The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 166, July 16, 2023 (V4 #10)
…some [dictator] may hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.—Tom Paine, Common Sense
We may have come here on different ships, but we are all in the same boat now.—John Lewis
Books, Art, Music, Culture
Love’s Work: In his films for children, Hayao Miyazaki has used the labor-intensive art of animation to study the major problem of adult life, Lucy Jakub, NY Review of Books, 7/13/23
The world is big and no one is listening: Social media fragmentation has liberated us, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 7/10/23: “We’ve lost something, but in losing it, we’ve freed ourselves from something.”
Reconstructing Our Attention in the Era of Infinite Digital Rabbit Holes: on the Devices that Hold Our Most Scarce Resource Hostage, Tobias Rose-Stockwell, LitHub, 7/14/23: “For the first time, the majority of information we consume as a species is controlled by algorithms built to capture our emotional attention.”
Milan Kundera, author of ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ dies at 94: His widely translated novels mixed philosophical speculation with political critique and erotic reverie, Harrison Smith, Washington Post, 7/12/23
Milan Kundera’s Stubborn Struggle for the Survival of Literature: The Czech author, who died this week at 94, warned against the marginalization of literature and fought for its future, Jared Marcel Pollen, New Republic, 7/12/23
How J. Robert Oppenheimer Was Influenced by the Bhagavad Gita: on the Concept of Dharma, the Manhattan Project, and Oppenheimer's Well-Worn Copy of the Gita, Alok A. Khorana, LitHub, 7/10/23
More Than Just A Pretty Face: On the Multifaceted Marianne Faithfull: The Women Behind The Rolling Stones, Elizabeth Winder, LitHub, 7/13/23: “Marianne knew from the start this image was forced on her by corporate men.” Book: Parachute Women: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones
Tracy Chapman, Luke Combs and the complicated response to ‘Fast Car:’ Combs’s remake of Chapman’s 1988 hit now dominates the country charts, renewing difficult conversations about diversity in Nashville, Emily Yahr, Washington Post, 7/13/23. Fast Car/Tracy Chapman; Fast Car/Luke Combs
The unprecedented weirdness of Taylor Swift: She already seems to own the future. Now she’s in the middle of a years-long project to literally remake her past, Chris Richards, Washington Post, 7/10/23: “She’s clearly some kind of genius, and she’s obviously a brighter brand of superstar than most who came before, but it’s Swift’s weirdness that accommodates all perspectives.”
Lucinda Williams Talks About Recovery, Reflection and Her Rock ‘N’ Roll Heart, Tom Lanham, Paste, 7/12/23: “… the material reveals a softer, more reflective side of the composer, who is—above all else—just grateful to be alive, after she suffered a debilitating stroke on November 17 of 2020.”
Give me one more song to sing along to
Give me one more dance to hold you through
Give me one more taste of my lost youth
And it's last call for the truth
—from “Last Call for the Truth,” Lucinda Williams
My Unlikely Writing Teacher: Pedro Martinez: Looking to a maestro on the mound to improve your writing game, Will Harrison, NY Times, 7/11/23 (Gift Article): “Martinez imparts his final writing lesson: Leave your best stuff for last, but don’t overstay your welcome.”
Naomi Girma: the brilliant scientist at the heart of USA’s defense, After a formidable academic and athletic career at Stanford University, the Californian is an integral part of the defending champions’ World Cup campaign, Jeff Kassouf, The Guardian, 7/14/23
The Invention of “the Male Gaze:” In 1973, the film theorist Laura Mulvey used concepts from psychoanalysis to forge a feminist polemic and a lasting shorthand for gender dynamics onscreen, Lauren Michele Jackson, New Yorker, 7/14/23: “The way bodies are framed, and the way the camera moves, teaches us to look at women the way that patriarchy already does.”
Not Everything Dies: The young Polish-language poet Zuzanna Ginczanka was killed in the Holocaust. Two new translations offer different renditions of her startling work, Lily Meyer, Poetry Foundation, 7/10/23: I leave no heirs, so may your hand dig out / my Jewish things, Chominowa of Lvov, mother / of a Volksdeutscher, snitch’s wife, swift snout.”Book: On Centaurs & Other Poems
Two Roads: A Review-in-Dialogue of Will Harris’s “Brother Poem” and Evie Shockley’s “Suddenly We,” Victoria Chang, Dean Rader, LA Review of Books, 7/13/23: “They are both interested in identity. In change. In language. In the change language can induce. They want their poems to do something. To reshape. To alter. To recast.”
The Book is Better than the Movie: Denise Duhamel's Kinky, Stacey Harwood-Lehman, Best American Poetry, 7/14/23
Barbie sat through the meeting, wondering:
What is wisdom? What is letting go?
She wished she could clap like the others
when there was a good story about recovery. She accepted
she couldn't, hoping that if she stopped struggling,
her higher power, Mattel, would finally let her move.
—from “Barbie Joins a Twelve Step program,” Denise Duhamel
Politicks
Few US adults support full abortion bans, even in states that have them, an AP-NORC poll finds, Geoff Mulvihill, Linley Sanders, AP News, 7/12/23: “While most GOP-controlled state governments have been pushing for more abortion restrictions, the poll finds that there’s not always support for doing so.”
The MAGA/Russian Plan to Track and Control Your Life: At the bloody hands of this MAGA insanity we risk going down the path followed by most oligarchies in history: becoming a dictatorial single-party-rule state with a complete loss of civil liberties...Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 7/12/23
‘A deranged ploy’: how Republicans are fueling the disinformation wars: Several actions by the far right in the last month could result in a flood of conspiracy theories before the 2024 election, Nick Robins-Early, The Guardian, 7/10/23
Close to 100,000 Voter Registrations Were Challenged in Georgia — Almost All by Just Six Right-Wing Activists, Doug Bock Clark, ProPublica, 7/13/23. DW: remember that Trump lost Georgia by only 11,000 votes, so it will not take much voter suppression to potentially change the outcome of 2024. Same for all the other “swing states.”
How an upstart conservative group is taking Christian nationalist politics local: Meet the group critics call ‘Moms for Liberty in suits,’ Jack Jenkins, Religion News, 7/12/23: “…the core of CDF’s messaging comes out of a brand of conservative Christianity that sees American values and a specific understanding of Christian values as inextricably linked by God’s will.”
How Climate Change Accelerates the Danger of Worldwide Fascism: In addition to stepping up to mitigate climate change & green the world’s economy, the free nations must harden our democracies against reactive rightwing violence & hate-based political movements...Thom Hartmann, Hartmann Report, 7/10/23
Scientists are freaking out about surging temperatures. Why aren’t politicians? Western leaders’ attention is focused elsewhere as ‘unprecedented’ heat warms oceans and land, Zia Weise, Politico, 7/12/23
All These Hysterical Women: On abortion rights, wandering wombs, and hysteria, LYZ, Men Yell at Me, 7/12/23: “Women are dying; men are joking and telling me to calm down.”
has the hollow descended {yet} the stars
has the sap hardened its bud up in me has
it come to pass {yet} the shine shined off
the creek has carried it has carried it away
—from “Apex|Pray,” Cody-Rose Clevidence in Aux/Arc Tryptich
Science & Environment
NASA releases spectacular image to celebrate James Webb Space Telescope, Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, 7/12/23
Is the biggest obstacle to climate action all in your head? The impact of climate despair may now loom larger than the impact of climate denial, Mark Harris, Anthropocene, 7/7/23: “Doubting, blame-shifting, catastrophism, and avoidance are all manifestations of our struggle to cope with something as global and all-encompassing as climate change.”
How can scientists better explain climate risks? Juan Siliezar-Brown, Futurity, 7/10/23: “In a lot of ways, it comes back to communicating uncertainty. It’s why we spend a huge amount of time trying to get precise about what we don’t know.”
As heat records break, the climate movement has the right answers – but the words are all wrong: The fossil fuel industry has spent billions on winning over the public. Green activists must learn from its tactics, Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, 7/14/23
What to Do with Climate Emotions: If the goal is to insure that the planet remains habitable, what is the right degree of panic, and how do you bear it? Jia Tolentino, New Yorker, 7/10/23: “It may be impossible to seriously consider the reality of climate change for longer than ninety seconds without feeling depressed, angry, guilty, grief-stricken, or simply insane.”
Trying to save coral reefs? Think like a hedge fund manager: With coral reefs in danger of disappearing, scientists say borrowing strategies from gamblers and investors could help, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 7/12/23
The Arctic Is a Freezer That’s Losing Power: As glaciers retreat, methane-rich groundwater is bubbling to the surface. That may be warming the climate, accelerating the Arctic’s rapid decline, Matt Simon, Wired, 7/13/23
When Will the Southwest Become Unlivable? Air-conditioning and swimming pools are sustaining my community. I worry about the day when they won’t be enough, Ruxandra Guidi, Atlantic, 7/12/23
Vermont’s Catastrophic Floods and the Spread of Unnatural Disasters: In parts of the Northeast, two months of rain fell in two days, Sue Halpern, New Yorker, 7/12/23: Bernie Sanders: “You know that movie ‘Don’t Look Up’? We’ve got to look up. The crisis is now, and we’ve got to address it.”
What it’s like to road-trip cross-country in an electric car: One couple drove over 8,000 miles, spending a third less than what they would have paid in gas, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 7/10/23
Three sisters and 120 sweet potatoes: Mexican farmers embrace Maya traditions: Villagers who have kept pre-Hispanic milpa methods alive for years are seeing new markets spring up in the Yucatán, Imogen Lepere, The Guardian, 7/10/23
The Navajo farmer taking a traditional approach to making baby food: Zachariah and Mary Ben were struck by the lack of of fresh and local foods near them, so they began growing their own crops, Cecilia Nowell, The Guardian, 7/15/23
From Treeless Hills to Emerald Woods: In the rainy mountains along Ireland’s west coast, a group of surfers wants to restore a temperate rainforest ecosystem that has been gone for centuries, Lenny Antonelli, Hakai, 7/12/23
Back from the Dead: New Hope for Resurrecting Extinct Plants: Armed with new technology, botanists are proposing what was once thought impractical: reviving long-lost plant species by using seeds from dried specimens in collections. The challenges remain daunting, but researchers are now searching for the best de-extinction candidates, Janet Marinelli, Yale Environment 360, 7/12/23
Can mushrooms prevent megafires? Stephen Robert Miller, Washington Post, 7/10/23: With the right kind of fungi, we can do in five years what nature could take 50 years to a century to do: create organic soil.”
Solar Energy Solves Global Warming, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 7/11/23: “It’s not time that reduces solar panel costs, but scale. The more we build them, the better we learn how to improve their efficiency.”
Pilot project uses volcanic ash to make cement: The project takes advantage of ash from a 2021 eruption on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 7/12/23
To Help Cool a Hot Planet, the Whitest of White Coats: Scientists at Purdue have created a white paint that, when applied, can reduce the surface temperature on a roof and cool the building beneath it, Cara Buckley, NY Times, 7/12/23 (Gift article, no paywall)
Limitless ‘white’ hydrogen under our feet may soon shatter all energy assumptions: There’s a real possibility that vast reserves of this clean fuel can be extracted at competitive costs, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph (UK), 7/13/23: “The US Geological Survey concluded in April that there is probably enough accessible hydrogen in the earth’s subsurface to meet total global demand for “hundreds of years.””
'I told you so' are the four least satisfying words in the English language. Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years, 7/16/23: “…we need to keep building huge movements to finally break the political power of the fossil fuel industry and force the emergency conversion to clean energy.”
The room pulls away and I’m standing.
I’m standing and the room greets
The audience. I’m standing and newspapers
Open like folded pigeons, but I’m
Listening and I’m standing and my favorite
Citizens listen and I listen when I sit down
When the room fills with angry hip-hop,
When I’m happy as a screen door closing.
—from “Early April Subway,” Justin Jamail
Health & Wellness
‘It’s one of the great mysteries of our time’: why extreme food allergies are on the rise – and what we can do about them: More and more youngsters are experiencing serious reactions to everyday foods – and even our pets are suffering. We meet one family who lost a son to anaphylaxis and ask what can be done, Bee Wilson, The Guardian, 7/15/23
Are you spreading PFAS on your morning toast? New testing finds evidence of “forever chemicals” in the wrappers of eight brands of butter, EHN Staff, Environmental Health News, 7/12/23
Wildfire smoke could increase your pneumonia risk, experts say. Here’s what you need to know to stay healthy, Erin Prater, Fortune, 7/12/23: “If wildfire smoke is in the area, do your best to stay inside.”
Old Memories Can Prime Brains to Make New Ones: Creating a memory takes energy, and brains only have so much. A study using snails shows how they can be primed for future learning, Yasemin Saplakoglu, Wired, 7/9/23
The Curious Personality Changes of Older Age: When people lose the ability to control their circumstances, their selves sometimes evolve instead, Faith Hill, Atlantic, 7/12/23: “The idea that people might change who they are—really change, in a deep and even lasting way—in response to their circumstances might seem surprising.”
AI tools are designing entirely new proteins that could transform medicine: Digital art techniques can now devise custom, working biomolecules on demand, Ewen Callaway, Nature, 7/11/23
What to know about Opill, the first U.S. over-the-counter birth control pill, Sabrina Malhi, Washington Post, 7/13/23: “Opill contains only progestin, the synthetic form of progesterone. While both combination and progesterone-only birth control pills are considered safe by health experts, a progestin-only pill has even fewer side effects.”
Birds
We paddled 17 miles to see puffins on a Maine island, Ron Chase, Bangor Daily News, 7/10/23: “Eastern Egg Rock, a tiny, seemingly nondescript, barren atoll located in outer Muscongus Bay, is one of a handful of locations along the Maine coast where Atlantic puffins come to nest.”
The Cerrado, the World's Most Biodiverse Tropical Savannah, Is in Peril: A young bird expert is among the scientists racing to document Brazil's ancient and understudied biome—while simultaneously raising the alarm about what’s being lost, Sarah Sax, Audubon, Summer 2023
You got a fast car / I want a ticket to anywhere / Maybe we make a deal / Maybe together we can get somewhere—Tracy Chapman, “Fast Car”
I am hoping that together we can get somewhere. What is it going to take?
Send your thoughts, poems, art, and great ideas for changing the world.
Don’t give up the ship. It’s the only one we have.
Much love to all. —David