The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 75, October 17, 2021 (V2 #23)
"What I would love to do is communicate as much as possible...the jeopardy. The moment you see how vulnerable, the vulnerability of everything. It’s so small. This air, which is keeping us alive, is thinner than your skin. It’s a sliver! It’s immeasurably small when you think in terms of the universe. It’s immeasurable. Mars doesn’t have it...It's just there, Mother Earth...it was so moving." —William Shatner
… Hey now, hey now
Don't dream it's over
Hey now, hey now
When the world comes in
They come, they come
To build a wall between us
You know they won't win
—from “Hey Now Don’t Dream It’s Over,” Crowded House, written by Neil Finn
Bill Maher on the Slow Moving Coup
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 1961
October
(for Iraq)
October
is the
month
of not
forgetting
October
imprisons
your martyr's
moon
in the sky
above us all
—Beau Beausoleil
Oy. Vey?
A citizen's guide to Trump's 2024 strategy, Josh Legum, Tesnim Zakeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 10/12/21
“The third part of the plan is more straightforward: restore the Republican majorities in Congress. On January 6, 2021, about two-thirds of the Republican caucus objected to the certification of the Electoral College in an effort to reverse the outcome of the election. Some of the Republicans who did not object to the certification are retiring or facing primary challengers. A majority might be all that's needed to rubber-stamp efforts in the states to swing the election to Trump.”
The Good News in the Bad News, Robert Kuttner, American Prospect, 10/13/21
“The supply chain crisis also makes the case for a better-regulated economy. There were no such bottlenecks when trucking was regulated and teamsters were well paid. Shortages of truck drivers were unheard-of….One more bit of hope: A hanging concentrates the mind. Maybe now the handful of corporate Dems who are holding up Biden’s program will get serious about a final bargain.”
More women are tuning out politics — a danger sign for Democrats in Virginia and beyond, Karen Tumulty, Washington Post, 10/12/21
The right-wing operatives orchestrating the attack on America's school boards, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zakeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 10/14/21
Facebook Uses Deceptive Math to Hide Its Hate Speech Problem: The company publicly claims its AI is amazing at removing harmful content, but internal documents suggest they know the algorithm is ineffective, Noah Giansiracusa, Wired, 10/15/21
At least 85 percent of the world’s population has been affected by human-induced climate change, new study shows: Researchers used machine learning to analyze more than 100,000 studies of weather events and found four-fifths of the world’s land area has suffered impacts linked to global warming, Annabelle Timsit, Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 10/11/21
The climate disaster is here: Earth is already becoming unlivable. Will governments act to stop this disaster from getting worse? Oliver Milman, Andrew Witherspoon, Rita Liu, Alvin Chang, The Guardian, 10/14/21
The global supply chain nightmare is about to get worse, Matt Egan, CNN Business, 10/13/21
Solutions!
Planning for the End of the World (Or: Hopelessness as Superstition), Bethany Ball, LitHub, 10/12/21
“After all, hopelessness is just another superstition, an embrace of dread, another denial of reality. It requires the hubris to believe that we know how the story will end, when the reality is that none of us do. And hopelessness allows for inaction, to throw up one’s hands and do nothing. Surely, it’s better, or braver, to acknowledge this not knowing and soldier on, raising our kids, loving our friends, working to change the world and shape the future in whatever way we can, than to plot out how a few lucky few will endure the unendurable. The future is bleak, but it isn’t written.”
Who is the real problem when it comes to climate change? Is it economists? Lefty activists? Musk and Gates? The voting public? Nope, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 10/15/21
(Ed. hint: it’s the fossil fuel industry)
“Remember the key fact: Technology has changed the game. The green future is no longer one of bitter sacrifice, but one of plentiful abundance. To get there faster, we just have to overcome the last-ditch opposition of the entrenched incumbents.”
An Essay About Tiny, Spectacular Futures Written a Week or So After a Very Damning IPCC Climate Report, Lucas Mann, LitHub, 10/14/21
“In this fantasy, it never snows for the rest of her childhood. There are days where it almost does, where the air starts to taste that way I remember from my own childhood, but then it warms just enough or the clouds break. When we talk about it, for her it’s like when my dad used to say movies cost a dime and I was like okay who cares but it did lodge in my memory and there was pleasure in imagining a world before me, totally foreign except that he was in it. Finally, she’s 18, she’s almost leaving home, and she sees snow out the window, just a gentle sputtering but still she’s amazed. My wife takes a picture of her face reacting, and for a moment it’s a picture only about joy.”
Big Tech’s latest misbehavior calls for action, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 10/15/21
“We should resist that feeling of resignation by taking some action. It brings to mind the old quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” Doing almost anything at all about the problem, rather than nothing, is a big step. And it may just be the first step towards larger, longer-term action. It’s not hopeless.”
“Code Red” for climate means reducing US oil and gas production: Derrick Z. Jackson: Whatever long game the Biden administration hopes to play, the planet is telling us that we are going into the fourth quarter with no promise of overtime, Derrick Z. Jackson, The Daily Climate, 10/12/21
Inland mangroves reveal a tumultuous climatic past — and hint at our future, John C. Cannon, MongaBay, 10/14/21
90% of new cars sold in Norway are now electric or plug-in hybrids: The goal is to get to 100% EV sales by 2025, Adele Peters, Fast Company, 10/11/21
Is Sucking Carbon Out of the Air the Solution to Our Climate Crisis? Or just another Big Oil boondoggle? Clive Thompson, Mother Jones, Nov/Dec 2021
“Skeptics say direct air capture should be wrested away from the oil and gas industry. Yet no one has envisioned a clear path to making DAC a reality without it.”
Deforestation Is a Crime: A new bipartisan bill would treat it that way, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 10/11/21
Indigenous protesters rally against fossil fuels: Demonstrators want Biden to declare the climate crisis a national emergency, Nicola Slawson, The Guardian, 10/12/21
Deadly Heat Is Baking Cities. Here’s How to Cool Them Down: Urban areas can be 20 degrees hotter than the surrounding country. But green spaces and reflective pavement can make city life more bearable, Matt Simon, Wired, 10/11/21
New fibers can make breath-regulating garments: “Robotic” textiles could help performers and athletes train their breathing, and potentially help patients recovering from postsurgery breathing changes, David L. Chandler, MIT News, 10/15/21
‘It comes from bacteria, and goes back to bacteria’: the future of plastic alternatives: Making a biodegradable material strong enough to replace plastic is a tough task. But scientists are trying to do just that, Laura Paddison, The Guardian, 10/15/21
COVID super-immunity: one of the pandemic’s great puzzles: People who have previously recovered from COVID-19 have a stronger immune response after being vaccinated than those who have never been infected. Scientists are trying to find out why, Ewen Calloway, Nature, 10/14/21
Plant-based jet fuel could reduce emissions by 68%, University of Georgia, Eureka Alert, 10/14/21
Want to add healthy years to your life? Here’s what new longevity research says, Matt Fuchs, Washington Post, 10/11/21
Electronic waste from just this year will outweigh the Great Wall of China "It's a call on consumers to return their electronics because without that, the alternative is the need to mine the materials, which is a lot more environmentally damaging." Elizabeth Gribkoff, Environmental Health News, 10/15/21
Experts Give Their Wisdom On Today’s Best Sustainable Building Practices: With climate change knocking at the door, architects look for ways to reduce the carbon emitted when houses are built or renovated, Fred A. Bernstein, Architectural Digest, 10/12/21
Bubbles in blood open the brain for world-first cancer treatment, Clare Wilson, New Scientist, 10/13/21
Scientists discover a highly potent antibody against SARS-CoV-2: Scientists have discovered a highly potent monoclonal antibody that targets the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and is effective at neutralizing all variants of concern identified to date, including the delta variant, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Science Daily, 10/12/21
“Stuff” You Should Know About
Lucia Berlin: My Mentor in Being an Outsider, Jenny Shank, Poets & Writers, 10/13/21
“Lucia modeled for me how to keep writing when no recognition came, when few people cared about your work. She never pulled any strings because she had no strings to pull, but she would give you a tarot reading if you were stumped about a decision. The irony is that after her death, she achieved the kind of literary status that would have made her blurbs sought-after, that would have allowed her to bestow honors, and recommend students to agents and publishers.”
The Time Jim Morrison Was Arrested Onstage in the Middle of a Show, Robby Krieger, LitHub, 10/15/21
(Ed: It was 1967, in New Haven, Connecticut)
“Like at all the best Doors shows, we were creating a moment. A specific connection with a specific audience that would exist only on that specific night. I was completely oblivious to the dozens of police officers waiting in the shadows until the house lights came up and the shadows were removed.”
The Supreme Court has become a political body: We should start treating it that way, Lucian Truscott IV, Newsletter, 10/15/21
“Stop giving speeches you won’t let us see, or hear, or read, and open up the court and let in some light. Until then, we’ll make the logical assumption that behind your closed doors, you’re just the partisan hacks you appear to be.”
Orwell’s Many-Thorned Bomb Shelter: A Conversation with Rebecca Solnit, Andrea Hoag, LA Review of Books, 10/13/21
“I was brought up with a kind of dismal misogyny and with what I think of often in relation to my family — and a lot of other people — as the capitalism of the heart. In other words, the less you give, the more you have. That way of thinking comes from an inner poverty. I hope and aspire to have left that behind me. But my interests from childhood are still there.
The childhood interests Orwell was talking about were his passion for the natural world. He had that in great intensity as a child and never lost that. It was with him until the end. He died with a fishing rod in his hospital room, hoping to fish at the sanatorium he was supposed to fly off to.”
The Abortion Backup Plan No One Is Talking About: Even in states with the strictest abortion laws, pregnant people have a safe, inexpensive option to terminate their pregnancies. But few know about it, Olga Khazan, Atlantic, 10/12/21
“Pregnant people in Texas, or in any other U.S. state, can visit an array of websites that will mail them two pills—mifepristone and misoprostol—that will induce a miscarriage when used in the first trimester of pregnancy and possibly even later. The so-called self-managed abortion is therefore an option at least six weeks further into a pregnancy than the controversial new Texas law’s six-week “heartbeat” cutoff for an abortion at a clinic. Though people in other states have several websites to choose from, Texans can visit Aid Access, a website that provides the pills for $105 or less based on income.”
Capsule of 1765 air reveals ancient histories hidden under Antarctic ice: Polar Zero exhibition in Glasgow features sculpture encasing air extracted from start of Industrial Revolution, Libby Brooks, The Guardian, 10/10/21
A Huge Subterranean ‘Tree’ Is Moving Magma to Earth’s Surface: Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity, Robin George Andrews, Wired, 10/12/21
Something strange is sending radio waves from the centre of the galaxy, Leah Crane, New Scientist, 10/12/21
The most powerful space telescope ever built will look back in time to the Dark Ages of the universe, Chris Impey, The Conversation, 10/12/21
The Astronomer Who’s About to See the Skies of Other Earths: After the ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope launches later this year, Laura Kreidberg will lead two efforts to check the weather on rocky planets orbiting other stars, Thomas Lewton, Quanta Magazine, 10/12/21
Drug Industry Hires its Former Critics as Lobbyists against Medicare Price Negotiations: Former Democratic lawmakers now earn a living as drug company lobbyists, Lee Fang, The Intercept, 10/14/21
In search of Haida Gwaii’s forest-dwelling hawk, one of the most endangered species on the planet: With no provincial endangered species legislation to rely on, the race is on to find the nests of stads k’un, a genetically unique subspecies of the northern goshawk, before logging and habitat loss causes the brave little bird to vanish forever, Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, 10/10/21
A Long-Awaited Homecoming for Peregrine Falcons in the Finger Lakes, Andy Johnson, All About Birds, 10/13/21
How Songbirds Evolved A Sweet Tooth, Pat Leonard, All About Birds, 10/13/21
How catching birds bare-handed may hint at Neandertals’ hunting tactics: Using tools Neandertals might have had, researchers test the ancient hominids’ hunting abilities, Trishla Ostwal, ScienceNews, 10/8/21
Penguins have rare ability to recognise each other's faces and voices, Christa Leste-Leserre, New Scientist, 10/12/21
Raptors Rather Than Rodenticide, Jane Braxton Little, Bay Nature Magazine, 10/12/21
The human neck is a mistake of evolution: Sleep apnea, which afflicts 1 out of 15 Americans, is a consequence of too many adaptations "stuffed" into our neck, Matthew Rosza, Salon, 10/12/21
A PEER-REVIEWED PORTRAIT OF SUFFERING: James and Lindsay Sulzer have spent their careers developing technologies to help people recover from disease or injury. Their daughter’s freak accident changed their work—and lives—forever, Daniel Engber, Atlantic, 10/6/21
On Tuesday, City Point Press, the small imprint I operate, will publish a new edition of a Lost Generation classic novel, The Eater of Darkness by Robert M. Coates. The first Dada novel written by an American, it is a remarkable experimental novel by a then-young writer who went on to become the author of more words in the New Yorker magazine than any other contributor. As the art critic for the magazine for many years, he coined the term “abstract expressionism.” When he lived in Paris in the 1920s, he was befriended by Gertrude Stein and was sparring partner with Ernest Hemingway, and introduced these two writers to each other. Eater of Darkness is loosely a science fiction linguistic romp. I think it deserves to be read again.
Earlier this week, I published my interview with Jeff Deutsch of Seminary Co-op Bookstores, in which we discussed rethinking the future of bookstores and bookselling, making it more similar to nonprofit theater than commercial retail. I think he is onto something important and urge you to listen in either on Writerscast, iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Sunday papers don't ask no questions
Sunday papers don't get no lies
Sunday papers don't raise objections
Sunday papers ain't got no eyes
Brother's heading that way now I guess
He just read something made his face turn blue
Well I got nothing against the press
They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true —from Sunday Papers sung and written by Joe Jackson
(Ed.: written in 1979, this song resonates in today’s media environment, even if we miss our Sunday papers now.)
We’re in the midst of the warmest October on record in the State of Connecticut. We know this portends nothing good, and I hate to admit how much I am enjoying the unnatural, spooky weather. Our garden is still producing and nearby farms still have fresh corn to sell. In times like this, we will take pleasure where we can. It is, after all, the Weird Times. Please stay well, send news, poems, and art. Love to all — David