The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 100, April 10, 2022 (V2 #48)
“There were not two sides to Trump's habitual lying. There are not two sides to the vaccine debate. There are not two sides to the potential upside of using disinfectant on the inside of your body. There are not two sides to the climate change debate. There are not two sides to the Jan 6 insurrection story. There are not two sides to the 2020 election results. Yesterday, Donald Trump requested that Vladimir Putin dig up and share dirt on Joe Biden's family. At a time of war, that's straight up treachery, the kind of anti-American garbage this criminal has been spewing for years. End of story.”—Dave Pell, NextDraft, 3/30/22
“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” —Primo Levi
“Madison was on to something when he warned that there was a connection between establishing a religion and destroying American democracy. At the same time Republican lawmakers are now talking about rolling back popular civil rights in order to serve Christianity, they are also taking away the right to vote and appear to be looking to set a minority into power over the majority.”—Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American
Did I tell you? I come from a people of sculptors
whose masterpiece was rubble.—Ocean Vuong
Environment Only One
Mushrooms communicate with each other using up to 50 ‘words’, scientist claims: Professor theorises electrical impulses sent by mycological organisms could be similar to human language, Linda Geddes, The Guardian, 4/5/22: “Though interesting, the interpretation as language seems somewhat overenthusiastic, and would require far more research and testing of critical hypotheses before we see ‘Fungus’ on Google Translate.”
New IPCC report: Only political will stands in way of meeting the Paris targets: The latest major climate assessment outlines the urgency and feasibility of rapid decarbonization to preserve the economy, health, and a stable climate, Dana Nuccitelli, Yale Climate Connections, 4/6/22
Wildfire smoke destroys stratospheric ozone, Peter Bernath, Chris Boone, Jeff Crouse, Science, 3/17/22: “Large wildfires inject smoke and biomass-burning products into the mid-latitude stratosphere, where they destroy ozone, which protects us from ultraviolet radiation.”
Cobalt-free lithium battery gigafactory to help transition West Virginia away from coal economy, Andy Colthorpe, Energy Storage News, 3/23/22
‘This plan is a lie’: Biogas on hog farms could do more harm than good: North Carolina residents, researchers, and farmers say the rapidly growing industry distracts from a massive hog waste problem—and the public health risks that it causes, Cameron Oglesby, Southerly Mag, 3/24/22
The return of ‘good fire’ to eastern U.S. forests and grasslands: Advocates say controlled burns are a critical solution to a range of problems, from biodiversity loss to wildfire risk to climate change. But they must overcome government regulations and a long-held view of fire as unnatural and threatening, Gabriel Popkin, FERN, 4/7/22
A Million Little Pieces: The Race to Rebuild the World’s Coral Reefs: Nearly half of these ocean ecosystems have been wiped out since 1950. One man is on a mission to reverse that—by speed-growing coral in hyperefficient nurseries, Rowan Moore Gerety, Wired, 4/5/22
Microplastics Found In Lungs of Humans Undergoing Surgery, Yale E360, 4/6/22: (Ugh): “A new study has found tiny plastic particles no bigger than sesame seeds buried throughout human lungs, indicating that people are inhaling microplastics lingering in the air.”
'Captain Zero' and his amazing hotel from the future! Rand Richards Cooper, Connecticut Magazine, 3/29/22: “Run wholly on electricity, generating and managing its own power with an impressive array of solar panels, storage batteries and state-of-the-art energy-saving technologies, it is the first zero-net-energy hotel in the U.S.”
For cannabis farms, ecosystem science is scarce: An interview with an ecologist studying the West’s emerging, and rarely researched, industry, Theo Whicomb, High Country News, 4/7/22
"Dirty Dozen" list calls out fruits and vegetables with the highest pesticide contamination, Zoe Christen Jones, CBS News, 4/7/22
Newly Measured Particle Seems Heavy Enough to Break Known Physics: A new analysis of W bosons suggests these particles are significantly heavier than predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, Charlie Wood, Quanta, 4/7/22
Scientists find fossil of dinosaur ‘killed on day of asteroid strike;’ Remains of thescelosaurus in North Dakota believed to date back to extinction of species 66m years ago, Kevin Rawlinson, The Guardian, 4/7/22
Regenerative agriculture can combat climate change and keep food on our plates. Here’s how it works, Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, National Observer, 4/4/22
A small and unpretentious fish is sending a warning message: A vanishing number of Delta smelt in San Francisco Bay is finding a changing climate contributing to its declining numbers, Hanisha Harjani, Yale Climate Connections, 4/4/22
Nine Things We Can Do Now to Protect the Environment and Reduce the Risk of Another Pandemic: Important ways we can help minimize the risk of future disease by rethinking how we farm, eat, trade and interact with other species, John Vidal, Ensia, 4/1/22
Green Energy’s Hidden Costs Spark Opposition: Proposed lithium mine in Nevada would damage ancestral lands, critics say, Chris Aadland, Investigate West, 4/7/22
Polly-ticks and War
Senator urges Democrats to ‘scream from the rooftops’ against Republicans Brian Schatz from Hawaii, who denounced Josh Hawley on the Senate floor over Ukraine, tells own side to make more noise, Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, 4/10/22: “We have to scream from the rooftops, because this is a battle for the free world now.”
Putin’s Failed State: Ukraine's recent successes in repelling Russian forces have highlighted the sclerosis of Russia's supposedly formidable military. Having bet everything on war and conquest, Vladimir Putin's regime is now politically bankrupt, presiding over a modern-day Sparta that cannot even win on the battlefield, Anders Asland, Project Syndicate, 4/8/22
In Bucha, the scope of Russian barbarity is coming into focus, Max Bearack, Louisa Loveluck, Washington Post, 4/7/22: “investigators uncovered evidence of torture before death, beheading and dismemberment, and the intentional burning of corpses.”
Russia's genocide handbook: The evidence of atrocity and of intent mounts, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 4/8/22: “As I have been saying since the war began, "denazification" in official Russian usage just means the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation.”
The Russo-Ukraine War: Phase Two, Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed, 4/6/22: “There is another round of intense military action to come but if that fails as badly as that of the first round then perhaps he can do no more than look at the mess his forces have made of Ukraine by 9th May and call it a day.”
CNN Exclusive: 'We control them all': Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows ideas for overturning 2020 election before it was called, Ryan Nobles, Zachary Cohen, Annie Grayer, CNN, 4/8/22
Tennessee Republicans pushing to undermine same-sex marriage are backed by major corporations, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 4/7/22
Grassroots or Astroturf? Inside the Republicans’ Rebranding as the “Parents Party:” In a suburban Virginia district, right-wing operatives get involved in local school board politics, with help from billionaire donors, Paul Abowd, The Intercept, 4/5/22
Nearly Half of Republicans Now Think Top Democrats Are Running Pedophile Cabals: It’s the core belief of the QAnon conspiracy movement, and a new poll reveals it’s now part of the GOP mainstream, Paul Blest, Vice, 4/6/22
“It’s Performance Art”: Inside Republicans’ Absolutely Wild, Ongoing Campaign to Decertify Biden’s Win: In Wisconsin, a former right-wing judge with more than half a million dollars in taxpayer money at his disposal, and who’s seemingly gotten tips from the MyPillow founder, is still auditing Biden’s election win, Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair, 4/6/22
'Swallowing a toad': Progressives warm to Manchin's fossil fuel demands to clinch climate package: Voters' frustration with high energy prices and the likelihood that Democrats will lose control of the House in November have made progressives more open to a deal, Josh Siegel, Politico, 4/4/22
Containing the global shockwave - the real battle to shape the post-crisis world economy, Adam Tooze, Chartbook, 4/6/22: “The most urgent question right now is how the managers of the dollar system deal with the mounting pressures within that system.”
This Florida Student is Taking Queer Education Into Their Own Hands: After their teacher said he didn't know what Stonewall is, Will Larkins decided to teach his U.S. history class himself, James Factora, Them, 4/5/22
A Covert Network of Activists is Preparing for the End of Roe: What will the future of abortion in America look like? Jessica Bruder, The Atlantic, 4/4/22: “A nonprofit called Abortion Delivered is planning to deploy mobile abortion vans.”
This Is How the Global Energy Crisis Ends: With future price rises baked in and some countries on the verge of rationing gas, things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better, Chris Stokel-Walker, Wired, 4/5/22
How to Unionize at Amazon: On Staten Island, it made all the difference that the union was independent and led by workers from the warehouse, not managed by a large, outside organization, E. Tammy Kim, New Yorker, 4/7/22
The Fed Just Disengaged Its Volatility Suppression Machine, Jesse Felder, The Felder Report, 4/6/22
Kulch-Ur
America’s culture wars distract from what’s happening beneath them: When it comes to economic questions, there’s more agreement between culture war opponents than you might think, Gary Gerstle, The Guardian, 4/5/22
Viewers Overwhelmed by Too Many Streaming Choices, Nielsen Survey Finds, Brad Pareso, Adweek, 4/6/22
America's Sexual Red Scare: Is sex "our era's communist threat"? Author Laura Kipnis on speech, Title IX, and the degradation of intimacy in the pandemic era, Matt Taibbi, TK News, 4/6/22: “This country doesn’t just have a narrow civil liberties dispute about speech. We’re in a crisis of communication and intimacy, compounded by a uniquely American terror of sex that probably dates back to the days of the Puritans…”
Meeting Climate Panic with Stories of Agency: on Illustrating the Power and Necessity of Action, Diana Kapp, LitHub, 4/4/22
Remembering Richard Howard, Craig Morgan Teicher, Paris Review, 4/1/22: “What Richard claimed, and what his poems will claim forever, is a profound sympathy for the questioning mind, in which nothing is ever settled, and which is ever finding and filling gaps in its collection of impressions and facts.”
“Cheerfully Monstrous:”Dodie Bellamy on Writing and Grieving, Rhoda Feng, Public Books, 4/5/22: “I was tracking how much I could handle, because I was writing this during the course of actually grieving. I couldn’t approach the pain directly, so I created a persona, Bee Reaved. Bee’s very much me, but it’s like she’s living my life at a distance.”
The web as monopolized surveillance space, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 4/7/22: “The Web continues its transformation into a fully financialized surveillance system that funnels people’s private data, and advertisers’ money, into five companies while sucking the life out of anything outside those five companies.”
Texas leads among 26 states with book bans, free speech group says, Nicole Chavez, CNN, 4/7/22
‘Where the bats hung out’: How a basement hideaway at UC Berkeley nurtured a generation of blind innovators, Isabella Cueto, STAT, 3/28/22: “At Berkeley, students who were ostracized in their hometowns, often for being the only blind kid around, became part of a rich lineage, and a vast disability community.”
‘A completely different language’: how Ukrainian writers and artists are responding to the war: Across the arts, creators are producing poignant, direct work at speed at the front line of Russia’s war of aggression, Jakub Knera, The Guardian, 4/8/22
Tracing the Ancestry of the Earliest Enslaved Ndongo People: on a Story Born in Blood, Clyde W. Ford, LitHub, 4/8/22: “But today, we can know what became of those seeds, real and symbolic, which Anthony and Isabella carried within them; we can know of the roads taken and those that were not. And where they could not know, we must not forget.”
Declared Extinct, the Yaghan Rise in the Land of Fire: The Indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego were once relegated to historical oblivion. Now, archaeologists are helping them pursue deeper stories about their ancestors, Jude Isabella, Hakai, 3/31/22
The world’s oldest pants are a 3,000-year-old engineering marvel: Strong in some places and flexible in others, the pants were designed for horseback riding, Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 4/4/22
Read of the Week: ‘The Ways of Fiction Are Devious Indeed:’ Finding current relevancy—and outrage—in the accusations of plagiarism that have long haunted a classic of the West: Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose, Sands Hall, Alta, 4/4/22: “We have a word for the theft of writing; we do not have one for a stolen life.”
Patricia MacLachlan, award-winning author "known to millions of young readers as the author of Sarah, Plain and Tall, a novel about two motherless farm children and the gentle woman who comes to the prairie to make them whole," died March 31 (Washington Post). She was 84.
Two new books I am recommending you buy are coming out this week:
The Ones Who Remember: Second Generation Voices of the Holocaust. Sadly, this book is all too relevant now that Russia has created its own version of the Holocaust right in front of us. “How do you talk about and make sense of your life when you grew up with parents who survived the most unimaginable horrors of family separation, systematic murder and unending encounters of inhumanity? Sixteen authors reveal the challenges and gifts of living with the aftermath of their parents' inconceivable experiences during the Holocaust.”
Faces We Love: Shanghai. This book demonstrates the beauty and joys of humanity.
“Go beyond the glitz, glamour, and bustle of one of the most populated cities on the planet and discover the real heartbeat and soul of Shanghai--its people.”
Global Citizen is partnering with a long list of superstars (musical artists like The Weeknd, Celine Dion, Elton John, and Billie Eilish - just to name a few) to hold the world’s largest digital rally, Stand Up for Ukraine. Stand Up for Ukraine has one main goal in mind: to encourage the world to use their voices and influence leaders/corporations to mobilize funding for refugee support worldwide. My friends at Frederator are involved – the kids from their new show, Ukulele U (CBC) will be participating.
Married Poets Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Farris Prepare for News from Ukraine and to Find Out If Her Cancer Has Returned: Alternating voices, two prominent writers contemplate the agony of waiting, Ilya Kaminsky, Katie Farris, Oprah Daily, 4/6/22: “I wake up in the middle of the night and Katie is right next to me, our cat nestled between us, her tail on my lips. Just lying here staring at her, what luck, this motionless time of being.”
As Soldiers Walk Up the Stairs
As soldiers clump up the stairs—
my wife’s
painted fingernail scratches
and scratches
the skin off her leg, and I feel
the hardness of bone underneath.
It gives me faith.
—Ilya Kaminsky
Birdland
Vegetarian birds more sociable than insect eaters, shows research, Univ of Bath, Science Daily, 4/6/22
Crows may owe their intelligence to an abundance of certain neurons: Corvids such as rooks and crows seem to have a unusually high number of interneurons, brain cells involved in processing information, Jason Arunn Murugesu, New Scientist, 4/6/22
The secret to better coffee? The birds and the bees: Study calculates winged helpers’ effects on coffee—while pioneering a better way to measure nature’s ‘unpaid labor,’ Univ of Vermont, Science Daily, 4/4/22
Simple Solutions to Prevent Collisions: Making our communities and skies safer for birds, Nat Audubon Society, Audubon, 4/4/22
The Transgenerational Cost of Fear: Scared song sparrows have fewer offspring, and their offspring are less likely to survive and thrive, Ashley Braun, Hakai, 4/7/22
The love is gone
Gone daddy gone
The love is gone
Yeah it's gone daddy gone
The love is gone away— “Gone Daddy Gone,” Violent Femmes, Gordon Gano/Willie Dixon
With this issue, The Weird Times reaches a milestone - 100 issues published weekly without interruption. Thanks for staying with me throughout this experiment. I’ll keep going until I run out of energy, I suppose. I started this project early in the pandemic, the first months of the Biden administration. Not to be too much of an alarmist, but the news has not gotten better anywhere, and especially the political/cultural circumstances in the USA are pretty scary right now. If it was not clear enough before that we have to continue to organize and get out the vote in 2022, it should be now. Our politics are an expression of a psycho-cultural moment and we are at a tipping point.
Take care all. Thanks for listening. Much love from here — David