The Weird Times

Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 238, December 1, 2024 (V5 #30)

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.—Justice Louis Brandeis

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.—Toni Morrison

Each of us is put here in this time and this place to personally decide the future of humankind. Did you think the Creator would create unnecessary people in a time of such terrible danger? Know that you yourself are essential to this World.—Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the 19th Keeper of the White Buffalo Calf Pipe

I shall continue to be an impossible person so long as those who are now possible remain possible.—Mikhail Bakunin

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CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

I will break all laws for love.

I will reject loneliness and free my heart from prison.

I die each day I am not caressed.

I have two hands and that is not enough.

I have kisses with expiration dates.

I have a body that has organized against heartbreak.

I have desires that refuse to be arrested.

—E. Ethelbert Miller

Books, Music, Art, Culture

Pride and protest: a photographic history of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights: Images by Fred W McDarrah feature in a new exhibition that follows key moments of community and liberation, Veronica Esposito, The Guardian, 11/26/24: “He was there, and he felt it and loved it and you could see that in his images. He’s history.”

“Flowers In the Rain”: An Overdue Look at The Move, Eoghan Lyng, Culture Sonar, 11/28/24: “The Move was (frequently)magnificent…” Song: “Ella James, Take 1”

Miigwechiwendam: To Be Thankful: What a thousand-year-old Indigenous prayer teaches us about reciprocity and healing from the destructive consumption of our society, Winona LaDuke, Barn Raiser, 11/27/24: “We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our mother, we send greetings and thanks. Now our minds are one.”

What Young Journalists Can Learn From Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Message: on Coates’s Journalistic Politic, Aaron Boehmer, LitHub, 11/25/24: “…an inhumane system demands inhumans.”

Zero Tolerance of Misogyny: Redoubling Efforts to Dissolve Toxic Masculinity, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 11/26/24: “I’m calling on my fellow men to join me in intensifying our efforts to nurture the sovereignty and safety of women.”

Do our stories matter? On writing in a time of despair, Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me, 11/27/24: “We write because words are the most powerful tool of citizens in a regime that seeks to erase their existence. We write to make it known that we are here. We write to make a personal accounting of who we are in the face of a power that wants to erase us.”

Embrace the Shift to ‘Prosocial Media:’ Engagement and profits on social platforms are built on fomenting dissatisfaction and disinformation—but there’s a better alternative, Audrey Tang, Wired, 11/26/24: “Decentralization holds the promise of a more democratic internet, where people have greater control over their data and online experiences, leading to a proliferation of local communities, all interconnected through open protocols.”

What's Really Going On? Notes On Post-Industrial Space, Sam Kahn, Castalia, 11/27/24: “The point for now is that the dynamics of the archipelago are rapidly proving irresistible. The industrialized system is impossibly unsustaining. The archipelago is the new shape. It needs its myths and philosophies at least as much as it needs a viable economic system.”

To Counteract Apocalyptic Technoscience, We Need New Myths, Kimberly D. McKinson, Public Books, 11/26/24: “Apocalyptic times require that we relate anew to the nonhuman things such as the asteroids and planets that co-constitute our cosmic existence. Said otherwise, Western technoscience and its standard bearers must ethically and politically evolve to embrace new myths.”

An Uncertain Future Requires Uncertain Prediction Skills: Forecasting is both art and science, reliant on both rigor and luck—but you can develop a mindset that anticipates and plans ahead, David Spiegelhalter, Wired, 12/1/24: “…embrace uncertainty and turn it into an opportunity….Think Fast and Slow About Uncertainty, Acknowledging the Unknown, Being Prepared to be Surprised…”

No Ordinary Joe: Reading the letters of Joe Brainard, Daniel Felsenthal, The Baffler, 11/27/24: “His opus, I Remember, is a sui generis, touching, nostalgic, brilliant book whose approachability has become its greatest liability….His letters tend to grapple with realities only slightly less universal than the inevitable end: namely, sex and money.”

I remember saying “thank you” when the occasion doesn’t call for it.

I remember shaking big hands.

I remember saying “thank you” in reply to “thank you” and then the other person doesn’t know what to say.

—from “I Remember,” Joe Brainard

Politics, Economics, Technology

‘Woke’ didn’t lose the US election: the patrician class who hijacked identity politics did: Why is this simple explanation being so widely embraced? Because it does not require a commitment to real, structural change, Nesrine Malik, The Guardian, 11/25/24: “…aggressive rightwing culture-war messaging is capitulated to because, to borrow from Yeats, liberals lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity.”

Trump victory not a mandate for radical change, top election forecaster says US expert who predicted outcome says models showed voters were unhappy with economy but did not seek sweeping transformation, Chris Stein, The Guardian, 11/28/24: “If this election can be explained by what voters thought of Biden and Harris and economic conditions, it really goes against the notion of a mandate for major change from Trump.”

The alternate reality of RFK and the antivaxers: Human consensus versus the laws of the Universe, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 11/27/24: “Most of us think of reality as being extant in the world around us — that is, it doesn’t matter what we think or believe about reality, it just is there, and we have to deal with it.”

The Texas Ob-Gyn Exodus: Amid increasingly stringent abortion laws, doctors who provide maternal care have been fleeing the state, Stephania Taladrid, New Yorker, 11/25/24: “We’re just not going to have enough people to take care of women in this state.”

Inside The Plan To Let Trump Track Millions of Immigrants: The private prison lobby has been quietly pushing a drastic expansion of ICE’s surveillance apparatus. Trump’s reelection may be the final step, Katya Schwenk, The Lever, 11/26/24: “ICE estimated there were 5.7 million people in immigration proceedings.”

Corporate Media Must Stop Sanewashing Trump's Cabinet Picks: None of this is normal, Scott Dworkin, Dworkin Report, 11/25/24

Mexican President’s Harsh Takedown of Trump Exposes an Ugly MAGA Scam: Claudia Sheinbaum’s response to Trump’s threat of tariffs revealed truths that the president-elect doesn’t want Americans to know, Greg Sargent, New Republic, 11/27/24: “If Trump wants Mexico to crack down on unauthorized migration through its territory, then Biden has already gotten Mexico to do that to a greater extent than anyone has ever done before. He did it without tariffs.”

How Trump Plans to Seize the Power of the Purse From Congress: The second-term president likely will seek to cut off spending that lawmakers have already appropriated, setting off a constitutional struggle within the branches. If successful, he could wield the power to punish perceived foes, Molly Redden, ProPublica, 11/26/24

Stopping the Press: After spending years painting the media as the “enemy of the people,” Donald Trump is ready to intensify his battle against the journalists who cover him, David Remnick, New Yorker, 11/30/24: “…these threats and potential actions are hardly the stuff of legal arcana or the frenzied obsessions of self-involved Podsnapian journalists. They are the arsenal of a would-be autocrat who seeks to intimidate his critics, protect himself from scrutiny, and go on wearing away at the liberal democratic order.”

The Kash Patel Principle: Trump’s choice for FBI director speaks volumes about his real second-term agenda, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 11/30/24: “If you want to assemble the infrastructure of an authoritarian government, this is how you do it.”

The Trump Marathon: If Americans want to hold Trump accountable in a second term, they must keep their heads when he uses chaos as a strategy, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 11/25/24: “If his opponents react to every piece of bait he throws in front of them, they will lose their bearings.”

The Smarter Anti-Trump Resistance: More Facts, Less Outrage: What the latest polls on the Trump transition tell us about how to fight back during his second term, Michael Tomaskey, New Republic, 11/25/24: “We needn’t lose our conviction that Trump is a dangerous extremist. That conviction is correct and will be proven so….The person most likely to discredit Trump is Trump himself.”

The Answer to Democrats’ Class Problem Is Staring Them in the Face: The climate crisis offers one of the strongest fields imaginable for proving fealty to the working class against rapacious elites, Aaron Regunberg, New Republic, 11/26/24: “…the climate crisis actually provides one of our strongest playing fields.”

The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics: The party must return to its progressive roots. A new economy is needed with new rules and new roles, Joseph Stiglitz, The Guardian, 11/28/24: “…40 years of neoliberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum (and worse for those below), and declining average life expectancy (highlighted by mounting “deaths of despair”)…. Articulating a robust program will not be easy, and implementing it would be harder still. But the future of America depends on it being done.”

The deep historical forces that explain Trump’s win: Our research shows that political breakdown, from the Roman Empire to the Russian revolution, follows a clear pattern: workers’ wages stagnate, while elites multiply, Peter Turchin, The Guardian, 11/30/24: “The defeat on 5 November represents one battle in an ongoing revolutionary war.”

Trumpomuskovia: Four scenarios, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 11/30/24: “History helps, because everything that has happened was something that could have happened. And those things that could have happened, usually unexpected at the time, stretch our minds about what might happen.”

When will Democrats finally realize that big tech is not an ally? Tech titans, and big business in general, are not reliable partners against Trumpism. Progressives need to accept this, Zephyr Teachout, The Guardian, 11/27/24

We’re not helpless! Here are 10 ways to defend democracy: The right played the long game and won big this year. We can play the long game too, Mark Jacob, Stop the Presses, 11/25/24: “You can contribute to a healthy society by picking an issue you care about and making a difference.”

Be disruptive! What queer history tells us about confronting Trump: The LGBTQ+ community has been here before – and learned that real change happens when activists are front and center, Michael Bronski, The Guardian, 11/29/24: “Hope is vital to existence. It is what often creates the context for how we can move ahead. At this moment – while I do not feel hopeless – I am more in need of solace, comfort.”

Not Broken, Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 11/28/24: “The cavalry isn’t coming. It’s just us. …history teaches us that progress is not linear and that people who want to have a democracy, who understand that it's worth fighting for, have to stay the course even at their lowest point.”

Truth vs. Tyranny: How Americans Have Stood Against Lies Before: From Jefferson’s era to today, history proves democracy’s defenders can still win…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 11/28/24: “If we stand in solidarity with today’s truth-tellers, and more politicians step forward to take a leadership role, then it’s entirely possible that with the elections of 2026 and 2028 American democracy can once again prevail.”

Intermission: Tired of the Trump Show? Time to change the way you watch, Sarah Kendzior, Newsletter, 12/1/24: “One option is to stop watching. I recommend that when it comes to the minutiae of the Trump administration, but not when it comes to the big picture. Because the big picture is you — not him, but you. Not the officials and oligarchs, but you — your family, your community, your country. This is not a show, this is not a game. This is your goddamn country. You don’t have to love it, and you don’t have to leave it — but do not ever forget it is yours.”

The snakes blow soprano saxophones.

Can you hear me above all this jazz?

—from “Stuffy Turkey,” Dave Etter

Science, Environment

Climate Change Is the Real National Security Threat: In the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, it’s clear we’re defending against the wrong perils, Michael T. Klare, The Nation, 11/25/24: “From now on, any assessment of the threats to US national security that professes to be based on observable fact must portray climate change as posing as great a peril as do conventional military threats—and the threat from climate change is growing faster than any of those other dangers.”

A strange new climate era is beginning to take hold: The next 10 years will look very different for the story of climate change, Shannon Osaka, Maxine Joselow, Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 11/27/24: “…the world has hit a strange point in the climate story — veering away from catastrophe, but not fast enough to avoid some dangerous climate impacts.”

Unexplained heat-wave 'hotspots' are popping up across the globe: So extreme, they cannot be explained by global warming models, Columbia Climate School, ScienceDaily, 11/26/24: “A striking new phenomenon is emerging: distinct regions are seeing repeated heat waves that are so extreme, they fall far beyond what any model of global warming can predict or explain. A new study provides the first worldwide map of such regions, which show up on every continent except Antarctica like giant, angry skin blotches.”

D. Dianthus

The Secret Sex Lives of Deep, Dark Corals: A unique fjord in Chilean Patagonia gives scientists a chance to unlock the reproductive secrets of cold-water corals that typically live thousands of meters below the ocean’s surface, Christian Elliott, Hakai, 11/27/24: “Some coral seamounts are so old that geochemists use them as climate archives, drilling through alternating layers of coral and glacial deposits to unravel the ancient ocean chemistry locked into the coral’s bony skeletons. One, found some 365 meters deep off the Hawaiian coast, is the oldest known continuously living marine organism on Earth, at 4,265 years old.”

How to build a battery big enough to solve the world’s energy problems, Nicolás Rivero, Emily Wright, Washington Post, 11/26/24: “This is what the power plants of the future may look like: Instead of stashing coal and gas next to furnaces, they’ll use electrons to store energy inside of giant batteries.”

The Fossil Fuels Conversation Needs a Hard Reset: The term “reducing emissions” has outlived its usefulness, a crutch to soften the blow that’s being exploited by greenwashers. Now it’s time to get real, Genevieve Guenther, Wired, 11/26/24: “The expression ‘ending coal, oil, and methane gas’ … keeps the focus on the action that will do most to resolve the climate crisis.”

Returning the Amazon Rainforest to Its True Caretakers: Indigenous peoples forced from the Amazon rainforest are finally getting the legal power to return—and it’s not only about justice. Under their stewardship, the forests can thrive, Nemonte Nenquimo, Mitch Anderson, Wired, 11/29/24

Chocolate Has a Sustainability Problem. Science Thinks It's Found the Answer: Scientists have discovered a new way of making chocolate that uses the entire cocoa pod to reduce waste and improve farmer revenue streams. But can chocolate made any other way taste as sweet? Eve Thomas, Wired, 12/1/24

Rare footprints suggest two of our prehistoric ancestors may have met: The footprints are the first clear evidence that the two hominin species shared a habitat, raising questions about whether their interactions shaped human evolution, Leo Sands, Washington Post, 11/28/24

The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear? Across the globe, vast swathes of land are being left to be reclaimed by nature. To see what could be coming, look to Bulgaria, Tess McClure, The Guardian, 11/28/24

The Whole Story of How Humans Evolved From Great Apes: The picture of human evolution has changed repeatedly and dramatically over the past half century, shaped by waves of new fossil discovery, technology, and scientific techniques, John Gowlett, Wired, 11/28/24: “More than 100,000 years ago, the early modern humans began to expand outside Africa, leading to the greatest diaspora in human history.”

The beauty of memory rests in its talent for rendering detail, for paying homage to the senses, it’s capacity to love the particles of life, the richness and idiosyncrasy of our existence. The function of memory, while experienced as intensely personal, is surprisingly political.

—Patricia Hampl

Health, Wellness

Scientists identify potential link between wildfire smoke exposure and dementia diagnoses, Sharon Udasin, The Hill, 11/25/24: “Among more than 1.2 million people tracked over a decade in Southern California, each microgram-per-cubic-meter rise in wildfire-borne particulate matter (PM 2.5) exposure was associated with an 18 percent increase in the odds of dementia diagnosis.”

PFAS and microplastics become more toxic when combined, research shows: Study detects synergistic effect making substances more dangerous, raising alarm since humans are exposed to both, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, 11/25/24

Inside your body, aging unfolds at remarkably different rates: New research shows aging is not a uniform process. Parts of our bodies start aging earlier than others, right down to our organs and cells, Gretchen Reynolds, Washington Post, 11/25/24: “…aging is much more haphazard than we once thought, starting in different parts of our bodies at different times, possibly long before we’re even thinking about aging.”

Simple secret to living a longer life, Griffith Univ, ScienceDaily, 11/26/24: “Increasing physical activity levels could extend your life up to 11 more years according to new research using accelometry data. The study found that for the least active people in the population, a single one-hour walk could return a benefit of six additional hours of life.”

Birds, Birding

Calling bird watchers: New ‘EagleCam’ shows ‘intimate lives’ of bald eagles: A camera in Minnesota will follow a pair of bald eagles as they make their nest and raise chicks. A previous eagle pair’s nest collapsed in a storm in 2023, Annabelle Timsit, Washington Post, 11/20/24

Discovering the traits of extinct birds, Univ of Utah, ScienceDaily, 11/27/24: “Analysis of 216 extinct species by biologists found birds endemic to islands, occupied ecologically specific niche, lacking flight, with large bodies and sharply angled wings were the ones likely to disappear the soonest after 1500.”

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Every flower a

reminder of all that we

miss when not looking.

—from “Open Leaves, poems from the earth,” Harryette Mullen

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An essential book to read as we prepare to face authoritarianism in America: Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos by Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead: “…Trump’s political chaos, no matter how much fodder it provides late-night comics, is not benign or even unintentional.”

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The darkness has been coming for a long time. Now it’s here. We must all stay strong in our commitment to truth and freedom, telling stories, creating community, supporting allies, lighting the way.

Please do keep in touch. We need each other now more than ever. Our connections are what matters.

Love is always the place where I begin and end.—bell hooks

We can open the door to the light.—Timothy Snyder

When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.—John F. Kennedy

Be well everyone. Stay strong.

Love always—David