The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 80, November 21, 2021 (V2 #28)
New England once hunted and killed humans for money. We’re descendants of the survivors: The settlers whom many Americans mythologize at Thanksgiving as peace-loving Pilgrims issued government orders offering cash for dead Native American children, Dawn Neptune Adams, Maulian Dana, Adam Mazo, The Guardian, 11/15/21: “For more than 10,000 years, the Wabanaki peoples have been living in a region called the Dawnland. Captain John Smith rebranded the area “New England” in a map he made in 1614. He and the other colonial settlers renamed rivers and villages to claim the land for themselves and erase Native people from their homelands. But that wasn’t enough. Eventually colonial officials introduced a grisly incentive to hasten that erasure: bounties for dead Native Americans.”
If we’re going to choose a day for Native American Heritage Day when school is out, then how about Thanksgiving Day itself? Why not? That way we could learn about the real history of the holiday, and not the romanticized version we all hear about. —Simone Moya-Smith
The best thing about humans: Our ability to forgive. The second
best thing: Grudges.
About 70% white meat and 30% dark, with canned cranberry sauce. And
no, I don't care how good your homemade cranberry sauce is.
—Sherman Alexie, from “Happy Holidays”
“The voice of the inanimate object, therefore, should not be stilled. That does not mean that the judiciary takes over the managerial functions from the federal agency. It merely means that before these priceless bits of Americana (such as a valley, an alpine meadow, a river, or a lake) are forever lost or are so transformed as to be reduced to the eventual rubble of our urban environment, the voice of the existing beneficiaries of these environmental wonders should be heard.
Perhaps they will not win. Perhaps the bulldozers of "progress" will plow under all the aesthetic wonders of this beautiful land. That is not the present question. The sole question is, who has standing to be heard?” —William O. Douglas's Dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton (1972)
Indigenous thinking and the future of civilization, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 11/19/21: “Tyson Yunkaporta: “The most remarkable thing about Western civilization is its ability to absorb any object or idea, alter it, sanitize it, rebrand it, and market it.” (from Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World)….Considering Indigenous perspectives is not some sort of “nice-to-have” option, in my opinion. If we want to find a healthier path forward, some alternative to the tech billionaires’ self-serving projects, we need to open the conversation much further than we have to date. Western science and Indigenous wisdom: we need both.”
Politics
Pride and prejudice: Forget critical race theory. Let's talk about critical race facts, Lucian Truscott IV, Newsletter, 11/20/21: “Opposition to critical race theory won’t save you from the ugly truths about white supremacy.”
Redistricting Roundup: What’s Happened Across the Country So Far, Marc Elias, Democracy Docket, 11/12/21
Why do Democrats let Republicans set the terms of debate? E.J. Dionne, Washington Post, 11/14/21
The Man Who Made January 6 Possible: The story of Johnny McEntee—the “deputy president” who rose to power at precisely the moment when democracy was falling, Jonathan Karl, The Atlantic, 11/8/21
The Bad Guys Are Winning: If the 20th century was the story of slow, uneven progress toward the victory of liberal democracy over other ideologies—communism, fascism, virulent nationalism—the 21st century is, so far, a story of the reverse, Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 11/15/21
Things don't work the way they did anymore: Give up on the courts. The judicial system that solved Watergate won't work now, Lucian Truscott IV, Newsletter, 11/15/21
Texts Show Kimberly Guilfoyle Bragged About Raising Millions for Rally That Fueled Capitol Riot: Text messages reviewed by ProPublica represent the strongest indication yet that members of the Trump family inner circle were involved in financing and organizing the Jan. 6 “Save America” rally, which immediately preceded the Capitol riot, Joaquin Sapien/Joshua Kaplan, ProPublica, 11/18/21
Urea shortage threatens to paralyze South Korea's economy: Dearth of industrial material betrays nation's dependence on commodity imports, Steven Borowiec, NikkeiAsia, 11/17/21
The Seven Lawmakers Who Will Decide the Climate’s Fate: Negotiations in Washington, D.C., are far more important than those in Glasgow, Scotland, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 11/17/21
Head of federal agency responsible for wildly inaccurate jobs numbers is Trump holdover, David Badash, Alternet, 11/18/21 (Ed. Note – are we surprised?)
Climate
Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope: It’s easy to despair at the climate crisis, or to decide it’s already too late – but it’s not. Here’s how to keep the fight alive, Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, 11/18/21: “We must remake the world, and we can remake it better. The Covid-19 pandemic is proof that if we take a crisis seriously, we can change how we live, almost overnight, dramatically, globally, digging up great piles of money from nowhere, like the $3tn the US initially threw at the pandemic.”
Will the Climate Crisis Cause the Collapse of Society? Chris Begley, LitHub, 11/18/21: “As an archaeologist, I see evidence that a profound, perhaps apocalyptic, change is bound to happen sooner or later.”
Casey Harrell: the climate activist taking on Wall Street – and the muscle-wasting disease that’s killing him: The 43-year-old co-founder of BlackRock’s Big Problem knows he may not have long to live, thanks to the neurodegenerative disease ALS. But that won’t stop him holding the US’s biggest investors to account, Patrick Greenfield, The Guardian, 11/17/21
The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing: Since the 1980s, fossil fuel firms have run ads touting climate denial messages – many of which they’d now like us to forget. Here’s our visual guide, Jeffrey Supran, Naomi Oreskes, The Guardian, 11/18/21
It’s time to delete carbon from the atmosphere. But how? It’s not enough to drastically slash emissions—we need more carbon capture, Matt Simon, Ars Technica, 11/8/21
Beans May Be the ‘Food of the Future,’ but U.S. Farmers Aren’t Planting Enough: Legumes are exceptionally good for people and soil, but high prices for corn and soy, plus extreme weather due to climate change, are threatening domestic production, Lisa Held, Civil Eats, 11/15/21
Why protecting the Okefenokee Swamp matters for the climate: Conservationists worry that a proposed mine could result in damage to the carbon-rich peat soils in the swamp on the Georgia-Florida border, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 11/15/21
How to Repair the World’s Broken Carbon Offset Markets: Markets that connect businesses hoping to offset their carbon emissions with climate change mitigation projects have been plagued by problems. But an economist and his co-authors argue that carbon markets can be reformed and play a significant role in slowing global warming, Robert Mendelsohn, Robert Litan, John Fleming, Yale Environment 360, 11/18/21
Cargo ships and tankers could cut carbon pollution by harnessing the wind: The shipping industry is considering an old solution to a modern problem, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 11/16/21
Wildfires accelerating tree migration from climate change: study, Sharon Udasin, The Hill, 11/16/21
Small farms battle speculators over centuries-old water rights in drought-stricken Colorado: A small farming community is racing to secure rights that will protect the centuries-old irrigation system they need to survive, Jennifer Oldham, National Geographic, 11/15/21
The pesticide ban movement gains momentum: Cities and counties are increasingly banning toxic pesticides—and some are taking aim at fertilizers. But industry attempts to buck local efforts remain a significant hurdle, Meg Wilcox, Environmental Health News, 11/16/21
Mich. city offers new model for 100% clean power, Jeffrey Tomich, E&E News, 11/15/21
Kids and Climate Change: New Book Exposes Why Some Schools Fail to Teach the Science: In Miseducation, investigative journalist Katie Worth reveals big inequities in climate education and a gap that mirrors state politics, Tara Luhan, The Revelator, 11/15/21
CRISPR and the Climate: How Gene Editing Can Help Cut Emissions, Emma Kovak, Robert Paarlberg, Foreign Affairs, 11/18/21
Flooding and nuclear waste eat away at a Tribe’s ancestral home: A stockpile of nuclear waste from a power plant next to their reservation, which the federal government reneged on a promise to remove in the 1990s, has tripled in size. It comes within 600 yards of some residents' homes, Pete Myers, Environmental Health News, 11/13/21
How Will the World Order Change in the Next Century? The Impact of Climate Change on Shifting Global Politics, Alfred McCoy, LitHub, 11/15/21: “… climate change pressures on the current international system will likely converge with China’s expanding economic and military power around 2030 to catalyze the transition to a new hegemon and a new world order cast in its image. If so, the impact on the three intertwined issues that have long been the hallmark of global governance—national sovereignty, human rights, and energy—will be profound.”
Wildness on a Whim: Reflections on Whimbrel in the South Carolina Lowcountry, J. Drew Lanham, All About Birds, 10/13/21: “Wildness is life lived on whim. It is the unpredictable spur-of-the-moment change or the chain of unlikely events fallen upon birds and beasts without restraint or barriers to keep them “safe” and under some semblance of control.”
Kulcha
In Praise of the Meander: Rebecca Solnit on Letting Nonfiction Narrative Find Its Own Way: Timejumps, Fragments, Backward Glances, Parallel Subjects... Not Just for Novel, Rebecca Solnit, LitHub, 11/10/21
No straight lines: Alison Bechdel and the unstoppable rise of queer comics: The artist discusses her role in an eye-opening new documentary that trails the history of LGBTQ+ comic books and the people behind them, Veronica Esposito, The Guardian, 11/16/21: “‘When I got started as a cartoonist in the early 1980s, I was conscious of it as a form that nobody was going to criticize, and that just gave me a great sense of freedom and possibility’ … Alison Bechdel”
Three Simple Tricks for Writing Your Novel FAST!!! Walk! Nap! Write! Gary Shteyngart, LitHub, 11/19/21. His new novel is Our Country Friends.
A Close Reading of the QAnon Shaman’s Conspiracy Manifesto: How RFK Jr., Naomi Wolf, and an NYU Professor Ended Up on the Same Page as QAnon Cultist Jacob Chanley, Mark Dery, LitHub, 11/15/21: “In raising doubts about public-health authorities like Fauci, the CDC, and the WHO, Kennedy, Wolf, and Miller seem to see themselves as standard-bearers of the 1960s activism whose bumper-sticker slogan was Question Authority. Conspiracism is a counterculture—a counterculture of counternarratives.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones became a political target. What she’s learned from the ‘hurtful’ attacks, Liz Granderson, LA Times, 11/14/21: ““Who would think that a single work of journalism would become a Republican talking point, would be in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, would be named in legislation across the country?”
The Elephant Who Could Be a Person: The most important animal-rights case of the 21st century revolves around an unlikely subject, Jill Lepore, The Atlantic, 11/16/21: “No case like this has ever reached so high a court, anywhere in the English-speaking world.”
Boids
FOR THE HUMMINGBIRD CIRCLING MY HEAD
it’s all right
mistaking me for a flower
it hasn’t happened
in such a long time
I forgot
how sweet
my bloom can be
22 mar 20 — Alex Gildzen
Stunning birds shown off to glorious effect in new photography book, Gege Li, New Scientist, 11/3/21: Birds by Tim Flach
"Migration has started": Where to see bald eagles returning to Colorado in big numbers, Spencer McKee, Out There Colorado, 11/18/21
Each winter, 100,000 Tundra Swans descend on Northern California. Here's how to see them, Amy Alonzo, Reno Gazette Journal, 11/17/21
Up And Coming: Whooping cranes returning to Texas as numbers climb, Steve Knight, Tyler Morning Telegraph, 11/18/21
EPA Restores Clean Water Act Protections for Important Wetlands along Mississippi River: By blocking the destructive and ineffective Yazoo Pumps project, the EPA can protect bird habitat while also supporting alternative flood control measures for the region, National Audubon Society, Audubon, 11/18/21
To Save a Seabird, Scientists Must Restore Balance to an Island Ecosystem: On the Farallon Islands, invasive mice and hungry owls are a deadly combination that threatens the endangered ashy storm petrel, Sierra Cistone, The Revelator, 11/17/21
Science
IBM creates largest ever superconducting quantum computer: IBM has made a 127-qubit quantum computer. This is over double the size of comparable machines made by Google and the University of Science and Technology of China, Matthew Sparkes, New Scientist, 11/15/21
To Be Energy-Efficient, Brains Predict Their Perceptions: Results from neural networks support the idea that brains are “prediction machines” — and that they work that way to conserve energy, Anil Ananthaswami, Quanta Magazine, 11/15/21
Glowing Worms Could Shed Light On the Secrets of Regeneration: Cut a panther worm into thirds and each section will grow a new body. Researchers injected some with a fluorescent protein to study how, Jennifer Ouellette, Wired, 11/13/21
This new startup has built a record-breaking 256-qubit quantum computer QuEra Computing, launched by physicists at Harvard and MIT, is trying a different quantum approach to tackle impossibly hard computational tasks, Siobhan Roberts, MIT Technology Review, 11/18/21
A New Camera Can See Through Almost Anything, Including Human Tissue and Bones With a potential to image fast-moving objects, Loukia Papadapoulos, Interesting Engineering, 11/19/21
Cancer cells use ‘tiny tentacles’ to suppress the immune system: With the power of nanotechnology, investigators have discovered that cancer cells strengthen by forming nanotubes that they use to suck mitochondria out of immune cells, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Eurekalert! 11/19/21
This Next-Generation Nuclear Power Plant Is Pitched for Washington State. Can it ‘Change the World’? Proponents say new, small reactors could play a critical role in reducing climate-warming greenhouse gases. Environmentalists aren’t sold, pointing to waste, safety and cost issues, Hal Bernton, Inside Climate News, 11/15/21
Finally, a Practical Use for Nuclear Fusion: Researchers used the roiling temperatures of an experimental fusion reactor for a surprising purpose: testing heat shield materials for spacecraft, Amit Katwala, Wired, 11/15/21
The Pandemic’s Next Turn Hinges on Three Unknowns: A potential winter surge is up to vaccines, variants, and us, Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 11/18/21: “However these three unknowns play out this winter, COVID will eventually begin to fade as a disruptive force in our lives as it becomes endemic.”
What's behind the rapid disappearance of the delta variant in Japan? It could be self-extinction, Osamu Tsukimori, Japan Times, 11/18/21: “But as the mutations piled up, we believe it eventually became a faulty virus and it was unable to make copies of itself. Considering that the cases haven’t been increasing, we think that at some point during such mutations it headed straight toward its natural extinction.”
AstraZeneca Covid antibody treatment ‘more effective than vaccines after six months’ Trial suggests single dose of AZD7442 reduces risk of symptomatic virus by 83 per cent and could last for a year, Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph, 11/18/21
Dissecting the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, Michael Worobey, Science, 11/19/21
The Covid lab leak theory just got even stronger, Matt Ridley, The Spectator, 11/20/21: “the outbreak happened in a city with the world’s largest research programme on bat-borne corona-viruses, whose scientists had gone to at least two places where these Sars-CoV-2-like viruses live, and brought them back to Wuhan — and to nowhere else.”
November 22, 1963
JFK assassination a collective memory for American children, Sarah LeTrent, CNN, 3/31/2014
Didn't you love the things that they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?
Abraham, Martin & John, sung by Dion DiMucci, written by Dick Holler
“We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as people. Now our minds are one.” —Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address
Love to all who receive this, blessings and best wishes. Be well, stay strong. Keep in touch. Our connections to one another matters. Give thanks—David