The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 240, December 15, 2024 (V5 #32)
The leveling demands of a generous democratic inspiration have been changed from aspirations and ideals into appetites and unconscious assumptions.— José Ortega y Gasset
Humans become obsolete when they are denied the freedom to think and read.—E. Ethelbert Miller
Books, Music, Art, Culture
How Nikki Giovanni’s Black American consciousness changed the world: One of the foremost poets of the Black arts movement died on Monday but continues to inspire her literary children, Syreeta McFadden, The Guardian, 12/14/24: “Her uncanny and ferocious mind made her one of the most prolific and accomplished poets in American literature.”
The world is not a pleasant place
to be without
someone to hold and be held by
Peter Schjeldahl’s Pleasure Principle: His art criticism fixated on the narcissism of the entire enterprise. But over six decades, his work proved that a critic could be an artist too, Zachary Fine, The Nation, 12/9/24: “One can sense that Schjeldahl knew, deep down, that criticism was about more than transmitting the pleasures of art, and that art did, in fact, have a social value—that it wasn’t just a chocolate fountain of self-serving, autotelic pleasure.” Book: The Art of Dying: Writings, 2019-2022
The Mordant Observations of a Legendary Muse: Caroline Blackwood inspired paintings by Lucian Freud and poetry by Robert Lowell. Her own work has been unjustly forgotten, Negar Azimi, New Yorker, 12/12/24: “Walker Evans photographed Blackwood more than a hundred times.”
José Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses: Remedial Media, Sam Kahn, Castalia, 12/13/24: “Ortega y Gasset has the most coruscating critique of modernity and democracy that I’m aware of this side of Nietzsche. His basic point is vanishingly simple but also difficult to argue with — that there are too many people, and more people than the architecture of civilization can handle.”
‘How many dead Palestinians are enough?’ The unbearable prescience of the late poet Refaat Alareer: The author and academic was killed in an Israeli airstrike a year ago. A posthumous collection of his work, If I Must Die, tells the stories of Gaza in a plea for change, Sarah Aziza, The Guardian, 12/10/24
If I die
you must live
to tell my story …
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
Look Who’s Talking: When did our first linguistic ancestor emerge, and how did the transition from a nonlinguistic to a linguistic state take place? Ian Tattersall, The Guardian, 12/19/24 issue: “…language clearly has not always been a feature of our lineage.” Book: The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved by Steven Mithen
On exploring the unconscious to recover your true self, Orenda Fink, Creative Independent, 12/12/24: “Fear is the number one killer of creation. It is the number one killer of joy. It used to cripple me, but I’ve developed a new relationship with it after doing years of shadow work. When fear takes hold, I ask myself two questions: ‘Is this true? And so what?’ If I answer those honestly, I can usually break free from it.”
Are Social Media Platforms the Next Dying Malls? It was cool to hang out at the mall—until it wasn't, Ted Gioia, Honest Broker, 12/12/24: “Malls died because there were too many of them. Social media is now entering that same phase….These bunkers were never real communities, and never will be. They’re just businesses—often run with distrust or contempt for their users.”
Notes On Another New Life #22: Time Travel, Laurie Stone, Oldster, 12/12/24: “Every time I experience acceptance or rejection, I imagine it determines how my life will go and also how my life has already gone. In this exercise, the future predicts the past. These thoughts feel like they have always been with me, and because they remain, I’m not aging.” Book: Streaming Now: Postcards from the Thing That Is Happening
The Only Girl in the World: On Madonna and “Desperately Seeking Susan,” Brontez Purnell pays tribute to Madonna through a close reading of her performance in “Desperately Seeking Susan,” Brontez Purnell, LA Review of Books, 12/10/24: “But for all the hoopla spent tearing Madonna down, I have to say: You can’t murder that which is immortal.”
How “Nickel Boys” Critiques the Camera in America Cinema: RaMell Ross’s drama—a remarkable one, about institutions, Black male friendship, social mimicry, and the Black political dream—feels shot through with the history of American image-making, Doreen St. Félix, New Yorker, 12/14/24
“I Do Not Consider Myself Very Scholarly”: Remembering Kris Kristofferson: The songwriter espoused a personal, hedonistic kind of spirituality, Walker Mimms, Poetry Foundation, 12/9/24: “Through his strangely stoic epicureanism, Kristofferson conjured the sense of freedom for which his songs are most celebrated.”
I have seen the morning burning golden on the mountain in the skies,
Aching with the feeling of the freedom of an eagle when she flies,
Turning on the world the way she smiled upon my soul as I lay dying,
Healing as the colors in the sunshine and the shadows of her eyes
—from “Lovin’ Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again),” Kris Kristofferson
Politics, Technology, Economics
Don't Lose Your Light This Christmas, John Pavlovitz, The Beautiful Mess, 12/14/24: “I am fighting not to let the darkness around me steal the light from within me. That doesn’t mean hiding from the truth of how terrible things are or avoiding the scale of all there is to grieve over or averting my eyes from the suffering. I'm just not going to let it have me all of me. I can’t or all will be lost.”
Elvis and the Edge of Reality: Will the United States die on the toilet? Sarah Kendzior, Newsletter, 12/9/24: “This is what it feels like to watch America in 2024. A fading star, a bittersweet song, every day feeling like a farewell tour. You are the audience but you are also Elvis: tired of performing for the benefit of people who hurt you, trying to remind yourself that the music still matters. The government is Colonel Parker, Elvis’s vicious manager, exploiting every fear.”
The Public Framing of Mass Deportation, Adam Cox, Ryan Goodman, Public Security, 12/9/24: “These approaches fail to reflect the public’s expressed preferences for immigration policy, and mislead rather than try to reason with or persuade Americans toward a more aggressive deportation policy.” DW: This is a very long piece that is well worth reading in full.
Why is America "Trumpomuskovia"? A New Name for a New Regime, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 12/9/24: “In the short run, can Trump and Musk stick together? In some sense, it would seem that they have to, since Trump needs Musk's money and Musk needs Trump's hand signing away power to him.”
Trump Goes Full Madman in Unhinged Interview, Press Nods Along: I don't know what's worse, Donald, or the coverage, Scott Dworkin, Dworkin Report, 12/10/24: “Donald told lie after lie, repeated threats against his “enemies,” and laid out terrifying details of his plan to be a dictator on day 1….But that’s not the story you get from the Press.”
The Stepford Wives of Project 2025: What Is 'Male Headship' and What Does It Mean for Trump's America? Tiffany Torres Williams, Prohect 2025 Takedown, 12/12/24: “Project 2025 is the Christian nationalist playbook for our country with conservative leadership…. The seeds of Christian Nationalism are blooming into government-sanctioned hostility for women, girls, and LGBTQ+ individuals.”
Kamala Harris Ignored Big Corporate Monopolies. It May Have Cost Her the Election: Americans are angry about corporations screwing them over - and guess what? House Dems who ran against Big Utilities and Big Pharma actually won, Zephyr Teachout, Zeteo, 12/12/24: “… the politicians who actually won – and those who got more votes than Harris in their respective districts – treated antimonopoly as the opposite of niche.”
How Democrats Misread the Environment: A look at the misleading narratives that emerged after 2020 and 2022, Michael Baharaeen, Liberal Patriot, 12/10/24: “…they misread the results of the previous two national elections, neither of which went as well for them as they believed.”
The Oligarchs are No Longer Just at the Gates — They're Moving into the White House: From historic inequality to modern foreign entanglements, America is at a turning point that will define the next century of governance…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 12/10/24
Trump Is Inheriting a Strong Economy. Will He Wreck It? The Republican president-elect sent one message to voters, but the economic team he's building sends another, John Harwood, Zeteo, 12/11/24
Trump’s Tariffs Will Put America on the Road to War: America First’s anti-war and anti-trade positions can’t be reconciled, Matthew Downhour, Unpopulist, 12/13/24
The Dumb Luck Of Donald Trump: Russia's economy is finally cratering. Can we get a better deal for Ukraine? Andrew Sullivan, Weekly Dish, 12/14/24: “… the idea that Russia always wins wars of attrition may have exceeded its expiration date.”
Welcome to the Crusades 2.0: An Interview with Matthew Taylor, author of The Violent Take it by Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening our Democracy, Rachel Bitcofer, The Cycle, 12/10/24: “…the Christian Right, now rule the party and they have big plans for Trump 2.0.” Book: The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy
How Silicon Valley is disrupting democracy: Two books explore the price we’ve paid in handing over unprecedented power to Big Tech—and explain why it’s imperative we start taking it back, Bryan Gardiner, MIT Technology Review, 12/13/24: The Venture Alchemists: How Big Tech Turned Profits into Power and The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. “Together, the books chronicle the rise of an industry that is increasingly using its unprecedented wealth and power to undermine democracy, and they outline what we can do to start taking some of that power back.”
New Florida sex education curriculum excludes almost all information about sex, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 12/10/24
Democracies Have an Attention Span Problem: Illiberalism advances under the West’s click-oriented media cycle, Sam Kahn, Persuasion, 12/10/24: “The media, with very few exceptions, finds itself a part of the click-economy.”
Reminder to America: How republics succeed, falter and fail: US faces inherent challenges that have weakened its republic, making lessons from the Roman Republic ever more necessary to avoid, John P Ruehl, Asia Times, 12/9/24: “Reform is crucial to the continuity of republican governance, yet history shows it is often compromised by entrenched power. Political dysfunction and the growing influence of corporate interests threaten to undermine the foundational principles of the US, posing a risk to its long-term stability.”
Let's stop repeating Republican talking points and call deportation what it is: kidnapping, trafficking human beings, and theft, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 12/10/24
Kakistocracy, Foxistocracy, Nepo-cracy, All at Once. Plus: What if we had a crisis and nobody cared? Charlie Sykes, To the Contrary, 12/12/24: “What, after all, did we expect, when America elected a rapey, seditionist, convicted felon, who trafficked in bigotry, lied with abandon, and promised a reign of retribution?”
The Gilded Age of Medicine Is Here: Health insurers and hospitals increasingly treat patients less as humans in need of care than consumers who generate profit, Dhruv Khullar, New Yorker, 12/12/24: “…a recent study of fifteen leading academic medical centers found that nearly half of their board members worked in finance, and only fifteen per cent were medical professionals.”
A Manifesto Against For-Profit Health Insurance Companies — by Michael Moore: I hereby give you my Oscar-nominated Documentary on the Killer Health Insurance companies like United HealthCare —SICKO — for FREE… and let’s end and replace this so-called “health care system” NOW, Michael Moore, Newsletter, 12/13/24
The Fall of Syria Changes Everything: Retired diplomat Chas Freeman and writer Pascal Lottaz discuss what happens now that Damascus is in the hands of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Chas W. Freeman Jr., The Nation, 12/11/24: “…we are at a moment in which multiple things in West Asia, the Middle East if you will, in Eurasia, and in Europe are all in flux.”
Stop and ask the night
What it stole from you
Ask the night what it stole from you, and
Can it be returned?
—from “That Certain-Something Spring,” Orenda Fink
Science, Environment
‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research: Experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections, Ian Sample, The Guardian, 12/12/24: “The threat we’re talking about is unprecedented.”
Climate Change Is Destroying Monarch Butterflies’ Winter Habitat: During their passage through Mexico, monarch butterflies depend on the shelter of endangered trees—so this scientist is leading a huge experiment to build them a new winter habitat, Andrea J. Aratabel, Wired, 12/10/24
Arctic Beavers Advance North and Accelerate Permafrost Thaw: As beavers build dams in new areas, they impound water, warming permafrost adjacent to their ponds, Grace van Deelen, Eos, 12/10/24: “Expanding beaver ranges mean more beaver ponds, which transfer more heat to surrounding soil and thaw long-frozen ground.”
Arctic Tundra Shifts to Source of Climate Pollution, According to New Report Card: NOAA scientists and affiliated researchers have documented profound change in the frozen north as U.S. government science itself faces an uncertain future, Marianne Lavelle, Inside Climate News, 12/11/24
As Seas Rise, Marshes May Still Trap Carbon—and Cool the Planet: Rising seas spell doom for coastal wetlands trapping carbon—or do they? New research reveals that as these ecosystems transition, they can still trap carbon and possibly cool the planet, Rambo Talabong, Eos, 12/10/24
As Wolf Populations Rebound, an Angry Backlash Intensifies: The reintroduction of endangered wolves to Yellowstone National Park 30 years ago was a major conservation victory. But as wolves have spread across the West, anger and resentment at the apex predator has escalated, with hunters in some states increasingly targeting them, Jim Robbins, Yale Environment 360, 12/12/24
New set of human rights principles aims to end displacement and abuse of Indigenous people through ‘fortress conservation,’ John H. Knox, The Conversation, 12/10/24: “Many Indigenous peoples, conservation organizations and others are trying to replace fortress conservation with a truly inclusive approach that safeguards human rights and the environment.”
To Speak the Language of the Land: Māori people are reclaiming their native language, even in the face of growing threats to the natural world on which it depends, Nic Low, Hakai, 12/12/24: “People are hungry to decolonize their conservation work, and to recover the nuance, the poetry, and the collective, kinship-based worldview contained in the old people’s speech.”
Researchers took the key weakness of renewable energy and made it a superpower: When they analyzed renewable energy supply and power demand at an ultra fine scale, the team discovered tremendous new opportunities for a low-cost, reliable green grid, Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 12/10/24: “Balancing fluctuations in renewable energy supply and power demand over the course of a 24-hour period ‘had a much larger impact than expected’ in terms of lowering overall energy system costs.”
Genetic research could help your favorite beans withstand climate change: Scientists are working to breed drought- and heat-tolerance traits into common beans from tepary beans, which are native to the Sonoran Desert in Mexico and the U.S., YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 12/12/24
Scientists pinpoint when humans had babies with Neanderthals: Neanderthals interbred with modern humans 47,000 years ago, passing down DNA that still exists in many modern-day people, according to two new studies, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post, 12/12/24: “…modern humans and Neanderthals had babies together for an extended period, peaking 47,000 years ago — leaving genetic fingerprints in modern-day people.”
What Is Entropy? A Measure of Just How Little We Really Know: Exactly 200 years ago, a French engineer introduced an idea that would quantify the universe’s inexorable slide into decay. But entropy, as it’s currently understood, is less a fact about the world than a reflection of our growing ignorance. Embracing that truth is leading to a rethink of everything from rational decision-making to the limits of machines, Zack Savitsky, Quanta, 12/13/24
And after all beauty is nothing
like reason, nothing like a reason to believe the things we cannot
change are the things we have to accept. My mother drives,
he car moves over the asphalt some city put down to pave a way,
to roll its people forward despite what the ground had to say,
& above the sky gathers its blues like the face of a boy
refusing to breathe until he gets his way.
—from “My Mother Says There’s Beauty Even in the Midst of Loss,” Emma Bolden
Health, Wellness
Microplastics research probes the type of dangers they may pose to our bodies, Will Stone, Leila Fadel, NPR Morning Edition, 12/9/24: “Avoid cooking with plastic, heating up plastic containers. Use a stainless steel mug, not those disposable coffee cups. You can swap your plastic containers for glass. Try not to buy household cleaners and cosmetics that are in plastic.”
How Much Formaldehyde Is in Your Car, Your Kitchen or Your Furniture? Here’s What Our Testing Found, Topher Sanders, ProPublica, 12/9/24: “Most of us face the highest risks in our homes, where formaldehyde is released by some types of furniture, gas stoves and other everyday products.”
A dial for tuning the immune system: Discovery sheds light on why COVID makes some sicker than others: Findings offer insight into what drives autoimmune diseases, Long COVID and more, Univ Colorado, ScienceDaily, 12/12/24: “…a protein variant that serves as a knob for regulating the body's innate immune response.”
Birds, Birding
Scientists just confirmed the largest bird-killing event in modern history: A marine heat wave in the Pacific Ocean that began a decade ago killed some 4 million common murres in Alaska, researchers say, Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, 12/12/24
Birding: American golden-plover, the beautiful, Madeline Kalbach, Chinook Oberver, 12/14/24: “…the American golden-plover in breeding plumage ‘can rival any shorebird for sheer beauty.’”
Please take a moment to honor the memory of the Sandy Hook children, senselessly murdered 12/14/2012….
I’ve been compiling this newsletter weekly for almost five years now. I continue to enjoy putting it together and am grateful for those of you who have written me. For all the work involved, I’d love this compilation to reach more readers, so if you can tell your friends and family to subscribe, please do. TWT is and always will be free.
Right now it is impossible not to be worried about the future but please don’t let all the terrible news defeat you. There is still so much we can do, all of us together. We can carry the light. Our connections to each other will make the difference.
Love is always the place where I begin and end.—bell hooks
We can open the door to the light.—Timothy Snyder
A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.—Thomas Jefferson
Be well everyone. Stay strong.
Love always—David