The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 163, June 25, 2023 (V4 #7)
The truth is that when this nation chose to eliminate four million farmers (with their families, hired help, buildings, and boundaries) on the advice of the colleges of agriculture, the agricultural bureaucracy, and the agribusiness corporations, it committed a sort of cultural genocide.—Wendell Berry
Biden is only three years older than Trump—80 and 77, respectively—and apparently in significantly better health, but in the week after Biden announced his reelection campaign, CNN, the Fox News Channel, and MSNBC mentioned his age 588 times, suggesting it is a negative attribute rather than a positive reflection on his experience, while mentioning Trump’s only 72 times.—Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 6/22/23
Books, Art, Culture
Between Fear and Resignation: How German Writers Reacted to Hitler’s Rise: on Intellectual Suppression in the Early Days of Nazi Terror, Uew Wittstock, LitHub, 6/23/23: “It took only this one month to transform a state under the rule of law into a violent dictatorship without scruples.” Book: February 1933: The Winter of Literature
Nona Fernandez and the Black Hole of Collective Memory: Her book-length essay Voyager examines life after Pinochet—and the disjunctures in public remembering the era produced—through an exploration of the stars, Amanda Paige Inman, The Nation, 6/22/23
Current Trans-Hysteria Mirrors Jekyll and Hyde: "Today, anti-queer legislation is fueled by...a fear of anything “transformed" beyond “social norms,” Jill Dearman, CrimeReads, 6/23/23
Real-life Forrest Gump: A student’s 3,000-mile run across the country: Timmy Zhou, 22, set out to run coast to coast, gaining a social media following and some running buddies along the way, Courtney Beesch, Washington Post, 6/24/23
Miho Kinnas & Ethelbert—Poetic “Twoness,” Terence Winch, Best American Poetry, 6/20/23. “Are there books on other planets?”
Virginia Woolf’s Forgotten Diary, Harriet Baker, Paris Review, 6/21/23: “Between 1915 and her death in 1941, Woolf filled almost thirty notebooks with diary entries, beginning, at first, with a fairly self-conscious account of her daily life which developed, from Asheham onward, into an extraordinary, continuous record of form and feeling.”
A Sort of Buzzing Inside My Head: Whether ChatGPT passes the Turing Test is a less troubling question than what Alan Turing meant by “intelligence,” Jessica Riskin, NY Review of Books, 6/25/23: “I guess it’s not surprising that I find Turing’s imaginary machine’s answer infinitely more persuasive than ChatGPT’s, since of course the first was written by an intelligent human.”
About that Reading "Crisis:” It's not the crisis A.O. Scott thinks, John Warner, Biblioracle Recommends, 6/25/23: “No one would mistake me for a Pollyanna, but I truly believe that reading itself is not particularly at threat.”
Bourdain Day: These are the New York and New Jersey restaurants Anthony Bourdain featured over the years, Veronica de Souza, Gothamist, 6/25/23
Bill Bradley was an NBA star and a senator. Now he’s a one-man show: In the new documentary ‘Rolling Along,’ Bradley charts his progress, from college hoops to pro courts to Congress to stage, Peter Marks, Washington Post, 6/23/23. I interviewed Bradley for Writerscast in 2012.
"Lookout" for David Berman and The Silver Jews, Ken Tucker, Best American Poetry, 6/23/23: “The Silver Jews is a band led by singer-songwriter-poet David Berman.”
Once you taste the geometry of a church in a cul-de-sac
You're gonna wanna sit with the bad kids in the back
—from “Dallas,” The Silver Jews, written by David Berman
Politicks
Putin’s Weakness Unmasked: How Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion exposed the Russian President, David Remnick, New Yorker, 6/24/23: “This is a historical chance for Ukraine.”
Hey tech folks: The West is not failing: A Russian rebellion should highlight the weakness of certain anti-American narratives, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/24/23
Ten years of a crippled Voting Rights Act: how states make it harder to vote: In a 5-4 ruling in 2013, the supreme court weakened the Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for state legislatures to pass voter suppression laws, Same Levine, Kira Lerner, The Guardian, 6/25/23
Critics Decry 'Unspeakable' Contrast Between Efforts to Save Titanic Tourists and Migrants: "Hundreds of refugees just died on a boat that collapsed in the Mediterranean," said one journalist, "and that situation has already stopped being news on most major platforms,” Julia Conley, Common Dreams, 6/21/23
Four reasons China can't reset the world: The country presents much less of an economic opportunity, and much more of a risk, than it did in 2015, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/20/23
Alito’s wrongdoing makes a supreme court ethics overhaul an imperative: Today’s supreme court is extremely powerful, increasingly political and decreasingly trusted. We need reform now, Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian, 6/22/23
Have Billionaires Outfitted Justices with Golden Handcuffs to Stop “Liberal Drift”?: The GOP & the billionaires who fund them learned their lesson. Never again would they allow a rightwing justice to stray beyond the rigid ideological boundaries set at that justices’ confirmation…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/22/23
Congress is stuck on rewriting permit rules. SCOTUS brought its wrecking ball.: The court’s ruling in a much-watched wetlands case could free many energy, highway and housing projects from federal environmental reviews, Annie Snider, Politico, 6/19/23
New Details From Leonard Leo’s Trust Fund Expose the Inner Workings of the Right: Newly obtained documents shed light on a vast and corrupt right-wing influence network, Evan Vorpahl, Truthout, 6/17/23: “From personal enrichment for himself and his inner circle to his machine of nonprofits advancing the MAGA agenda, we’ve only scratched the surface of Leo’s devastating impact on our democracy.”
Justice Samuel Alito Took Luxury Fishing Vacation With GOP Billionaire Who Later Had Cases Before the Court, Justin Elliott, Joshua Kaplan, Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica, 6/20/23: “In the years after the undisclosed trip to Alaska, Republican megadonor Paul Singer’s hedge fund has repeatedly had business before the Supreme Court. Alito has never recused himself.”
Thanks for all the fish, Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse, 6/22/23: “Normal people don’t get free fishing trips to Alaska. It is not your winning personality that makes you different.” (Barb McQuade)
Do You Suspect the System Is Rigged? Here’s Proof, Jim Hightower, Lowdown, 6/22/23 “[Clarence] Thomas voted that it is technically not bribery to try influencing public officials by bestowing a series of gifts to them over time.”
Majority of Americans say it was wrong for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, Domenico Montanaro, NPR, 6/21/23…and “Majority wants affirmative action programs to continue.”
Trump’s indictment plus candidacy could endanger democracy and the rule of law: The collision of former president Donald Trump’s criminal indictment with the presidential campaign could further undermine confidence in democratic principles and institutions of government, experts say, Dan Balz, Ann E. Marimow, Perry Stein, Washington Post, 6/17/23
Revealed: The MAGAT* Republicans’ Three-Step Plan for Classic Fascism: They’ve read their history: if they can embed fascism deeply at every level of American government, business, and civic life, it will take generations to rip it out…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/19/23: “They’re willing to put enormous time and resources into the project, because they know that once fascism fully seizes a nation it’s extremely difficult to dislodge it.”
The Supreme Court’s “Unexploded Neutron Bomb” Among the Upcoming Rulings: The Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman joins Inside the Hive to discuss an impending SCOTUS decision—plus the Clarence Thomas–John Roberts originalism spectrum, Claire Howorth, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 6/20/23
What is No Labels Doing? Steve Schmidt, The Warning, 6/24/23: “…they are practitioners of the tactics that have broken the system that they claim they want to fix. Dark money, a lack of transparency, and opportunism created Trump. They aren’t the elixir that will beat him.”
Why Not Whitmer? The Michigan governor isn’t running for president. But she is happy to be interrogated over whether she might change her mind, Mark Leibovich, Atlantic, 6/22/23
Why it's so hard to fix the information ecosystem: Misinformation is a job; correcting misinformation is a hobby, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/22/23: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” — Alberto Brandolini
US murder rate declines dramatically in 2023 — but you probably haven't heard about it, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 6/20/23
Boots Riley Says a ‘Gentler Capitalism’ Won’t Save Society: The I’m a Virgo creator loves contradictions, like trying to launch a radical labor movement with a show on Amazon Prime, Jason Parham, Wired, 6/22/23: “There is nothing else on TV quite like I’m a Virgo.”
Why Farms Got Bigger and People Fewer, Art Cullen, Barn Raiser, 6/21/23: “You know, I think we were all better off when we were growing 125-bushel corn on 320-acre farms,” said my neighbor Steve. Book: Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope in America’s Heartland
Power seems to be so far up
The man on the street ain't got a clue
The high top cats running your life
Think the problem is me and you
Have you heard the news that's going 'round here
The man in charge has to go—from “The Problem,” J.J. Cale
Science & Environment
Digging deep into a humble lake in Canada, scientists found a spot on Earth like no other — and a record that could redefine our history of the planet, Sarah Kaplan, Simon Ducroquet, Bonnie Jo Mount, Frank Hulley-Jones, Emily Wright, Washington Post, 6/20/23: “In just seven decades, the scientists say, humans have brought about greater changes than they did in more than seven millennia. Never in Earth’s history has the world changed this much, this fast.”
Ecological tipping points could occur much sooner than expected, study finds: Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems could collapse ‘very soon’, researchers warn, Jonathan Watts, The Guardian, 6/22/23
Shocking NASA Video Shows Carbon Emissions as if They Were Visible, David Nield, ScienceAlert, 6/20/23: “These jaw-dropping videos demonstrate precisely where the majority of this critical greenhouse gas is being released, and how that changes over the course of a single year.”
The Atlantification of the Arctic Ocean Is Underway: The discovery of a tiny fish far from its normal range is a poignant reminder of the changes that are already happening, William von Herff, Hakai, 6/19/23
As the North Atlantic Sizzles With "Utterly Unbelievable" Temperatures, the Pacific Is Now Heating up Too, Thanks to El Niño: Both air and sea surface temperatures have hit new records in June — and with El Niño, it will likely get even warmer, Tom Yulsman, Discover, 6/21/23
Forecasted El Niño Could Cost $3-Trillion in Losses Globally: A new study shows that the El Niño weather cycle packs a heavy financial punch, Zoya Teirstein, Hakai, 6/20/23
New Study Bolsters Room-Temperature Superconductor Claim: A team of researchers verified a key measurement from a study earlier this year that had faced doubts from other scientists, Kenneth Chang, NY Times, 6/23/23: “A magical material that could effortlessly conduct electricity at room temperatures would likely transform civilization, reclaiming energy otherwise lost to electrical resistance and opening possibilities for novel technologies.” (Gift article, no paywall)
Corn-based ethanol is not as good for the climate as once thought: The environmental repercussions of plowing grasslands and using fertilizer can outweigh the benefits to the climate, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 6/23/23
Farm the Ocean, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 6/19/23: “This is not some crazy scheme. It’s just replicating what the Sahara does naturally, by dropping its sands on both the Amazon Rainforest and the Atlantic, fertilizing both.” (DW: long article with a lot of back up. Worth reading.)
Why mosses are superheroes of the plant world: Vilified as the scourge of perfect lawns, these tiny plants fight air pollution and keep soils healthy, Paul Simons, The Guardian, 6/21/23
The kids are alright: How We Can Help the Youth Leading the Climate Fight, Bill McKIbben, The Crucial Years, 6/22/23
Most Americans underestimate the popularity of policies to protect the climate: In reality, about two-thirds of Americans support transformative climate policies, like a carbon tax or Green New Deal, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 6/21/23
What if we rewild half the earth? A discussion with Troy Vettese and Drew Pendergrass about their book Half-Earth Socialism and their vision for a socialist ecotopia, Elle Griffin, The Elysian, 6/23/23. Book: Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics
Blood residue found on stone tools offers a clue to an Ice Age mystery, Mark Johnson, Washington Post, 6/21/23: “If confirmed, the findings would shed new light on what might have caused the extinction of giant Ice Age herbivores, a question that is assuming greater importance as humans confront rising extinction rates among many of the animals with whom we share the planet.”
Greeting the day
the day opens
ahead the ocean
anything is possible
your journey is air
everything you touch
perfectly aligned
because you are here
insanely joyful
for this one perfect day
—David Wilk
Health & Wellness
Deadly Fungal Infections Confound Doctors—‘It’s Going to Get Worse:’ Once a freak occurrence, fungi resistant to standard drugs now threaten millions of vulnerable Americans, Dominique Mossbergen, Wall Street Journal, 6/22/23 (Gift Article)
Vermont sues chemical giant Monsanto over toxic PCBs in schools, waters, Christina Guessferd, WCAX, 6/19/23
Suddenly, It Looks Like We’re in a Golden Age for Medicine: We may be on the cusp of an era of astonishing innovation — the limits of which aren’t even clear yet, David Wallace-Wells, NY Times, 6/23/23 (Gift article, no paywall)
Well, excuse me if I break my own heart tonight
After all it was mine
Can I have it back sometime?
—from “Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight,” Whiskeytown, written by Ryan Adams
Birds
Caution, Birds Nesting, Robert A. Culbert, Vineyard Gazette, 6/21/23
Wildfire smoke affects birds too. Here’s how you can help: More than two-thirds of North American birds are vulnerable to extinction due to climate change. Poor air quality from smoke is a growing concern, Dina Fine Maron, National Geographic, 6/20/23
On the Move: New Discoveries About Bird Movements: Birders Are Having to Change Their Preconceived Notions About Migration, Hugh Ranson, Santa Barbara Independent, 6/22/23
Just posted: Writerscast episode: interview with Maureen Owen and Barbara Henning about Poets on the Road, a travelog of their poetic journey cross country in 2019.
It’s been an even crazier week than we could have imagined. We saw a potential Russian putsch unfold on television and social media, more insane political posturing from the multitude of right-wing politicians out to destroy democracy, and there is yet more evidence of escalating worldwide ecological catastrophe. What more could happen? Don’t ask. Something worse is doubtless on the horizon.
Confronted by so much, we must find beauty in the small things, and create our own optimism to fend off the miseries of the world. We will get through this.
As Stuart Smalley (aka Al Franken, who should come back to politics, dammit!) memorably once said: “It’s easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.”
Take care all. Stay tuned.
Much love—David