telegraph, 2/10/22
The Super Wealthy versus the Merely Rich, Barry Ritholz, The Big Picture, 2/7/22: “Compare the wealth gains among different economic tiers since 1981:
Bottom Half = $4.8k
Middle 40% = $240k
Top 10% = $2.9m
Top 1% = $16m
Top 0.1% = $89m
Top 0.01% = $500m”
Unreal Estate, Scott Galloway, No Mercy No Malice, 2/11/22: “…allocating a fraction of your portfolio to the crazy volatile shit that may offer asymmetric upside (i.e., an outsized return) is less irrational than it sounds.”
The NY Times Failed to Print Hillary Clinton’s Office’s Comments Over Document Hypocrisy. Read Them Here, Todd Neikirk, The Hill Reporter, 2/11/22
Potential criminal investigation into Trump is front-page news – unless outlets decide to give him a pass: Reporters and outlets who spent two years chasing Hillary Clinton’s emails finally have a real scandal to uncover, Eric Kleefeld, Media Matters, 2/9/22
Amy Coney Barrett’s Long Game: The newest Supreme Court Justice isn’t just another conservative—she’s the product of a Christian legal movement that is intent on remaking America, Margaret Talbott, The New Yorker, 2/7/22
Louis DeJoy’s Latest Scandal: A Fleet of Gas-Guzzling Mail Trucks: Democrats are calling for the postmaster general to resign over his “antediluvian” choice, Abigail Weinberger, Mother Jones, 2/7/22
5G and QAnon: how conspiracy theorists steered Canada’s anti-vaccine trucker protest: Ottawa’s occupation was a result of unrivaled coordination between anti-vax and anti-government organizations, Justin Ling, The Guardian, 2/8/22
The Situation in Canada is Worse than it Looks, Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 2/11/22
Florida Republicans Think They Can Trick People into Supporting Their Wildly Restrictive Abortion Ban Because It’s Not as Bad as Texas’s: Despite the fact it’s still…really bad! Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 2/8/22
Texas counties reject unprecedented numbers of mail ballots ahead of March 1 primary under restrictive new law: Some counties have seen rejection rates improve as voters learn of new requirements, including ID numbers with ballots, Amy Gardner, Washington Post, 2/11/22
The Civil War’s Surprising, and Alarmingly Familiar, Origins: In an excerpt from his new book, Lincoln and the Fight for Peace, CNN’s senior political analyst and anchor shows how racist elites clinging to power thrust the nation into violent conflict in the wake of a presidential election they refused to accept. Ring a bell? John Avlon, Vanity Fair, 2/10/22
Trump’s document destruction isn’t something to paper over or shrug off, Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, 2/11/22
and my spirit with its loss
knows this;
though small against the black,
small against the formless rocks,
hell must break before I am lost;
—from “Eurydice” by H.D.
On Bird Wings
Answering an Age Old Mystery: How do Birds Actually Fly? Emily Schwing, Scientific American, 2/11/22: “Equally surprising is the fact that we still do not know how birds actually stay airborne.”
Birding on Capitol Hill: An Audubon expert gathers a bipartisan flock, Dwight A. Weingarten, Christian Science Monitor, 2/10/22
Pacific Ocean as the greatest theater of bird migration, Royal Netherlands Inst for Sea Research, ScienceDaily, 2/8/22: “Migratory bird researchers now provide a synthesis of all the knowns, and especially the many unknowns about the extreme performances of migratory birds such as bar-tailed godwits, whimbrels and red knots, which fly over the Pacific Ocean.”
Mega-rare turtle dove in Palo Alto has birders flocking from far and wide: Some see the wayward bird as a symbol of hope after months of dreary news, Zack Savitsky, Mercury News, 2/10/22
And now you must follow your dreams as they fly
Leaving trails of empty feeling
Perhaps when you watch all your dream lovers die
You'll decide that you need a real one
—from “When Your Dream Lovers Die” Townes van Zandt
NEW: Listen to my Writerscast interview with the wonderful Lan Samantha Chang about her terrific, brand new novel, The Family Chao.
Week of birthdays: Sax Rohmer, Art Spiegelman, Susan Brownmiller, Van Wyck Brooks, Chaim Potok, Sholem Aleichem, Wallace Stegner, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, Andre Breton, Kay Boyle, Carson McCullers, Amy Tan.
“Lincoln saw clearly that if we give up the principle of equality before the law, we have given up the whole game. We have admitted the principle that people are unequal and that some people are better than others. Once we have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, we have granted approval to the idea of rulers and ruled. At that point, all any of us can do is to hope that no one in power decides that we belong in one of the lesser groups.” —Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 2/12/22
The Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day share two obvious characteristics: bread and circus. The NFL is a sophisticated modern plantation system constructed to extract value from its players and fans, as perfect a representation of late stage capitalism as Valentine’s Day, which shines in its corruption of an essential human emotion. The appearance at this moment of the reality television fake truckers’ protests is poetic in its construction, brilliantly scripted, dangerous, but also clarion in its brazenness. Putin’s geopolitical maneuvers are not much different in nature, just in scope and cataclysmic potential. Do not look away. Our future is in our own hands just as much as it resides in the dreams of the powerful. Best to you all, my friends, in these challenging times—David