The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 256, April 6, 2025 (V5 #48)
Never before has an hour of Presidential rhetoric cost so many people so much.—Lawrence Summers, former US Treasury Secretary
It is up to all of us to fix this … The most important office in this democracy is the citizen.—former President Barack Obama
Any fool can turn a blind eye but who knows what the ostrich sees in the sand.—Samuel Beckett
Books, Music, Art, Culture
The Average College Student Is Illiterate: Students are not what they used to be. The crisis is worse than you think, Hilarius Bookbinder, Persuasion, 3/31/25: “Their writing skills are at the 8th-grade level. Spelling is atrocious, grammar is random, and the correct use of apostrophes is cause for celebration. Worse is the resistance to original thought.”
Salvaging the Historic Tiles of California’s Burned Fireplaces: After devastating fires blazed through the region, residents are holding on to the intricate glazed tiles that survived — small but meaningful remnants of their homes, Angella d'Avignon, Hyperallergic, 4/2/25
‘Reading builds empathy’: The case for saving America's libraries: America needs "third places" like our libraries more than we ever have, both functionally and philosophically, Melanie McFarland, Salon, 3/30/25
Our Freedom is Fragile: Lessons From the Jewish Children Who Fled Nazi Germany: on the Legacy of the Kindertransport, Pamela Newton, LitHub, 4/3/25: “America is no longer a country of refuge but one that is preying upon its most vulnerable inhabitants, including children, who stand to suffer the most from the trauma and terror of this time.”
Organizations Lose Pivotal Grants as DOGE Takes Axe to Humanities Agency: Museums, libraries, and archives are receiving grant termination notices immediately halting funding for myriad arts and culture projects, Valentina Di Liscia, Hyperallergic, 4/3/25
The University is the Crisis: On the Price of Columbia’s Soul: “In real-life Trump America, critical thought and political speech are shuttered in service of a belligerent agenda,” Shana L. Redmond, LitHub, 4/4/25: “ If there is an alternative to the appalling and frightening present, those of us who remain must see the wizards for what they truly are, and face ourselves and one another in order to become something other than what we’ve been told to be.”
When Calls for Vengeance Go Online: An anthropologist reckons with how digital media has changed youth gang culture dynamics—and what can be done to combat the spread of deadly rumors, Laurence Ralph, Sapiens, 4/3/25
How I Realized AI Was Making Me Stupid—and What I Do Now: Backers of the new tech say it will free us to be creative, but studies show that avoiding mental effort can cause your brain to atrophy, Sam Schechner, Wall Street Journal, 4/3/25: “I make myself turn off the GPS even in unfamiliar places. I take handwritten notes when I want to remember something. I also resist my kids’ demands to ask ChatGPT for a made-up story and encourage them to create their own instead.” (no paywall)
Was shame in you born before beauty?
Was beauty was shame was beauty?
—from “1951,” Brenda Hillman
Politics, Economics, Technology
People Have the Power: Week Whatever of the Stupid Coup and the Pushback, Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency, 4/2/25: “This is a test with two options for people in this country, resisting or acquiescing; there is no third alternative, no sitting this out.”
Protests Won't Save America: How the #HandsOff event can catalyze or anesthetize us, John Pavlovitz, Beautiful Mess, 4/6/25: “As beautiful as the #HandsOff protests were, if they don’t catalyze us into participating in and changing the political landscape and leverage our collective power into focused and strategic offensive weapons against this Administration, they will have been an exercise in self-medication.”
Questions about President Trump from a former psychology professor: Is he well? Gary Marcus, Marcus on AI, 4/3/25: “The near-universal consensus is that President Trump’s new tariff policy (quite possibly partly written by LLMs) is likely to be among the worst economic policies in history. Why, why, why is President Trump doing something that seems so suicidal from the perspective of the United States, and indeed the whole world? As a former psychology professor, I want to raise four possibilities: dementia, cognitive impairment, ego, and extortion (of him, by somebody else).”
If Putin Designed a Plan to Collapse America, What Would It Look Like? Undermine democracy. Destroy institutions. Divide the people. Loot the country. Collapse it from the inside out…Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 3/31/25
A Trumpian History of America: Trump's view of American history is bizarre because Trump's psychology is bizarre, Dan Gardner, PastPresentFuture, 4/6/25: “How does an ignoramus who has never heard of Frederick Douglass become a loud public fan of the trade policies of William McKinley?...In 1900, about 10 percent of American homes had running water. Roughly three percent had electricity. Life expectancy was 47 years.”
The Party of Principles, Until They're Not: How the GOP Abandoned Free Markets, Fiscal Responsibility, and the Meaning of Integrity, Mike Brock, Notes from the Circus, 4/5/25
Trump Is Replacing the Nanny State With a Daddy State: The president is using the powers of his office in an aggressive, paternalistic way without precedent. Is an old form of intrusive government being replaced by a new one? Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal, 4/4/25
The Fire This Time, Henry Giroux, CounterPunch, 4/4/25: “This is a war not only against people, but against memory, imagination, and the very capacity to think, make connections, and to dream a different future. The unimaginable has become policy. The unthinkable now passes for normal.”
Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs are the highest in decades − an economist explains how that could hurt the US, Bedassa Tadesse, The Conversation, 4/3/25: “What’s really at stake is trust – And once that trust is lost, it’s incredibly hard to win back.”
A Primer on Trade Wars: Why they happen, and why they’re bad, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 4/6/25: “The theory of comparative advantage underlies the case for free trade: letting markets decide what you export and import.”
Trade deficits do not make a country poorer: There are real problems with trade deficits, but Trump doesn't understand what they are, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 4/4/25: “…exports add to GDP, while imports don’t subtract from GDP.”
Did an LLM help write Trump’s trade plan? Probably yes, Gary Marcus, Marcus on AI, 4/3/25 DW: It turns out this is easy to verify. Dumb beyond dumb.
As Trump tariffs sink in, conservatives challenge whether they’re legal: The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a legal nonprofit, has filed a complaint on behalf of a small stationery company in Florida, Maegen Vazquez, Washington Post, 4/6/25
These Tariffs Are a Democratic Crisis, Not Just an Economic One: The Founders wouldn’t look kindly on “Liberation Day,” Emily Chamlee-Wright, Persuasion, 4/4/25: “This isn’t just a policy debate: it’s a break from our constitutional law and the basics of the American tradition. The Founders understood that liberty requires lawful process, and that the power to tax or restrict trade must never rest in the hands of a single individual.” DW: I urge you to send this article to your Senators and Representatives, who have abdicated their responsibilities.
“Abundance” Is How Dems Lose To Trump: Ezra Klein’s new book is supercharging elites’ campaign to deter Democrats from challenging billionaires and corporate power, David Sirota, Aaron Regunberg, The Lever, 4/4/25: “The Kafkaesque nature of Biden’s broadband application process was not, in fact, the result of “everything bagel liberalism,” pressure from doctrinaire leftists, or Democratic politicians’ penchant for governing through checklists…Rather, this burdensome procedure was created at the insistence of vote-withholding Republican senators and their cable industry donors…”
Kat Abughazaleh, from YouTube to Congress? At 26, she’s challenging a House incumbent who’s held the seat since before she was born. Is this the beginning of the Democrats’ “tea party” moment? Shane O’Neill, Washington Post, 3/31/25
Silence is Collaboration: Academics Must Speak Out Against Fascism: An Open Letter From South Jersey, The Professors of Stockton University, LitHub, 4/2/25: “When we keep our heads down and stay the course, the fascists continue to lie, extort like the mobsters they are, and humiliate and attack whoever they add to their list of enemies.”
Amid State Abductions, Trump’s Fascism Is No Longer Creeping — It’s Here: Masked plainclothes police abducted a graduate student without filing charges. Her apparent “crime”? Henry A. Giroux, Truthout, 4/5/25
What Sen. Booker’s Speech Teaches Us About Effective Resistance Strategy, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Lucid, 4/3/25: “Lead with values and harness the power of emotions to bring others into the cause.”
Courage and fear are contagious; let's choose courage, Robert Hubbell, Today’s Edition, 4/4/25: “The courage of one person can ignite a self-sustaining fusion reaction of courage and action.”
Never Mind Wisconsin. The GOP Should be Worried About the Florida Results: In a test of the mood in the wake of Musk’s tenure atop DOGE, persuasive evidence emerged in Florida that the tech mogul has become a political liability, Charlie Mahtesian, Politico, 4/2/25
Q&A: Trump’s Damage to DOJ Will Be ‘Generational,’ Former Pardon Attorney Says, Jacob Knutson, Democracy Docket, 4/3/25: “The attorney general has said, in numerous different ways, that she believes the entire career workforce of the Department of Justice, which is about 115,000 people, are all the president’s lawyers. That’s simply not the case…”
The Senate’s Age of Irrelevance: Elon Musk’s DOGE and Trump’s executive orders are pushing Congress’s upper chamber from ineffectiveness to obsolescence. Will John Thune, the new Majority Leader, let them? David D. Kirkpatrick, New Yorker, 3/31/25
The Worst Political Decision Since Nixon Taped Himself Committing Crimes: How the Democrats handed Trump the election on a bitcoin-plated platter—and most still don't think they did anything wrong, Les Leopold, Common Dreams, 4/1/25
The Man Who Brought Us Here: How Joe Biden's pride, insularity, and stubbornness led us into this nightmare, Andrew Sullivan, Weekly Dish, 4/5/25
It’s time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states His small, democratic communities would revive and defend our republic, Bryce Tolpen, The Elysian, 3/30/25: “To Jefferson, it wasn't enough for each citizen to vote. We had to exercise public freedom: we had to discuss and debate face to face—to engage in decision-making with neighbors.”
How Democrats Can Win By Organizing from the County Up: In her new role as a party leader, Jane Kleeb is organizing Democrats to go on the offensive, Joel Bleifuss, Justin Perkins, Barn Raiser, 3/31/25: “…folks want there to be a much brighter and stronger line of opposition between us and the Republicans.”
The Power of Solidarity: The left’s power isn’t in brute force—it’s in collective force, Melissa Ryan, CtrlAltRightDelete, 3/30/25: “Solidarity has never been more necessary. It’s also clearly in short supply.”
USDA cuts hit small farms as Trump showers billions on big farms: The dollars helped schools and food banks buy from small farmers, boosting the local food system, Kevin Hardy, Stateline, 4/4/25
Doge’s attack on social security causing ‘complete, utter chaos’, staff says: Understaffed agency sent into ‘death spiral’ as employees warn Musk-led cuts will lead to structural collapse, Michael Sainato, The Guardian, 4/6/25
AI is creating a frictionless surveillance state, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 4/3/25: “Our increasingly authoritarian government is embracing Silicon Valley’s intrusive surveillance and AI algorithms in order to flag the political dissidents it wants to silence.”
Language is breaking apart in our hands. In the darkness, we can only make out the shapes of letters on the pages. We've been reading like this for hours, or forever, it seems, but now the sun fades out our windows and particles of darkness block the white bays the letters gather in their limbs— the blank spaces that make them legible, where the illuminate of the pale page makes shape.
—from “A Seam of Electricity (excerpt), Ian U Lockaby
Science, Environment, Wilderness
What the Fish Taught Me: Moving between worlds, Elizabeth Endicott, Orion, 4/2/25: “To be able to change oneself is to have a superpower…. To be queer is to be part of a growing, shimmering shoal, twisting and folding past closets and bans, swimming toward wider waters.”
Do We Have To Let Bright Lights Blind Us To Starry Nights? Jim Hightower, Lowdown, 4/3/25: “Let us embrace the darkness. Not the political dark ages being pushed on us by today’s regressive right-wing forces, but nature’s own pure darkness of night.”
Worried About the Climate? Get Off the Couch. The Data Supports It: Activism isn’t just the “antidote to despair.” A growing body of research suggests it’s also pretty effective at changing the world, Helen Souvaine Horn, New Republic, 4/4/25
Planet Ooze: We cannot grow the crops that feed eight billion people and counting without phosphorus. At the rate we waste this precious element, how long will supplies last? Jonathan Mingle, NY Review of Books, 4/10/25 issue: “The boundary we have overshot the furthest is the one that arguably gets the least attention: nutrient flows.”
Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer: Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure, Damian Carrington, The Guardian, 4/3/25 DW: Maybe DJT is secretly a radical environmentalist after all. Or just working for Putin, which makes actual sense.
Recycling Nuclear Waste: A Win-Win or a Dangerous Gamble? As interest in nuclear power rises, startups are pursuing plans to recycle spent fuel and reuse its untapped energy to power reactors. Advocates tout new recycling methods as a breakthrough, but many experts warn it will extract plutonium that could be used for nuclear weapons, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow, YaleE360, 4/2/25
Plastics in the World’s Oceans and Food: No Longer an Invisible Killer, Stewart Lawrence, CounterPunch, 4/3/25: “The ocean plastics problem – especially the threat from microplastics – has not received the same attention as many other environmental challenges.”
The climate movement needs lawyers. This ‘pro bono bootcamp’ helps connect the dots: It's not just high-profile lawsuits — climate solutions need contracts, corporate advice, and IP filings, Claire Elise Thompson, Grist, 4/2/25
The Forest For the Trees: How “Backyard Biology” Can Lead to Scientific Breakthroughs: on the Joys of Slowing Down and Discovering the Unknown In the Familiar, Thor Hanson, LitHub, 4/3/25: “If backyard observations helped Charles Darwin to better understand evolution, then they probably have a lot to teach all of us.” Book: Close to Home: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door
Bird flu finds its way into Western wildlife: The deaths of two Washington cougars suggest the virus is more widespread than thought, Kylie Mohr, High Country News, 4/1/25
A faster, greener way to build homes: Automated modular construction can create better-sealed, more efficient apartment buildings, YCC Teams, Yale Climate Connections, 4/4/25
Botanical Gardens are the Last Bastions for Some Imperiled Plants: Conservationists are racing to preserve dwindling species in “metacollections,” Janet Marinelli, BioGraphic, 4/3/25
Endangered tortoise, roughly 97, becomes oldest first-time mom of her species: Mommy’s four Galapagos tortoise hatchlings will go on public view at Philadelphia Zoo starting April 23, Andrea Sachs, Washington Post, 4/3/25
In a Nova Scotia research lab, the last hope for an ancient fish species: Racing against time, dwindling habitat and warming waters, scientists are trying to give this little-known species a shot, Moira Donovan, The Narwhal, 4/5/25: “[Atlantic whitefish] a distinct genetic lineage that stretches back around 14 million years, now found only in this research facility and a trio of small Nova Scotia lakes.”
Southern Ocean warming will mean a wetter West Coast, US, Cornell Univ, ScienceDaily, 4/2/25: “…the Southern Ocean will eventually release heat absorbed from the atmosphere…regardless of climate mitigation efforts.”
Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex: A new suggestion that complexity increases over time, not just in living organisms but in the nonliving world, promises to rewrite notions of time and evolution, Philip Ball, Quanta, 4/2/25
When I floated on my back,
my breasts were two turtles drying
their shells on a mudbank.
And when the jaguar dived beneath me
and lifted me up into the light
I clung to his back and rode my life.
—from “The River,” Pascale Petit
Health, Wellness
No, vaccination is not a “personal choice:” The dangerous myth behind HHS Secretary Kennedy’s claim that the decision to get vaccinated is a personal one, Caroline Orr Bueno, Weaponized, 4/2/25: “Framing vaccination as an issue of “personal choice” disregards the fact that choosing not to get vaccinated ultimately strips other people of their personal choice to stay healthy or to live a normal life.”
An antiviral chewing gum to reduce influenza and herpes simplex virus transmission, UPenn, ScienceDaily, 4/4/25: “…40 milligrams of a two-gram bean gum tablet was adequate to reduce viral loads by more than 95%.”
The CDC Has Been Gutted: Thousands of CDC employees who worked on things like preventing HIV and lead poisoning have been told they were subject to a reduction in force.: Experts say people will die, Leah Feiger, Makena Kelly, Kate Knibbs, Wired, 4/1/25
Western diet causes inflammation, traditional African food protects: Study from Tanzania shows major impact of diet on the immune system, Radboud Univ Med Ctr, ScienceDaily, 4/3/25: “A switch of just two weeks from a traditional African diet to a Western diet causes inflammation, reduces the immune response to pathogens, and activates processes associated with lifestyle diseases.”
Birds, Birding
Evolution by automotive selection: Scientists in the Galápagos discover yellow warblers living near traffic exhibit the bird version of ‘road rage,’ Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 4/2/25
Arizona's birds are disappearing fast, Alayna Alvarez, Jessica Boehm, Axios Phoenix, 4/4/25: “It's not just Arizona….Roughly one-third of U.S. bird species—229 in total—are now classified as high or moderate conservation concerns.”
Dearest friends - despite the constant barrage of psyche-damaging news and events, we can (and we will) resist fear, and the despair that fear engenders. This weekend’s demonstrations provide hope—but we all know that resistance and opposition will require much more of us.
We will defend what we believe in. Do not lose heart! Resist despair! Find joy! We are not alone.
Stay strong. Love the ones you’re with. And take care of yourself too.
Love always—David
The world is dark but it is not hopeless.—Clarence Darrow
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.—Epictetus