The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 162, June 18, 2023 (V4 #6)
If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity…. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.
—John F. Kennedy, speech, June 10, 1963
I could go onstage and say “this next one was influenced by Cormac McCarthy” and literally sing any song I’ve ever written.
—Jason Isbell
Books, Art, Culture
Cormac McCarthy, spare and haunting novelist, dies at 89: With his savage western ‘Blood Meridian’ and post-apocalyptic Pulitzer winner, ‘The Road,’ he established himself as one of America’s most renowned writers, with a prose style that was lean, poetic and unsentimental, Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 6/13/23
Post-internet artist Hito Steyerl on refusing honours, buying her work back – and fighting big tech: She has been called art’s most powerful person, a tireless questioner of humanity in the digital age. As the great German artist unveils a living work made of ferns and beer crates, she talks about her fights and victories, Philip Oltermann, The Guardian, 6/12/23
‘Blatant sexism’: why is a great painter who lived to 101 still defined by a man she left in the 1950s? Françoise Gilot had a career that spanned eight decades and her work now fetches over $1m. Yet when this astonishing woman died last week, the headlines were more interested in her former lover, Katy Hessel, The Guardian, 6/12/23
Vienna museum uses tilted paintings to spark climate conversations: The ‘A Few Degrees More’ exhibition at the Leopold Museum shows how disruptive a few degrees can be, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 6/12/23
Elizabeth Gilbert is pulling a novel set in Russia from publication. That’s unsettling: The Eat Pray Love author said that she doesn’t want to harm the Ukrainian cause. But that’s not how literature works, Francine Prose, The Guardian, 6/15/23: “What will happen if authors allow themselves to be bullied by their readers?”
As more schools target ‘Maus,’ Art Spiegelman’s fears are deepening, Greg Sargent, Washington Post, 6/14/23: “It’s a real warning sign of a country that’s yearning for a return of authoritarianism.”
Why a South Carolina high school decided to censor Ta-Nehisi Coates, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Popular Information, 6/15/23: “The decision did not follow district policy for the challenge of curricular materials.”
Luis Arráez and the quest for baseball’s elusive .400 barrier: The Miami Marlins second baseman’s exceptional season has given him a chance to do something no one has achieved in the majors since 1941, Joseph Palmer, The Guardian, 6/15/23
Daniel Bard Made an Improbable Comeback. Then He Had to Do It Again: The Rockies pitcher overcame mysterious control problems to return to the major leagues, but the problems weren’t gone for good, Louisa Thomas, New Yorker, 6/12/23
William Morris' case for an anti-tech future: A study of William Morris' pastoral paradise in News from Nowhere and a discussion with professor of utopian literature Deanna Kreisel about ecotopias vs. techtopias, Elle Griffin, Deanna Kreisel, The Elysian, 6/16/23
The Story of American Ice Begins with an Outrageous Marketing Plan, Amy Brady and Jeff Vandermeer, LitHub, 6/16/23: “Looking at the world from the perspective of landscape can reveal just as much about humanity as it can the land.” Book: Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks.
Needed: More Love Insurrectionaries: Wanted: More Holy Ruckus Healings, Rob Brezsny, Free Will Astrology, 6/13/23: “Scientists have taken the lead to persuade us, by an appeal to facts, of the threat to the natural world. Is it enough to know the facts? Or will it take a revival and dissemination of the Romantic vision of nature to enable us, in Shelley’s phrase, “to imagine that which we know.”
Pluck the stars out of the heavens. The stars mark our destiny. The stars marked my destiny.
I am tired of civilization.
—from “Tired,” Fenton Johnson
Politicks
Dictatorship? How Hitler, Stalin and Trump show it’s easier than you think: Andrea Chalupa discusses her graphic novel, co-authored with Sarah Kendzior, about authoritarianism and its dangers, Rich Tenorio, The Guardian, 6/17/23
Can you see the danger in our democracy? Steve Schmidt, The Warning, 6/13/23: “Are the people like me who warn about it every day hysterics? Are we prophets? Or are we simply connected to the mood and cognizant of history? What is happening in this moment? Do you care? Can you feel it? America stands at the edge of an abyss. What are we going to do about it? Do we even care? Soon we will see.”
When T-R-U-M-P was spelled N-I-X-O-N: Fool me once, etc etc, but hell, man we did it twice, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 6/13/23: “We elected these two certifiable loons and put the so-called nuclear football within grabbing distance of them both. We’re as crazy as they are.”
How Much Damage has the Trump-Putin Collusion Inflicted on America? Does Trump’s goal appear to be, to paraphrase Ron DeSantis, to “Make America Russia?” Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/14/23
Jack Smith Changed My Mind On Prosecuting Trump: The former president’s alleged crimes are egregious, and prosecution is an important deterrent, Tom Ginsburg, Persuasion, 6/14/23
The Special Counsel Who Indicted Trump is No Democrat. They Never Are: Also, no Democrat has ever headed the FBI, Jon Schwarz, The Intercept, 6/14/23
Can American Democracy Survive Fox “News”? Democracy is based on the will of the people & that is a function of the information to which citizens have access - Can America rescue our nation’s currently polluted streams of information and news? Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/15/23
June 15, 2023, Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 6/15/23: “So why is there a growing debt? Because tax revenues have plummeted… Republicans who backed those tax cuts now insist that the only way to deal with the growing debt is to get rid of the government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and eventually promoted civil rights, all elements that stabilized the nation after the older system gave us the Depression.”
Trump’s Kryptonite: How Progressives Can Win Back the Working Class: A first-of-its-kind study from Jacobin, YouGov, and the Center for Working-Class Politics finds that economic populism can help progressives win more working-class voters, The Editors, Jacobin, 6/13/23
The Spartan: Why Gretchen Whitmer Has What It Takes for a White House Run: I spent a week trailing the governor of Michigan as she pursued a bold second-term agenda—and left seeing a future presidential contender, Jennifer Palmieri, Vanity Fair, 6/15/23
The No Labels Agenda is More Disturbing than You Know - Here’s Why...Money in politics is a lot like Oxycontin, and the people who pass it out are often just as cynical, sociopathic, and deadly as the Sackler family…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/16/23
Are We Seeing the Reemergence of the Old Confederacy, This Time as the GOP? Is the GOP Plan to Be Content With a "Red States" Fascist Empire?, Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 6/13/23
Black Americans more upbeat but fear worsening racism, poll finds, Tim Craig, Emily Guskin, Scott Clement, Washington Post, 6/16/23: “An overwhelming share of Black Americans think the U.S. economic system is stacked against them and a slim majority believe the problem of racism will worsen during their lives.”
J. D. Vance and the Yahoo Caucus: His campaign was terrible, but his first year as a senator is worse, Tom Nichols, Atlantic, 6/15/23: “He’s an intelligent and educated man who has chosen a shameful path in Congress as if his lifetime of opportunities and second chances never happened.”
Documents show how conservative doctors influenced abortion, trans rights, Lauren Weber, Caitlin Gilbert, Taylor Lorenz, Washington Post, 6/15/23
It’s time to talk about the real AI risks: Experts at RightsCon want us to focus less on existential threats, and more on the harms here and now, Tate Ryan-Mosley, MIT Technology Review, 6/12/23
Another Warning Letter from A.I. Researchers and Executives, Prabha Kannan, New Yorker, 6/12/23: “We understand that you may perceive the tiniest hint of hypocrisy in a letter warning against the threat of A.I. written by the very people who created that threat.”
ChatGPT Is Unoriginal—and Exactly What Humans Need: The technology can help cut through buzzwordy “solutions” and serve as a shortcut for jumpstarting creativity, Dana Karout, Houman Harouni, Wired, 6/14/23
What is the point of profit? Because "to make shareholders rich" isn't good enough anymore, Elle Griffin, The Elysian, 6/12/23: “There are only nine countries that make more money than Walmart. Apple makes more money than Switzerland.”
Watch: Jamie Raskin lays it down on the Second Amendment.
Love Comes Quietly
Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.
What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.
—Robert Creeley
Science & Environment
Experts Agree: Climate Change Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction: As both the intelligence community and the insurance industry name global warming as a top threat, U.S. states give aid and comfort to the enemy, Mark Schapiro, Capital & Main, 6/13/23: “Climate change poses the biggest long-term risk to the global economy. No action is not an option.” (Swiss Re insurance co.)
Cruise ships in Europe pumped out more harmful gases than 1 billion cars last year, report shows: Warning that cities are ‘choking on toxic air pollution’ despite industry moves towards lower-emission cruising, Benjamin Parker, Independent (UK), 6/15/23
Taking Aim at Industry, UN Chief Warns Fossil Fuels 'Incompatible With Human Survival:’ "The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way—moving to leave oil, coal, and gas in the ground where they belong and massively boosting renewable investment in a just transition," António Guterres said, Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, 6/15/23
The Mercury is Off the Charts: And the Fossil Fuel Industry is Off its Meds, Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 6/15/23: “The rapid warming over the next couple of years is likely to be our last opportunity to really act coherently as a civilization to reduce the magnitude of this crisis, and so far we are blowing it.”
Scientists are baffled why the oceans are warming so fast, Scott Dance, Washington Post, 6/14/23: “Scientists nonetheless agree on this: Conditions are ever ripening for extreme heat waves, droughts, floods and storms, all of which have proven links to ocean warming.”
In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S.: Wind and solar produced more U.S. power than coal during the first five months of this year, as several coal plants closed and gas prices dropped, Benjamin Storrow, E&E News, 6/12/23
Inexpensive Solar Panels Are Essential for the Energy Transition. Here’s What’s Happening With Prices Right Now: A rising supply of silicon is one of the factors behind a drop in solar panel prices globally, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 6/15/23
This unlikely fuel could power cleaner trucks and ships: How one startup wants to fuel up tractors, trucks, and even ships with a common fertilizer ingredient, Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review, 6/8/23
The government should pay people for driving electric cars, not for buying them: A new study suggests that replacing broad subsidies with targeted ones offers a bigger carbon-savings bang for the public buck, Sara DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 6/13/23
Heat pumps, heat pumps, heat pumps!! A simple but incredibly useful machine is quietly transforming our buildings, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 6/14/23
Climate-Smart Cowboys Hope Regenerative Cattle Ranching Can Heal the Land and Sequester Carbon: Grazing livestock to mimic how wildlife forages can prevent the erosion of topsoil, protect water quality and keep carbon out of the atmosphere, but it requires big changes in how the beef industry operates, Emma Peterson, Inside Climate News, 6/12/23
NASA’s newest X-plane wants to save the planet: The space agency has a plan to “skip a generation” of passenger aircraft design to fight climate change, Adam Clark Estes, Vox, 6/13/23
Snapshots of the End of Travel: On Trying to Enter a Personal No-Fly Zone: the Devastating Consequences of Air Travel, Amy Benson, LitHub, 6/14/23: “If we changed our orientation toward sacrifice and bad news, though, what would that look like? If you and I said no more flights?”
The Coolest Library on Earth: At the University of Copenhagen, researchers store ice cores that hold the keys to Earth’s climate past and future, Elizabeth Landau, Hakai, 6/13/23
Madison lakes cleanup to tap 13,000 years of Ho-Chunk wisdom, Francesca Pica, CapTimes, 6/12/23: “Tribes have the blueprint of their lands and their waters of how to care for them.”
How Arizona Stands Between Tribes and Their Water: As it negotiates water rights with tribes, Arizona goes to unique lengths to extract concessions that limit tribes’ opportunities for growth and economic development, according to a ProPublica and High Country News investigation, Mark Olalde, Umar Farooq, Anna V. Smith, Propublica, 6/14/23
"I would never fall in love again, until I found her"
I said, "I would never fall, unless it's you I fall into"
I was lost within the darkness, but then I found her
I found you
—from “Until I Found You,” Steven Sanchez
Health & Wellness
Toxic Metals May Be Present in Your Drinks, According to New Research: How concerned should we be about heavy metals in our favorite beverages? Mallory Arnold, Outside, 6/13/23
How a Toilet Plunger Improved CPR: The conventional method for chest compressions doesn’t have a great success rate. Doctors are pumping it up with a high-tech plunger, Joanne Silberner, NY Times, 6/15/23 (gift article, great story)
The Psychedelic Scientist Who Sends Brains Back to Childhood: Kids soak up new skills, adults not so much. But neuroscientist Gül Dölen might have found a way—with drugs—to help grownups learn like littles, Rachel Nuwer, Wired, 6/15/23
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
—from “Remember,” Joy Harjo
Birds
Why Harry Potter’s Hedwig Would Make a Terrible Pet: on the Complex Care and Keeping of Real Owls, Jennifer Ackerman, LitHub, 6/13/23: “There’s a joke that we humans are never a cat’s owner—they see us as staff. I don’t think Archimedes saw me as staff, more like his mate.” Book: What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds
Reflections on a Wall: On Flag Day, Laura considers the differences between birds and us, Laura Erickson, For the Birds, 6/14/23: “My grandpa said it’s easy to die for your country—all you have to do is be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The hard thing is to live for your country, trying your best to place the common good above personal selfishness. My grandpa said that birds were way braver than we humans—they never sent anyone off to kill or die for them. When a bird has a territorial dispute, it fights its own battle and stops the moment it makes its point, without that peculiarly human impulse to destroy and humiliate.”
Merlin: A different kind of magician, Laura Erickson, For the Birds, 6/15/23: “ It’s useful, it’s fun, and it’s absolutely free. I call it genuine magic.”
El Niño, not avian flu, caused the deaths of hundreds of birds in Mexico, government says: Experts in Mexico say that the warming Pacific ocean currents known as El Niño, not avian flu, were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of birds along Mexico's Pacific coast this year, AP, ABC News, 6/15/23
Lots of terrible stuff is always going on, but today, I’m giddily happy for my daughter and our family. It’s a beautiful day.
You can’t beat death but
You can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it,
The more light there will be.
—from “The Laughing Heart,” Charles Bukowski
Let there be more light. Much love to you all. — David