The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 90, January 30, 2022 (V2 #38)
Today, the Washington Post ran a story that began: “Even as the U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in decades in 2021, the recovery has more recently flashed troubling warning signs, with soaring inflation, whipsawing financial markets and slowing consumer spending complicating the rebound.” It was a surprising way to introduce the best economic growth since 1984.—Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, 1/8/22
I don't know what they have to say
It makes no difference anyway
Whatever it is, I'm against it
No matter what it is or who commenced it
I'm against it
Your proposition may be good
But let's have one thing understood:
Whatever it is, I'm against it
And even when you've changed it or condensed it
I'm against it
—“I’m Against It” (Burt Kalmar/Harry Ruby) from Horse Feathers, 1932 - sung by that famous Marxist, Groucho
Amerikana
About Those Censorship Attacks, It's worse than we know, John Warner, Biblioracle, 1/30/22: “This is textbook white majoritarian backlash, and they are utilizing the power of the state to attack what they perceive as liberal institutions. This is Joseph McCarthy’s playbook, and there is no debate to be had about whether or not a book is “pornographic” simply because it contains two girls kissing.”
2022: The year of the thought police, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 1/24/22: “To wit, the bill explicitly requires teachers to lie to students. It requires teachers to define "American history…as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence."
Art Spiegelman sees the new ban of his book ‘Maus’ as a ‘red alert,’ Michael Cavna, Washington Post, 1/28/22
The Right's Ugly War On Woke Schooling: There is a better way to defeat left indoctrination than banning books, Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish, 1/28/22
US conservatives linked to rich donors wage campaign to ban books from schools, Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian, 1/24/22: “Conservative groups across the US, often linked to deep-pocketed rightwing donors, are carrying out a campaign to ban books from school libraries, often focused on works that address race, LGBTQ issues or marginalized communities.”
Georgia county purges Democrats from election board and cancels Sunday voting: The takeover in Spalding county is part of Republican efforts to dominate elections mechanisms nationwide, Justin Glawe, Washington Post, 1/30/22
Florida Advances Bill that Would Ban Making White People Feel Bad about Racism, and No, That’s Not a Joke: The bill would ban public schools and private businesses from inflicting “discomfort” on white people during lessons or training about discrimination, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 1/21/22
Trump suggests that if he is reelected, he will pardon Jan. 6 Capitol rioters, Tyler Pager, Washington Post, 1/29/22
Who has more influence on supreme court: Clarence Thomas or his activist wife? Justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas, sits on the board of conservative group that backs lawsuit seeking to end affirmative action, raising concerns it could present potential conflict of interest, Ed Pilkington, The Guardian, 1/28/22 (Ed. Note: Clarence should resign.)
How gerrymandering makes the US House intensely partisan, Dana Bash, Abbie Sharpe, Ethan Cohen, CNN, 1/25/22: “…less than 4% of members of the House come from districts where there is any significant pressure from voters on the other side of the aisle.”
Interest in civil disobedience has reached a mini climate tipping point: Non-violent protest for the planet? “Definitely,” say 5 percent of Americans in Yale study, Eve Andrews, Grist, 1/26/22
I once told a Supreme Court justice that affirmative action got me into Harvard and Yale. Today they wouldn’t listen, Paul Butler, Washington Post, 1/27/22
A perfidious practitioner of poltroonery, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 1/28/22: “So while Governor Youngkin is having his own children get an education that will prepare them for life in a diverse multi-cultural modern world at $75,000-a-pop, he’s taking inequality a step further by making sure that the kids stuck in the public school system never see the kinds of books or get taught the kinds of subjects his own kids are exposed to.”
Do we stand at the precipice of radical change? Maybe, but perhaps we'll just putter along, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 1/27/22: “it seems easily possible to imagine a future where we don’t just muddle along with business-as-usual, but in which we do address the threat of climate change with only mild disruptions of our current way of life. The biggest reason is the advance of technology. Renewable energy, energy storage, electric vehicles, and other green technologies have gotten so good, and so cheap, so quickly, that the economic incentives now favor decarbonization.”
What Does Virginia Want Now? And what does that mean for America? A reporter tours through a state rife with uncertainty to find out, David Montgomery, Washington Post, 1/24/22: “As much as they blamed the other side for the pervasive sense of peril, most of all they wanted to find a way to a place where politics didn’t feel like an existential death match.”
After Texas Republicans imposed a draconian abortion ban, these corporations sent checks, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 1/24/22
WTF RFK Jr.? An environmental leader’s bizarre journey from hero to pariah, Douglas Fischer, Environmental Health News, 1/30/22
Inflation-fighting as a multi-decade project: Instead of trying to invent magical instant inflation solutions, let's play the long game, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 1/29/22
Cryptocurrency Is a Giant Ponzi Scheme: Cryptocurrency is not merely a bad investment or speculative bubble. It’s worse than that: it’s a full-on fraud, Sohale Andrus Mortazavi, Jacobin Magazine, 1/21/22
QUANTUM LOVE
we think we’re islands
but the bottom of the sea
shows deep connection.
we think we’re alone:
the waves wash away our tears
and our wavelengths mesh.
we’ll never return
to our old ways of thinking:
hello quantum love.
—Alexis Krasilovsky, from Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems, cyberwit.net
Science, Technology, Climate
'X particle' from the dawn of time detected inside the Large Hadron Collider: The mysterious particle will reveal insights into the earliest moments of the universe, Ben Turner, LiveScience, 1/25/22
Kombucha Cultures Could Be the Key to Better Water Filters: A study found that filtration membranes formed from SCOBYs are more effective at preventing bacterial growth than commercial equivalents, Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica/Wired, 1/29/22
Our Way to Environmentally Friendly Packaging, Mary Hoff, Ensia, 1/27/22: “Lobster claws and insect exoskeletons may seem like unlikely candidates for sustainable packaging feedstock.”
Inside Clean Energy: As Efficiency Rises, Solar Power Needs Fewer Acres to Pack the Same Punch: Research shows a big improvement in generating capacity per acre of solar panels, with implications for how much land is needed for an energy transition, Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, 1/27/22
See the Channel Islands’ stunning ecological recovery: The conservation success story is an example of what decades of work can accomplish, Theo Whitcomb, High Country News, 1/27/22: “Point Bennet, on the coast of San Miguel Island, now hosts the largest seal and sea lion rookery in the world.”
A Former Hacker’s Guide to Boosting Your Online Security: More stolen personal data is available online than ever before. A man who once ran a website that prosecutors called the Amazon of stolen identity information offers his tips on the best ways to protect your data, Cezary Podhul, ProPublica, 1/27/22
A disinfectant made from sawdust mows down deadly microbes: Wood waste could help make some cleaning products more sustainable, Carolyn Wilke, Science News, 1/19/22
Scientists Found a Nitrogen-Fixing Seagrass: Adopting a strategy that is all but unheard of in the sea, this seagrass produces an essential nutrient the same way peas do, Brian Owens, Hakai, 1/27/22
How mRNA and DNA vaccines could soon treat cancers, HIV, autoimmune disorders and genetic diseases, Deborah Fuller, The Conversation, 1/24/22
Seven technologies to watch in 2022: Our fifth annual round-up of the tools that look set to shake up science this year, Michael Eisenstein, Nature, 1/25/22
Idaho is Sitting on One of the Most Important Elements on Earth: The clean-energy revolution is unleashing a rush on cobalt, reviving old mines—and old questions—in a remote forest, Michael Holtz, Atlantic, 1/24/22
America’s Favorite Pickup Truck Goes Electric: Ford’s F-series trucks make up the best-selling vehicle line in the U.S. Can its new F-150 Lightning compete with Tesla in the E.V. market? John Seabrook, New Yorker, 1/24/22
Portable hydrogen-powered generator goes to market in Japan: Startup Scitem sees cartridge-based system paving way for mobility solutions, Kazuhiro Ishiguro, Nikkei Asia, 1/25/22
America’s hottest city is nearly unlivable in summer. Can cooling technologies save it?Phoenix’s new ‘heat tsar’ is betting on less asphalt, more green canopy and reflective surfaces to cool the sprawling heat island, Nina Lakhani, The Guardian, 1/27/22
AI Does It Best, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 1/25/22: “21 ways AI is blowing our minds today.”
The race to protect the food of the future – why seed banks alone are not the answer, Helen Anne Curry, The Conversation, 1/27/22: “There is also a growing movement to protect and, where needed, to restore the crop varieties traditional to certain communities as a means of defending sovereignty over land and food.”
Efforts to dim Sun and cool Earth must be blocked, say scientists: Scientists are calling on political institutions to place limits on solar geoengineering research so that it cannot be deployed unilaterally by countries, companies or individuals, Shanna Hanbury, MongaBay, 1/24/22
Birdland
Birds are remarkable and beautiful animals – and they’re disappearing from our world: In the past half century, North America has lost a fourth of its birds. Earth is now a coalmine, and every wild bird is a canary, Kim Heacox, The Guardian, 1/28/22
Bird ranges shifting northward: Audubon study, Deborah Byrd, EarthSky, 1/27/22: “On January 25, 2022 the National Audubon Society in New York announced a newly published study of birds in the eastern United States. … It shows a response from these birds to climate change and habitat availability.”
Love the Hit Game Wordle? Try BRDL, a Bird-Inspired Spinoff: The daily word quiz that has taken the internet by storm now has a version for birders. Just make sure you know your banding codes, Andrew Del-Colle, Audubon, 1/28/22
The Mystery of the World’s Loneliest Penguins: A small group of king penguins have appeared on Martillo Island in Argentina. How they got there, and whether they will stay, is unknown, Victoria Turk, Wired UK, 1/9/22
Birds shuffle and repeat their tunes to keep the audience listening, Dan Vahaba, Phys.org, 1/26/22
Eagle-Eyed Birders Spot Rare Find in Central Park: A Bald Eagle, Julio Acevedo, NBC NY, 1/26/22
Island Beach SP 1/28--White-winged Scoter, Razorbill, Tricolored Heron, Larry Zirlin, Birds and Words, 1/28/22
Bird Flu Is Back in the US. No One Knows What Comes Next: The fast-moving pathogen, which has already invaded Europe, was found in East Coast ducks. The last outbreak that tore through the US killed 50 million birds, Maryn McKenna, Wired, 1/24/22
Dawn Chorus: Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley, Cardinal, Daily Kos, 1/23/22: “The birding hotspots are concentrated along the easternmost 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, from Mission to South Padre Island.”
Words
The Irony of Fate: On the mystery of John Ashbery’s posthumous work, Ryan Ruby, The Nation, 1/27/22
Don’t put me on the desk.
I was afraid I was going to die very soon,
on a paper spree. Any nice person will
die very shortly. It doesn’t really fit.
A missing dog or donkey (registered)
does the American state police talk show
no favors, just as in the past you coaxed
belligerent sweetness from the hedge and then
it was gone. Color? Why no color?
What did you expect from the microtonal
overlap of minutes? And then when it
did stand up, it was like nothing you ever imagined.
(from “Parallel Movement of the Hands”)
Can Poetry Change the World? The centenary of The Waste Land has made me take a new look at the magic of poetry, Karen Christensen, Karen’s Letter, 1/27/22
‘I’m free at last’: Uganda’s rudest poet on prison, protest and finding a new voice in Germany, Stella Nyanzi talks about challenging Uganda’s President Museveni from her new home and why she had to leave the land she loves, Lizzy Davies, The Guardian, 1/27/22
On Writing: An Abecedarian, Priscilla Long, Hudson Review, Winter 2022: “Writing allows you to discover what you are thinking and feeling, what you believe, what you remember. By writing you can elegize or rhapsodize or argue with yourself or with another.”
We’re All Just Extras Here: Wandering the Back Streets of Old Hollywood: a Season of Displacement in Old Los Angeles, David L. Ulin, LitHub, 1/26/22
What Made Buster Keaton’s Comedy So Modern? Whereas Chaplin’s vision was essentially theatrical, Keaton’s was specific to the screen—he moved like the moving pictures, Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 1/27/22: “Keaton seems to have been one of those comic geniuses who, when not working, never felt entirely alive.”
The myth of the lone creative genius, Cody Delistraty, Document, 1/20/22: “That the label of lone genius tends to be predominantly applied to narcissistic men known to hurt others or break rules is hardly a surprise.”
A Search Engine That Finds You Weird Old Books: To help ‘rewild your attention’ I built a book-finding app, Clive Thompson, Debugger/Medium, 1/20/22: “Old books are socially and culturally fascinating; they give you a glimpse into how much society has changed, and also what’s remained the same.” (Ed. note: Click Here to go directly to the tool. It’s great!)
Joni Mitchell Joins Neil Young in Boycotting Spotify For Letting Joe Rogan Podcast, Caleb Howe, Mediaite, 1/29/22.
Yeah, the government said they had to get new cars
Picked those fuel-burners and they went to Mars
They turned on everyone for being so controlling
And taking away the freedom that they had always been knowing
Change ain't never gonna come
They sang that together and they rose as one
Take on the great conspiracy if you don't
Try to stop them from living as they've always been living —Neil Young, from “Change Ain’t Never Gonna”
Top 10 Most Challenged Books Lists, “American Library Association: The Top 10 lists are only a snapshot of book challenges. Surveys indicate that 82-97% of book challenges – documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries – remain unreported and receive no media.”
This week’s recommended reading
A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School, Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire
The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
New Kid, Jerry Craft
If You Want to Know How I Got Brainwashed, Betsy Dovydenas
Just posted: new Writerscast interview with William Peters: At Heaven’s Door, What Shared Journeys to the AfterLife Tell Us About Dying Well
Birthdays
Saul Alinsky, January 30, 1909
Richard Brautigan, January 30, 1935
Thomas Merton, January 31, 1915
Langston Hughes, February 1, 1902
S.J. Perelman, February 1, 1904
James Joyce, February 2, 1882
Gertrude Stein, February 3, 1874
Simone Weil, February 3, 1909
Betty Friedan, February 4, 1921
I hope everyone is safe and well, especially all who just went through our winter’s biggest storm. This week’s news is disturbing, and demonstrates pretty clearly the extent of the attack on democracy that is coming from within our own country. Stay well all, and be prepared for what is yet to come. Just as it will be warmer soon, I hope we can say the same about our politics, but unlike weather, that we experience and cannot change, politics requires us to act. Be well all.