The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 178, October 8, 2023 (V4 #22)
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists— Wisława Szymborska
There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.—John Kelly
I may be right and I may be wrong/ But you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone — Taj Mahal
Books and Culture
What is Indigenous Peoples Day? A day of celebration, protest and reclaiming history, Hallie Golden, Christine Fernando, AP News, 10/6/23: “From Alcatraz Island to a park in New York City, Native American people will celebrate their centuries-long history of resilience on Monday with ceremonies, dances and speeches.”
The Turtle Mothers Have Come Ashore to Ask About an Unpaid Debt, Robin Wall Kimmerer, NY Times, 9/22/23: “The turtle reminds me that I owe my small human life to the generosity of the more-than-human beings with whom we share this precious homeland.”
‘An end of American democracy’: Heather Cox Richardson on Trump’s historic threat, David Smith, The Guardian, 10/7/23: “The historian and Substack superstar says the US is in peril not seen since the civil war – and Joe Biden is its best defender.” Buy the book: Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America
‘I want to unleash rage’: Iranian exile Shirin Neshat on her film about veils, prison and rape: The artist is returning to the inflammatory approach that caused a storm in the 1990s – with a harrowing film about a woman the Iranian authorities try to crush, Charlotte Jansen, The Guardian, 10/2/23
In Praise of Mariah Carey: On Pop Divas, Fandom, and Pop History, Andrew Chan, Emily Lordi, LitHub, 10/6/23: “…she has an intuitive sense of how to fill and decorate musical space.” Buy the book: Why Mariah Carey Matters
Understanding Zora Neale Hurston’s Loneliness: On Hurston's 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, Richard Deming, LitHub, 10/5/23: “Although the feeling of being unique could have been the cause of her loneliness, it also pushed her outward in order to find an answer to that emotional isolation by reaching toward other people.” But the book: This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us about Creativity
50 Years Ago, One of the Gutsiest, Strangest Sci-Fi Movie Franchises Came to a Close with Battle for the Planet of the Apes: On the Literary Adaptation (Yes, Really) That Doubled as a Hate Letter to America, Matthew Hays, LitHub, 10/4/23: “Whoever cooked all of this up must have been baked.”
What the WGA’s Historic Contract Means for All Writers in the Fight Against Generative AI: On the Wins of Hollywood’s Hot Labor Summer, Alexis Gunderson, LitHub, 10/3/23: “Had the studios gotten their way and given AI-generated material a foot in the intellectual property door, the viability of any kind of creative writing as a sustainable career would have all but evaporated.”
Ian McEwan criticises hiring of ‘sensitivity readers’ looking for offensive material in manuscripts: Booker-winning novelist describes the process of screening out things that might offend readers as ‘mass hysterias’ and ‘moral panics’ that ‘sweep through populations every now and then,’ Lucy Knight, The Guardian, 10/3/23
Get on the bus: banned books tour hits the road, from New York to Texas: Book banning in public schools jumped 33% this year, so a group of enthusiasts is tackling censorship with a bus tour, Olivia Empson, The Guardian, 10/5/23: ““We’re getting to let people know about something they may have no idea is happening.”
Can we save Gettysburg Review? Becky Tuch, Lit Mag News, 10/7/23: “After thirty-five years of editorial and publishing excellence, the president of Gettysburg College has decided to end the Gettysburg Review.” If you feel compelled to speak up on behalf of this magazine and the jobs of its editors, do so! Call, write letters, tweet, tell your influential friends to reach out to the college president, write an article, find reporters who may be interested and make some noise.
I watched him pause.
Then he was splashing silence.
Crabs snapped their claws
and scattered as he walked towards our shore.
—from “Colombe” by Kamau Braithwaite
Politics and Economics
Israel-Hamas war live: Israeli death toll from Hamas attacks rises to 600, as fighting continues in south of country and Gaza: Hamas Gaza hideouts will be turned to ‘rubble’, Netanyahu says, after Saturday’s surprise attacks leave hundreds dead, Angelique Chrisafis, Ben Doherty, Graham Russell, The Guardian, 10/8/23
DW: Another war, seemingly from nowhere. Yet it is likely this one is connected to “the other one” (Ukraine) like this: Iran and Russia are allied, Iran supports and underwrites Hamas. Attacking Israel takes attention (and likely military hardware and public support) away from Ukraine. Wars just don’t happen for no reason. This one is good for Russia and bad for everyone else, including the Palestinians.
Hamas attacks Israel: Why now and what next? ,Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed, 10/8/23: “…if we look back again to 1973 the long-term impact on Israel lay as much in how the fighting started as in how it ended. Being caught out by the first blow was a psychological victory for its adversary and the effects lingered.”
Will we stop the madness? Steve Schmidt, The Warning, 10/7/23: “Are we, or are we not going to stop this madness at the doorstep of our children’s futures? This is the choice at hand for America and the American people.”
The GOP’s "Red Caesar” New Political Order Plan Marches Forward: Either the GOP will be crushed to near irrelevance in the 2024 elections, or they will win enough power to end the American experiment. Which will it be? Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 10/3/23
The Next Targets for the Group That Overturned Roe: Alliance Defending Freedom has won fifteen Supreme Court cases. Now it wants religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws—and is going after trans rights, David D. Kirkpatrick, New Yorker, 10/2/23: “It may be that the day will come when people say the birth-control pill was a mistake.” DW: this article will scare the shit out of you.
Is a "Dangerous conspiracy" to end democracy in 2025 succeeding with right-wing billionaires? Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 10/7/23: “As Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch noted this week: “The alleged brain trust of an increasingly fascist MAGA movement wants an American dictatorship that would ‘suspend’ democracy in January 2025.”
Trump’s Bloody Campaign Promises: It’s tempting to ignore the former President’s expressions of rage, but the stakes for American democracy demand that attention be paid, David Remnick, New Yorker, 10/4/23: “Trump’s rage is the inspiration for everything from the Proud Boys to the mailing of pipe bombs to political targets, to say nothing of the deranged behavior of much of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.”
No Labels makes its choice, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 10/3/23: “Is No Labels a thinly disguised effort by Wall Street and Trump supporters to deny Biden a second term?”
Look Who’s Behind the Know-Nothing “No Labels” Party, Jim Hightower, Lowdown, 10/5/23: “No Labels is a fat cat front, with Texas billionaire Republican Harlan Crow leading the way.”
What do Americans want that Biden can give them? Gas prices, immigration, and the economy are things Americans say they care about, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 10/6/23 DW: If the trains run on time, who cares about democracy, right?
Private Equity, Public Poverty: “What happens when the owners of wealth cease to have any broader social interest at all?” Kim Phillips-Fein interviewed by Sam Needleman, NY Review of Books, 10/7/23: “…it privileges the fund’s short-term profit over the long-term gain of the company that has been acquired, to say nothing of the people who work for that company or who rely on its services.”
A Lab Test That Experts Liken to a Witch Trial Is Helping Send Women to Prison for Murder: The “lung float” test claims to help determine if a baby was born alive or dead, but many medical examiners say it’s too unreliable. Yet the test is still being used to bring murder charges — and get convictions, Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica, 10/7/23
‘Antiracism’ Was Never the Right Answer, Pamela Paul, NY Times, 10/5/23: “In short, a person can oppose racism on firm ethical or philosophical or pragmatic grounds without embracing Kendi’s conception of antiracism.”
The Democratic Duty: The case for democratic solidarity—and against spheres of influence, Michael Walzer, Persuasion, 10/6/23: “…all of us stand with Ukraine because its people have collectively and individually decided, in the face of a brutal attack, that their country and its democracy are worth fighting for. And that means that their Ukraine is ours, too, part of the democratic international.”
We Finally Have Proof That the Internet Is Worse: High-profile lawsuits against Google and Amazon have revealed Silicon Valley’s vise grip on our lives, Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 10/7/23: “It turns out that the slow rot we might feel isn’t just in our heads, after all.”
The Hyper-Personalization of Everything: What the Industrial Revolution Was to Physical Production, the AI Revolution Is to Digital Production, Rex Woodbury, Digital Native, 10/4/23: “Baby Boomers came of age with the cultural language of liberation (think Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”), while Gen Xers and Millennials were taught the importance of being special and unique (think participation trophies).”
The shape of the shadow of The Thing: We can start to see, dimly, what the near future of AI looks like, Ethan Mollick, One Useful Thing, 10/3/23: “It isn’t science fiction to assume that AIs will soon talk to you, see you, know about you, do research for you, create images for you - because all of that is already built, and working.”
In which I clumsily tie one hand behind my back: Can we take on the climate disaster and the Trump disaster simultaneously? Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 10/2/23: “I’d support a chicken salad sandwich to stop the return of Donald Trump to power.”
Is It Possible to Teach Anti-Capitalism? On James Rushing Daniel’s “Toward an Anti-Capitalist Composition,” Ryan Boyd, LA Review of Books, 10/5/23: “…higher education acts as an entire financialized sector, and the United States represents what many scholars have called a “business civilization.””
‘A new form of warfare’: how Ukraine reclaimed the Black Sea from Russian forces: Kyiv has turned the region into a no-go zone for Moscow’s bristling warships, Luke Harding, The Guardian, 10/5/23: : “…drones have been vital to winning back the Black Sea.”
You're not going to like what comes after Pax Americana: Welcome to the jungle, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 10/7/23: “Over the past two decades it had become fashionable to lambast American hegemony, to speak derisively of “American exceptionalism”, to ridicule America’s self-arrogated function of “world police”, and to yearn for a multipolar world. Well, congratulations, now we have that world. See if you like it better.”
You, who have bowed your head, shed
another season of antlers at my feet, for years
you fall asleep to the lullabies of dolls,
cotton-stuffed and frayed, ears damp with sleep
—from “My Nothings,” Ama Codjoe
Science and Environment
The Rays of the Sun: They cut both ways, hard, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 10/7/23: “The sun keeps pumping out more or less the same amount of energy day in and day out. It’s what we do down here on earth that will decide whether it cooks us or saves us.”
Many scientists don’t want to tell the truth about climate change. Here’s why, Barbara Moran, WBUR, 10/3/23: “1.5 C has moved from “ambitious goal” to “magical thinking.” And the scientists are telling themselves a story to stave off despair.”
In Michael Mann’s New Book, Earth’s Climate History Shows Us There’s Still Time to Act, Kara Holsopple, Allegheny Front, 10/4/23: “So, this is a critical juncture. It’s not too late to take the actions necessary to preserve our fragile moment. But if we don’t take those actions in the near term, then it will give way to something much less hospitable.” Buy the book: Our Fragile Moment
Arctic Ice Loss Could Shorten Winter Feeding Time for Zooplankton: The Arctic’s thinning sea ice allows more light to penetrate deeper into the ocean, holding zooplankton far beneath the surface, Veronika Meduna, EOS, 10/2/23
The seed guardians of Peru trying to save the potato, Kelly Oakes, BBC, 10/2/23: “… many of our favourite foods are at risk from threats like climate change and disease. The "seed guardians" of Potato Park in the Andes are hoping to change that.”
The Secret Life of Plastic: What happens to our trash once we’ve done our duty and tossed it into the right bin? Holly Hogan, The Walrus, 10/3/23: “In the absence of economic incentive, recycling rates have been abysmally low, and recycling has not turned out to be the panacea it was once thought to be.”
The US is waking up to the plastic pollution crisis, but is it too little too late? Tim Grabiel, The Hill, 10/5/23: “Virgin plastics are the fastest-growing source of industrial greenhouse gases in the world.”
The surprising reason why mammals engage in same-sex mating: A new paper suggests same-sex activity may help mammals’ social relationships, Maggie Penman, Washington Post, 10/3/23
What Do We Owe the Octopus? Mounting research suggests that cephalopods experience pain. Now, the National Institutes of Health is considering new animal welfare rules that would put them in the same category as monkeys, Emily Mullin, Wired, 10/6/23: “…cephalopods are the only independently evolved, really complex brain.”
There has been surprisingly little evidence on a global scale that wildlife reserves work. Until now: New research underscoring the efficacy of protected areas also offers some provocative insights—e.g., the benefits to species living in well-run countries is roughly equal to the benefit of living inside a protected area, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 10/4/23
Ancient footprints upend timeline of humans’ arrival in North America: New evidence adds to work showing people made these prints sometime between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post, 10/5/23
The Green Revolution is a warning, not a blueprint for feeding a hungry planet, Glenn Davis Stone, The Conversation, 10/4/23: “Recent research shows that the environmental costs of the Green Revolution are as severe as its economic impacts. One reason is that fertilizer use is astonishingly wasteful.” Book: The Agricultural Dilemma: How Not to Feed the World
Say anything, but be respectful. Say — maybe say, Heart, little heart, beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. You can whisper also, Remember, remember.—Grace Paley
Health and Wellness
Scientists discover how dozens of genes may contribute to autism, Mark Johnson, Washington Post, 10/5/23: “The new work advances research into autism by “…beginning to create a fundamental understanding of the building blocks of brain development.”
How do microplastics impact our gut health? Bird bacteria, donated poop and artificial colons: scientists piece together troubling evidence that tiny plastic bits disrupt our digestion and microbiome, Allison Guy, Environmental Health News, 10/6/23
Psychedelics plus psychotherapy can trigger rapid changes in the brain − new research at the level of neurons is untangling how, Edmund S. Higgins, The Conversation, 10/2/23: “It’s possible the brain uses its own endogenous DMT as a tool for change.”
It could be weird, but I think I'm into it
You know I'm one for the overly passionate
I like you, and I loved him
We could all be the best kind of friends
—from “In the Middle,” Dodie
Birds
The Race to Protect Endangered Condors Against Deadly Bird Flu: Avian flu vaccines hadn’t been used on birds in the U.S. until condors started succumbing to the virus last year, Rene Ebersole, Undark, 10/4/23
At least 1,000 birds died from colliding with one Chicago building in one day: McCormick Place, the largest convention center in North America, is largely covered with glass, making it a lethal obstacle for birds, Aliya Uteuova, The Guardian, 10/7/23
I just posted a new Writerscast interview with poet Baron Wormser about his fine memoir twenty five years living off the grid in rural Maine: The Road Washes Out in Spring.
This week’s news was overwhelming (again). I had to cut a number of really important stories. I hope that what is included here is still not too much to absorb. War tends to overshadow everything else, but the everything else right now is too important to ignore. We just have to stay in touch with it all. I hope we can. Be well, stay well. Do keep in touch, hearing from you makes it all worthwhile. Much love to all—David