The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 313, May 10, 2026 (V7 #1)
Where are all the bright, honest, intelligent Americans ready to step in and save the nation and lead the way? We don’t have people like that in this country. Everybody’s at the mall scratching his ass, picking his nose, taking out his credit card out of a fannie-pack, and buying a pair of sneakers with lights in them.—George Carlin
Enough is enough. Quit shrugging. If you want to save the Republic, take a chance and get busy.—Bob Garfield
Books, Music, Art, Culture
What Mothers Carry: three bodies, one inside the next, Stephen Hanmer D’Elía, Newsletter, 5/10/26: “My earliest memories of my mother live in my body. Her presence. Her attention. Before I had words for safety, my body knew it through her.”
Shoot the Shit With Jack Kerouac: In NYC, an exhibition of cherished letters, photographs, and talismans brings us into the daily life of the reluctant Beat Generation icon, Greta Rainbow, Hyperallergic, 5/6/26: Exhibit - Running Through Heaven: Visions of Jack Kerouac (Grolier Club, NYC)
Robert Coover at Bat: The postmodern writer’s 1968 baseball novel is strange and poignant—a work of fiction that ultimately argues for the vitality of fiction itself, John Semley, Nation, 5/7/26
Gaza’s Phoenix Library Rises: Omar Hamad saved all the books he could from the rubble. Now he’s built a new home for them, Husam Maarouf, The Key, 5/7/26
Thoreau the scientist – how environmental research informed ‘Walden’ and later works, Robert M. Thorson, Conversation, 5/8/26: “Thoreau made an original discovery in fluid mechanics…. also pioneered limnology, the science of lakes…. His river science predates that of the United States’ first recognized river scientist by 18 years.”
A New Catholic Resurgence? Two sincere believers and noted public intellectuals make the case for God in a secular world, Mike St. Thomas, LARB, 5/7/26: Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, Ross Douthat. Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer, Christopher Beha.
A free press, under pressure: The risks aren’t always visible—but they are reshaping what gets said, Elise Labott, Cosmopolitics, 5/4/26: “The pressure reshapes behavior on its own.”
A Dangerous New Attack on Press Freedom: According to MS NOW, the FBI has launched an investigation into an Atlantic reporter, David A. Graham, Atlantic, 5/6/26: “If the report is true, Patel appears to have launched a criminal investigation into a reporter simply because he was embarrassed by her reporting.”
The Mouse Bites Back: Disney is mounting its most aggressive pushback yet against Donald Trump’s attempts to censor his critics, signaling that the company has concluded its wiser to fight rather than fold, Jon Passantino, Status, 5/9/26: “Disney filed a blistering legal brief with the Federal Communications Commission, accusing the agency of violating ABC’s First Amendment rights by attempting to punish political content it didn’t like.”
Colleges, Maybe Try Teaching! Academia has become unrooted from pedagogy, William Deresiewicz, Persuasion, 5/7/26: “…the decline of liberal democracy, as a fact and value, has succeeded the decline of liberal education as a fact and value.”
Maestro of the Obvious: Reality Is Complicated! Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 5/5/26: “The middle path, the path of discriminating engagement, requires constant recalibration and willingness to be uncomfortable.”
How to survive the information crisis: ‘We once talked about fake news – now reality itself feels fake,’ Katherine Viner, Guardian, 5/6/26: “All of this, as much as anything, is about putting human values, communities and fellow citizens at the centre of what we do.” (Long article, worthwhile reading – No Paywall)
‘The odds are not in our favour’: who sets the Doomsday Clock – and what can they tell us about the future of humanity? Sophie McBain, Guardian, 5/9/26: “2026: Inching to doomsday. It’s 85 seconds to midnight” (No paywall)
War
The real cost of the Iran War: $72 billion for the first 60 days: The official accounting is at least $47 billion too low, Stephen Semler, Popular Information, 5/6/26
On Superpower Suicide: And the recovery of justice, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 5/9/26: “The United States has just spent billions of dollars to lose a war that enriches its oligarchs, impoverishes the citizenry, sabotages its alliances, and strengthens its enemies….no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity.”
A New Cold War, Mike Brock, Notes from Circus, 5/9/26: “We are in a new Cold War with China, and China is using Iran as a proxy in it.”
Iran War Puts the World’s Most Used Chemical in Short Supply: New Chinese export restrictions further crimp sulfuric-acid markets, Ryan Dezember, Ed Ballard, WSJ, 5/9/26 (no paywall)
When I think of all the worries
That people seem to find
And how they’re in a hurry
To complicate their minds
By chasing after money
And dreams that can’t come true
I’m glad that we are different
We’ve better things to do
May others plan their future
I’m busy loving you
One, two, three, four
Sha-la, la-la-la-la, live for today—from “Let’s Live for Today,” The Grassroots (1967)
Politics, Economics, Technology
SCOTUS’s Brazen Power Grab Guts Voting Rights: The renegade Supreme Court exhibits an over-exercise of power, open contempt for the laws Congress passes, and a heavy partisan tilt. It doesn’t have to be this way, Norman Ornstein, Contrarian, 5/4/26
The Second ‘Redemption’: The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais deals a fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act, using reasoning that Congress rejected more than forty years ago, David Cole, NYRB, 5/4/26
The Supreme Court Is Lying About Racism in America: Author Kimberlé Crenshaw says that the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court know America is not post-racial but insist on pretending that it is, Perry Bacon, TNR, 5/5/26
The Confederacy rises again: Undoing the 1960s isn’t enough. They’re even taking aim at the 1860s, Paul Waldman, Public Notice, 5/6/26
The Court didn’t just disenfranchise Blacks. It also disenfranchised cities: The Republican redistrictings strip cities of congressional representation, Harold Meyerson, American Prospect, 5/7/26
Ted Cruz Admits Trump Accounts Are Designed to Privatize Social Security Over Time: One advocate said the Texas Republican laid bare the “two-pronged strategy to push Social Security privatization: Creating the Trump accounts with one hand and gutting the Social Security Administration with the other,” Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, 5/8/26
The Trump administration is deleting government data. From infant deaths to hunger, here are five ways it’s hurting Americans: This information was used to understand the problems Americans face. The consequences of its erasure, experts warn, could affectAmy Qin, Guardian, 5/7/26 (No paywall)
Women Don’t Have Equal Rights In This Country: It’s a lot easier to understand this moment when you realize that, Anya Kamenetz, Golden Hour, 5/8/26: “It is achingly clear that our self-determination, our dignity, and our lives are not worth as much as men’s.”
Radical Left? Suddenly I miss the Yippies, Bob Garfield, Bully Pulpit, 5/7/26: “America, which sacrificed not only its sons, but important commodities and most creature comforts, to defeat European fascism in the 1940s, nowadays can’t even live without OnlyFans, FanDuel and cheese crust pizza without psychic collapse.”
Mothers are stretching every dollar — and still finding ways to care for their families: They are taking on debt, cutting back on personal medical care, delaying rent payments and skipping meals so their kids can eat. Federal cuts are poised to make things worse, Barbara Rodriguez, The 19th, 5/8/26
Insane Pre-Crime Strategy Unveiled for Leftist “Extremists”: New national counterterrorism strategy vows to “cripple them before” crimes are committed, Ken Klippenstein, Newsletter, 5/6/26
Judge rules DOGE’s cuts to humanities grants were unconstitutional: A federal judge said more than $100 million in cuts to NEH grants were discriminatory, ruling in a case that revealed the inner workings of DOGE, Meryl Kornfield, WaPo, 5/8/26
Musk’s sweetheart deal, Judd Legum, Oligarch Watch, 5/8/26: “Musk’s fine was the equivalent of fining an average American 44 cents.”
The Surveillance State Is in Your Pocket: The surveillance debate dividing Congress, Casey Burgat, Preamble, 5/8/26: “foreign surveillance can pull domestic communications into government databases. The constitutional question is not abstract.”
Graham Platner is Not a Nazi, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 5/4/26: “He is, by every available measure of his political commitments, a left-populist anti-fascist Democrat running on the proposition that working Mainers have been robbed by billionaires and the politicians who serve them.”
‘My ambition is to change the country,’ AOC says when asked about seeking higher office in 2028: New York’s Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brushed off question about run for presidency, Edward Helmore, Guardian, 5/9/26
Democrats are counting on Trump’s unpopularity to save them. It won’t. Yes, Trump might carry them to victory in the midterms. But he can’t carry them much longer – especially not in the 2028 elections, Osita Nwanevu, Guardian, 5/4/26: “[T]he Democratic brand is not predominantly woke, but weak.”
Abortion Politics Are About to Bite Trump Again: A new fault line is emerging in the president’s coalition, Andrew Egger, Bulwark, 5/5/26
Rent: A New Framework: To fix the American economy, we must attack rent—of all kinds, Silvaria Lysandra Zemaitis, Liberal Currents, 5/6/26: “We as liberals must reject the premise that defending the market economy against central planning requires accepting the status quo of extraction.”
Epstein Epstein Epstein, Michael Jochum, Newsletter, 5/7/26: “…the pattern here refuses to die.”
The Democratic Senate Map Doesn’t Look So Bad Anymore: Trump’s fall is endangering his party even in red states, John Harwood, Zeteo, 5/9/26
Greater Israel is Becoming Reality - And it’s Implications Are Terrifying, Rabbi Brant Rosen, Shalom Rav, 5/4/26: “Greater Israel is an ideology that involves a variety of odious stakeholders - and that has very real annihilatory potential.”
A culture and its history,
The Cradle of Civilization
Destroyed by remote.
Raqqa decimated
Not one stone stands.
At home, no voice is raised in outrage.
No one in the street.
That too has been
Eviscerated
I think I’ll take a selfie with all the latest
Worldwide calamities,
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,
Post it on Instagram and see who salutes.
—from “Miami in Virgo,” Sally Mansfield Abbott
AI, the Internet
The AI Job Apocalypse Is Already Happening: And What Democrats Should Pledge to Do About it, Robert Reich, Newsletter, 5/5/26: “Break up monopolis…Regulate AI…Medicare for All…Universal Basic Income.”
‘RAMageddon’: is the era of cheap phones and laptops over? Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips, Samuel Gibbs, Guardian, 5/6/26
Are We Blaming Phones for Our Bullshit? What if the inanimate objects aren’t the problem?, Jeff Maurer, I Might Be Wrong, 5/8/26
There is No Curve: My thoughts on AI risk and the confusion at the heart of AI discourse, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 5/6/26: “Intelligence belongs to substrate-relations themselves, not to computations abstracted from them.”
The Grid is Not the Ground: Escaping the simulation for the somatic, Douglas Rushkoff, Newsletter, 5/7/26: “I believe there is an alternative way of navigating reality that involves finding one’s core — heart, gut, kundalini, whatever you want to call it — and then using it lean into what’s in harmony.”
The Work of Knowledge in the Age of AI Reproduction: Extending Walter Benjamin’s Framework from Art to Knowledge, Rex Woodbury, Digital Native, 5/6/26: “Benjamin argues that every original artwork has an “aura” that stems from its uniqueness, its physical presence, its irreproducibility….The question becomes: when the cost of knowledge collapses to zero, what happens?... The knowledge economy will look a lot like the art market post-1935: a long tail that explodes in volume and collapses in price, and a top end that becomes more valuable and more concentrated.”
Thousands of Vibe-Coded Apps Expose Corporate and Personal Data on the Open Web: Companies like Lovable, Base44, Replit, and Netlify use AI to let anyone build a web app in seconds—and in thousands of cases, spill highly sensitive data onto the public internet, Any Greenberg, Wired, 5/7/26
Autonomous Agents are a Shitshow: Brace for chaos, Gary Marcus, On AI, 5/5/26
I dream their lips pressed into song for the beloved,
into song for the creator, into song for us all.
At the monastery with Alice, we daydream,
doing the laundry, washing our clothes, throwing
the sun up and over our shoulder like trouble
—from “A Monastery for Alice Coltrane,” Charleen McClure
Science, Environment, Wilderness
On Moving From Resolve to Action, Addressing the Climate Crisis: On Hope and Creating an Ode to Fixing the Planet, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, LitHub, 5/6/26: “We are a miracle. Our task and our opportunity is to face a seemingly impossible challenge and act in service of what is possible.” Book: What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures
Why Fears Are Growing Over the Fate of a Key Atlantic Current: Scientists are increasingly worried that a vast system of ocean circulation, which delivers warmth to northern Europe and impacts climate globally, is at risk of collapse. Mounting evidence suggests it may be nearing a tipping point, though the research is far from certain, Nicola Jones, Yale E360, 5/7/26
The Corpus Christi Water Countdown to ‘Day Zero’: Predictability, accountability, and hope, amidst a coastal city’s vanishing water supply, Gaige Davila, Deceleration, 5/8/26
Solar drying towers could reduce food waste, researcher says: A drying system could rescue surplus or damaged crops before they hit the landfill, Team, YCC, 5/4/26: “Keeping food out of landfills prevents it from breaking down into methane, a powerful climate-warming gas.”
California’s Battery Array Is as Powerful as 12 Nuclear Power Plants. Here’s What’s on the Horizon, Claire Barber, Inside Climate News, 5/5/26: “California is transitioning fairly quickly from using primarily natural gas resources to now using batteries.”
How car-loving American cities fell so far behind their global peers on public transit: With most major European cities well-served by trains and buses, bringing US transit up to par would cost $4.6tn, Oliver Milman, Guardian, 5/7/26 (No paywall)
Data Centers Have a PFAS Problem: While air and noise pollution are common concerns, little is known about PFAS contamination from the AI buildout, Tom Cassauwers, Sierra, 5/5/26
Over half of coral reefs bleached during a three-year heat wave: Climate change is warming ocean waters, putting reefs in peril, Team, YCC, 5/6/26
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a plastic trash nightmare. It could also be part of a much bigger, hidden problem, Laura Paddison, CNN, 5/4/26: “…microplastics have a warming impact…”
Study finds microplastics in tadpoles in the Amazon for the first time, David Brown, MongaBay, 5/5/26
The sea that is vanishing in real time, Fatemeh Roshan, DW, 5/5/26: “The world’s largest inland body of water is retreating at an alarming speed. From stranded buildings to vanishing habitats, scientists warn the Caspian Sea may be approaching a tipping point.”
What Causes Lightning? The Answer Keeps Getting More Interesting: Armed with a slew of new instruments, physicists are closing in on one of nature’s oldest mysteries — and finding that storm clouds are seething with violent and unexpected phenomena, Charlie Wood, Quanta, 5/6/26
The turtle is no more humble than the rabbit,
ever at attention with salad in its teeth.
I will always tell you if you have something in your teeth.
When it gets unstuck, I’ll go, You got it.
I don’t know how far my care goes, and I suffer for it.
Some substance pulls through my heart-shaped heart.
—from “Zero Conditional,” Sarah Jean Grimm
Health, Wellness, Wellbeing
FDA Pulled Covid Vaccine Safety Studies After Findings Showed Side Effects Were Rare: RFK Jr.’s health department halted publication of Covid vaccine safety studies showing rare side effects, researchers say, Intellectualist, 5/6/26
Vitamins and essential minerals may help minimize the impacts of endocrine disrupting chemicals, Staff, EHN, 5/8/26
Resistance: Hope and Change
Constitutional Amendments to Stop America’s Authoritarian Turn Are Doable and Necessary: Americans will back them enthusiastically—so long as they fix governance, not push partisan advantage, Andy Craig, Unpopulist, 5/5/26
The mifepristone ruling revives pro-choice politics, Robert Kuttner, American Prospect, 5/4/26: “The court ruling is outrageous, but it contrubutes to an overdue reckoning.”
What is Meant By ‘Block and Build?’ Why defeating authoritarianism is only half the work - and why the half we usually skip is the half that determines whether we win, Scot Nakagawa, Anti-Authoritarian Playbook, 5/4/26: “Democracy work and racial justice work and economic justice work are, structurally, the same work seen from three angles.”
The Case for a French Revolution: A Thought-Experiment, Sam Kahn, Castalia, 5/4/26: “the technological change of the internet has, actually, created conditions for direct democracy…”
How Democrats can avenge the demise of the VRA: The fight is far from finished, Noah Berlatsky, Public Notice, 5/5/26: “If we don’t want Jim Crow and rule by the Klan, we’d better be willing to rip up our current institutions and make better ones.”
The GOP’s naked racism demands that we respond with moral clarity, Robert B. Hubbell, Today’s Edition, 5/8/26 “Republicans have dropped all pretense.”
The Map Changed. The Mission Didn’t: On Virginia’s redistricting ruling, structural headwinds, and why the only answer is a bigger coalition, Adam Kinzinger, Newsletter, 5/8/26: “The way you overcome gerrymandered maps is not to outsmart them on paper. It’s to make them irrelevant by volume.”
How a Minneapolis Farm Turned Front Yards Into Mutual Aid: They helped feed and connect their community during a series of ICE raids. Now, the founders of Black Radish Farm are looking to the future, Elsa Wenzel, Civil Eats, 5/4/26
Disappearing into another self
Disappearing into another race
Witnessing Never saying
Tarrying and Suicide
Spying Telling the Truth
Sowing it
—from “Acts of Resistance to New England Slavery by Africans Themselves in New England,” Danielle Legros Georges
Birds
The Artist Showing Seabirds Home: The woman at the heart of a long-standing avian restoration program blends art and science to attract birds back to lost habitat, Heather Hansman, BioGraphic, 5/5/26: “They’re meant to be out there on the rocks and cliffs, showing seabirds where to come home.”
Up to half the bird species using the African-Eurasian flyway are declining, Wilson Odhiambo, MongaBay, 5/8/26
Miscellania
I interviewed the brilliant Anne Enright at Writerscast. Or listen on any podcast platform.
Dearest Friends:
This week’s been a challenge even for me, an intrepid optimist. I don’t think it’s enough to just get out the vote in the midterms. We need to prepare for a much longer struggle, especially if (as it now seems likely) we can’t overcome Trump’s obvious plans to undermine the upcoming elections.
There is always hope, but we need to be realistic too. Power once gained is not easily relinquished. And this is all about power. Theirs is the power of institutions, ours is the power of people working together. Who in the end is stronger?
Thank you again for reading TWT. Be well, take care, take heart.
Much love always,
David
I once when young howled at the moon. In the Autumn time I still am able to catch a glimpse of its brightness and this I know is the beauty I was searching for my entire life.—E. Ethelbert Miller