The Weird Times

Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Space

The Weird Times: Issue 25, November 1, 2020

Is something important happening this week??

The Rose Ahead

They want to roll back our rights

But we must push and push back

What holds our nation together

Is what ties us together

It's time to do the heavy lifting

VOTE

It's time to place our country

On our backs

VOTE

Let the roses bloom again

Let us inhale the sweet fragrance

of America

—E. Ethelbert Miller (You can watch The Rose Ahead as a video.)

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Putin's Dark U.S. Election Plot Is More Deceptive Than You Thought - Putin is employing an array of bots and trolls to sway the U.S. election for Trump. But how does it work? Two studies explain, Omar Benjakob, Haaretz, Oct 29, 2020

“Indeed, as the election looms, there is no doubt that an intensive effort is underway to disseminate false information and thus deceive American voters. Facebook and Twitter, with bitter experience from the 2016 election, confirm that they have identified activities linked to the Internet Research Agency, Putin’s so-called troll farm in St. Petersburg. Law enforcement, military and civilian intelligence units, from the FBI to the CIA to the U.S. Cyber Command, all attest to finding repeated evidence that Russia is working to sabotage Biden's campaign and even to try to distort actual voting through either cyberattacks or influence campaigns.”

Ambitious and holistic goals key to saving earth’s biodiversity, Liz Kimbrough, Mongabay.com, Oct 26, 2020

“The Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction, leaving humanity in a critical time to safeguard global biodiversity.”

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“It is striking that O’Donnell felt it appropriate to ask Harris if she is a socialist—and lots of people apparently think that’s a legitimate question—while no one seems to be asking Trump, who is currently in power, if he’s a fascist.”

“Over the next few years, we are going to have to have hard conversations about the role of government in society. Those conversations will not be possible if any Democratic policy to regulate runaway capitalism is met with howls of “socialism” while policies that increasingly concentrate power in a small group of Americans are not challenged for the dangerous ideologies they mimic.”—Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

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When We Talk About Fox News, We Need to Talk About the Murdoch Family Too -The Murdochs own Fox News but rarely get the scrutiny they deserve for bankrolling racism and hatred. Peter Maass, The Intercept, Oct 24, 2020

“HERE’S A TRICK question about the controversy over Hunter Biden’s laptop: Who’s most to blame for giving this pseudo-scandal more attention than it deserves? The New York Post for publishing the first sketchy article, or Fox News for elevating it in broadcast after broadcast?

The answer is neither. The guiltiest party is the Murdoch family, which owns both outlets. Fox and the Post are key parts of a media empire assembled over the decades by 89-year-old Rupert Murdoch, who now shares ownership with his six children, one of whom is chief executive of the family’s main company, Fox Corporation. While the Post doesn’t register much with readers outside New York, Fox is of course a national brand with a gusher of profits that has helped turn each of the Murdochs into multibillionaires. Given that Fox is a “central node” of the far-right conspiracy machine, it’s fair to regard the Murdochs as America’s first family of disinformation.”

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How to make restaurants safer during the pandemic, Charlotte Jee, MIT Technology Review Oct 28, 2020

“Eating in a restaurant is one of the riskiest things you can do during the coronavirus pandemic. To understand why, you need to think about the latest science around how covid-19 passes from person to person. The evidence has been mounting for months now that aerosols—which are smaller than droplets and can hang in the air like smoke—are a significant route for infections, if not the main one. This would explain why virtually every recorded coronavirus outbreak has occurred indoors, and why there’s an increasingly strong recorded link between eating out and catching the coronavirus. Sadly, the official advice to the public still hasn't caught up. As a result, many restaurants are still stuck doing “pandemic theater”—interventions that provide the appearance of safety, but little in the way of real protection.

What they should be doing: There’s no way to reduce the risk to zero, but by layering measures like outdoor eating where possible, mask-wearing when not eating, and improving ventilation inside restaurants, it can be greatly reduced.”

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Top FEC Official’s Undisclosed Ties to Trump Raise Concerns Over Agency Neutrality—A top Federal Election Commission official, whose division regulates campaign cash, has shown support for President Trump and has close ties to his 2016 campaign attorney, Don McGahn. Experts said the actions raise questions about impartiality. —Mike Spies and Jake Pearson, ProPublica, Oct. 28, 2020

“Debbie Chacona oversees the division of the Federal Election Commission that serves as the first line of defense against illegal flows of cash in political campaigns. Its dozens of analysts sift through billions of dollars of reported contributions and expenditures, searching for any that violate the law. The work of Chacona, a civil servant, is guided by a strict ethics code and long-standing norms that employees avoid any public actions that might suggest partisan leanings.

But Chacona’s open support of President Donald Trump and her close ties to a former Republican FEC commissioner, Donald McGahn, who went on to become the 2016 Trump campaign’s top lawyer, have raised questions among agency employees and prompted at least one formal complaint.”

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Science will save us.

Artificial intelligence model detects asymptomatic Covid-19 infections through cellphone-recorded coughs - Results might provide a convenient screening tool for people who may not suspect they are infected. Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office October 29, 2020

“In a paper published recently in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, the team reports on an AI model that distinguishes asymptomatic people from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings, which people voluntarily submitted through web browsers and devices such as cellphones and laptops.

The researchers trained the model on tens of thousands of samples of coughs, as well as spoken words. When they fed the model new cough recordings, it accurately identified 98.5 percent of coughs from people who were confirmed to have Covid-19, including 100 percent of coughs from asymptomatics — who reported they did not have symptoms but had tested positive for the virus.

The team is working on incorporating the model into a user-friendly app, which if FDA-approved and adopted on a large scale could potentially be a free, convenient, noninvasive prescreening tool to identify people who are likely to be asymptomatic for Covid-19. A user could log in daily, cough into their phone, and instantly get information on whether they might be infected and therefore should confirm with a formal test.”

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Neutrons chart atomic map of COVID-19’s viral replication mechanism, Eurekalert, DOE/Oak Ridge Lab, Oct 27, 2020

“To better understand how the novel coronavirus behaves and how it can be stopped, scientists have completed a three-dimensional map that reveals the location of every atom in an enzyme molecule critical to SARS-CoV-2 reproduction.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron scattering to identify key information to improve the effectiveness of drug inhibitors designed to block the virus's replication mechanism. The research is published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.”

Protecting nature is vital to escape 'era of pandemics’ Halting destruction of wild places could slow frequency of deadly outbreaks, say scientists, Damian Carrington, The Guardian, Oct 29, 2020

“The world is in an “era of pandemics” and unless the destruction of the natural world is halted they will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, kill more people and affect the global economy with more devastating impact than ever before, according to a report from some of the world’s leading scientists.

The emergence of diseases such as Covid-19, bird flu and HIV from animals was entirely driven by the razing of wild places for farming and the trade in wild species, which brought people into contact with the dangerous microbes, the experts said.

“The risk of pandemics is increasing rapidly, with more than five new diseases emerging in people every year, any one of which has the potential to become pandemic,” the report says.”

Pine Siskins Have Taken Over the Country, From coast to coast, the species has irrupted in astounding numbers,Andrew Del-Colle, Audubon, Oct 23, 2020

“If you've never seen a Pine Siskin, this is your year. In the past month, the birds have invaded the United States in search of food, inundating backyard feeders across the country. Without question, it's one of the biggest irruption years in recorded history for the finches.

Brown and heavily striped with a flash of bright yellow on their wings and tails, Pine Siskins are typically found in abundance across Canada, and to a lesser extent in the U.S., in northern states and higher elevations of the west and northeast, as well as parts of Mexico. This year, though, they are everywhere in-between.”

Religious Test Clause of the Constitution? Michael Rips Makes the Case She Was Chosen Precisely Because of Her Religious Beliefs

I think it is best to read the entire piece quoted below, or better yet, Michael Rips’ book – but this is very enticing:

“Last year, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in a public exchange at Hillsdale College, announced that the “religious test clause” of the Constitution made it “unconstitutional to even consider [religion] as a qualification for public office.”…. As to the definition of a “religious test,” there is nothing in the clear meaning of the word “test” or its common law definition at the time of the Constitutional Convention to suggest that the word was limited to anything but its conventional and expansive meaning. No formal inquiries, declarations or even express utterances were required. Judge Barrett’s interpretation of the clause at Hillsdale supports such a reading…

This raises the question of whether Barrett’s religious beliefs and the degree to which her statements, writings, and judicial opinions conform to those beliefs, were a critical part of Trump’s decision in nominating her and hence violated the religious test provision. There is more than enough evidence in the public record to support the filing of a complaint that the Constitution was breached: according to published reports from sources within the Trump administration and his re-election campaign staff, with Trump trailing in the polls and with the polls showing a decline in his support among evangelicals (a group perceived to be essential to his re-election), Trump decided to nominate a judge who had been pre-approved by evangelical leaders. After consulting with evangelical leaders, he chose Barrett.” From Objection! The People Vs. Amy Coney Barrett by Michael Rips. OR Books.

TOUCHE ORIGINALISTS! Now, will someone please file an objection to Barrett’s being seated based on these grounds and force the Supreme Court to review the case?

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“As a candidate four years ago, Trump criticized President Barack Obama for using executive orders. Then he embraced them. Trump’s 193 orders to date exceed the 147 issued by Obama in his first term. “But presidential scholars said the most notable difference is Trump’s eagerness to embrace a tool that most presidents have treated more as a last resort — stretching the boundaries of executive authority in ways likely to outlast him, whether through policies that endure or greater leeway for future presidents to deploy executive power,” Anne Gearan reports. Washington Post, Oct 29, 2020

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Republicans naturally see nothing wrong with collecting reams of private data about voters for their own purposes, while attacking tech companies for doing the same thing. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.

How Politicians Target You: 3000 data points on every voter, including your phone number, Geoffrey A. Fowler, Washington Post, Oct 27, 2020

“Blame the assault on the voter data economy, in which candidates, parties and nonprofits quietly collect, buy and exploit a ton of information about you.

Their files treat your contact details like a matter of public record and can be more intimate than credit applications, including your income, debt, family, ethnicity, religion, gym habits, whether you own a gun and what kind of car you drive. In 2020, campaigns use this data to microtarget us with record numbers of online ads, mailers, knocks on the door and text messages.”

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Charting the Long-Term Impact of Trump’s Judicial Appointments —Beyond the Supreme Court, not only has President Donald Trump appointed judges at a quicker pace than his predecessor, he’s appointing younger judges who may serve for many more years — Moiz Syed, ProPublica, October 30, 2020.

• District courts, the federal trial courts, have seen 165 new justices appointed by Trump, averaging 51 years old. District court judges tend to retire around age 66.

• Appellate courts, which rule as three-judge panels and are the last word before the Supreme Court, have seen 53 new justices appointed by Trump, averaging 48 years old. Appeals court judges tend to retire around age 68.

• Trump has nominated three justices to the Supreme Court, averaging 50 years old. Barrett, the newest and youngest of the three, could be on the court into 2053 based on average retirement ages for modern Supreme Court justices.

Berkeley antiwar activists separate fact from fiction in ‘Trial of the Chicago 7’, Frances Dinkilspiel, Berkeleyside.com, Oct 28, 2020

The Nexflix movie has provoked reactions both positive and negative in Berkeley where many people involved in the anti-war movement, and the trial at the heart of the film, live.

I thought the film was terrific, but has some serious flaws in the way it portrayed the people and the times. Flaws notwithstanding, filmmaker Aaron Ross Sorkin has made a film that will engage audiences and help them understand some of the realities of the counter culture’s collision with the power structure of the government. It demonstrates clearly the huge power that was (and is even more so now) in the hands of government, and how difficult – and necessary – it is for individuals to stand up to make their voices heard. And yes, bodies are on the line. Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered in his own apartment just a few miles away from the courtroom.

A generation of poets is passing. This week we lost the extraordinary Diane Di Prima.

You can watch a film about Diane, The Poetry Deal online. And on YouTube, a fantastic reading she did Thanksgiving, 1976, selected poems from her important book Loba

In her memoir Recollections of My Life as a Woman, di Prima writes of her early encounters with Paracelsus’ alchemical teachings:

“…there was a part of me that recognized even what was the most obscure in those pages as inevitable and true. It was the same organ of recognition that is at work when one’s whole being says “yes” to a painting, a piece of music, even though it’s like nothing we’ve known before…There is some infallible mechanism in us, something like a dowsing rod of the heart, and it moves in us sometimes—moves seldom, but with total authority.”

Out of the heart of the ineffable
draw the black flecks of matter
& from these
the cold, blue fire.
Dry water. Immerse
yourself
though it be but a drop.
This Iliaster
flowers like the wind.
Out of the ash, the Eidolon of the world

—Diane Di Prima, from Paracelsus

The great singer/songwriterJerry Jeff Walker died October 23, 2020

It's The Faces I Remember—Jerry Jeff Walker, October 2020

I’ve lost so many friends now

my life seems like a dream

all the things we did with joy

and all that laughter in between

the times that we were rascals

and the poetry we shared

they said our heads were in the clouds

but I said our hearts were everywhere

Jerry Jeff was always “Contrary to Ordinary.”

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“I’ve long said the story of America is a story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Joe Biden said last week. Well, ordinary old Joe, it’s your turn now. Do the extraordinary. —Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish, Oct 29, 2020

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Elections have consequences is an expression used by Republicans as a political “I told you so” justification for trampling on the rights and interests of the other side. This week’s election will have the most meaningful consequences of any election in the modern era. Much hangs in the balance. I hope we do not give Moscow Mitch and his cronies another opportunity to mouth their hypocritical platitudes while they destroy democracy. But it is very possible that we are about to enter an extremely dark time. As our current politics show us, democracy is a fragile social compact. As the pandemic has demonstrated, humans are not necessarily as smart or capable as we seem to think we are. And as climate change has shown us, humans are almost completely incapable of long term, big scale awareness that leads to structural change to a civilization.

Optimism about our ability to adapt and change has to be tempered by reality. What we are seeing in human behavior in the face of crisis is not inspiring.

But on the positive side, we must celebrate the fact that Americans are taking voting seriously on a historic level. That is indeed a hopeful sign. Young people are engaged. It is their world we are destroying, and it is their future to shape and build. We all need to support them as they work so desperately to create a sustainable society. It may mean massive and uncomfortable change is yet ahead of us.

Meanwhile, there’s another expression I hope will be true this time: “Winners never cheat and cheaters never win.”

See you next week.