The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 107, May 29, 2022 (V3 #3)
“Ukraine will be rebuilt and take its place as a healthy citizen in the community of nations, but Russia will not. They have sentenced themselves to decades of international opprobrium. Putin will die but Russia’s reputation as an outlaw country will not.”—Lucian K. Truscott IV
“We are being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote despite what we the American people want…because they want to hold onto their own power. It’s pathetic.”—Steve Kerr
“I want my country to bury its guns not its children.”—Beau Beausoleil
“…the Democrats are playing by rules that don't even exist. And for the right, it's a FREE-FOR-ALL!” –Bob Lefsetz
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. (emphasis added) Please watch this
Jimmy Kimmel on Elementary School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas
In every part of every living thing
is stuff that once was rock
In blood the minerals
of the rock
—from “Lake Superior,” Lorine Niedecker
Guns and Money, Death and Politics
What school shootings do to the kids who survive them, from Sandy Hook to Uvalde: Children who have lived through school shootings share how the horror of what they saw or heard or lost still haunts them, John Woodrow Cox, Washington Post, 5/28/22
How to Prevent Gun Massacres? Look Around the World: Australia, Britain, Canada, and other countries have enacted reforms that turned mass shootings into rare, aberrational events rather than everyday occurrences, John Cassidy, New Yorker, 5/26/22
5 facts about guns in America, Judd Legum, Popular Information, 5/26/22: “The country could change the catastrophic status quo without infringing on the Second Amendment.”
Seeing America, Again, in the Uvalde Elementary-School Shooting: Nineteen children and two adults were murdered in Texas. This is the country that gun-rights advocates have chosen, Jessica Winter, New Yorker, 5/25/22
Dear American Gun Owner: When is Enough? On the Work of Keeping Rage and Sorrow Alive, Brenda Hillman, LitHub, 5/25/22
What we know about mass school shootings in the US – and the gunmen who carry them out, James Densley, Jillian Peterson, The Conversation, 5/25/22: “The key to stopping these tragedies is for society to be alert to these warning signs and act on them immediately.”
Americans Aren’t Numb to Mass Shootings: We’ve just become fatalistic about the possibility of politicians doing anything to stop them, Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 5/25/22
Nothing is going to change as long as civilians can own weapons of war, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 5/25/22: “…we as citizens must do whatever it takes to change the way we organize our system of self-government so that guns don’t count as much as people’s lives do.”
Republicans’ “Good Guy with a Gun” Calls Look Even More Absurd in Wake if Disastrous Police Response During Texas School Shooting: Other ridiculous GOP proposals that undoubtedly would not have stopped the massacre include schools only having one door, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 5/26/22
How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today, Robert Spitzer, The Conversation, 5/25/22
We’re ignoring a major culprit behind the teen mental health crisis, Heather Turgeon, Julie Wright, Washington Post, 5/20/22
Clarence and Ginni Thomas Are Telling Us Exactly How the 2024 Coup Will Go Down, Dahlia Lithwick, Mark Joseph Stern, Slate, 5/23/22: “But unless and until there is a ravenous public appetite for reforms to the court, we will continue to watch this play out in mute horror, as though it’s a Netflix special about the Tudors, and the only recourse we have is to return to our mutton farming.”
Is National Service the Only Way to Stitch America Back Together? Andrew Keen Contemplates a Nation on the Brink, Andrew Keen, LitHub, 5/20/22
A Formula for Public Ownership: What the Similac debacle teaches about the consequences of arrogant corporate concentration, Robert Kuttner, American Prospect, 5/27/22
Jared Kushner’s $2 Billion Saudi Check Appears Even More Comically Corrupt than Previously Thought: “The reason this smells so bad is that there is all sorts of evidence he did not receive this on the merits,” Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 5/23/22
An Amazon Warehouse Worker Takes the Fight to Shareholders: In a first, warehouse “picker” Daniel Olayiwola will present a resolution at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, Caitlin Harrington, Wired, 5/25/22
Election Subversion Is the New Voter Suppression, Marc Elias, Democracy Docket, 5/25/22
The ‘big lie’ advocates threatening free and fair elections across the US, Sam Levine, Alvin Chang, The Guardian, 5/24/22
If You Think Free Speech Is Defined By Your Ability To Be An Asshole Without Consequence, You Don’t Understand Free Speech (But You Remain An Asshole), Mike Masnick, TechDirt, 5/20/22
Don’t believe those who say ending Roe v Wade will leave society largely intact: If the high court adopts Alito’s draft opinion, it will be a legal tidal wave that sweeps away a swath of rights unlike anything America has ever seen, Lawrence H. Tribe, The Guardian, 5/23/22: “… attempts to minimize the huge retrogression this would represent must be dismissed as little more than shameful efforts to camouflage the carnage the supreme court of the United States is about to unleash both on its own legitimacy and, even more important, on the people in whose name it wields the power of judicial review.”
What happens when every patient is a suspect, Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, Rebecca Crosby, Popular Information, 5/24/22: “Restrictions on abortions in Texas are interfering with the ability of women to get essential treatment for miscarriages.
If Republicans Win in 2024 by Fraud… Large-scale civil disobedience could ensue. One tactic: mass tax revolt, Robert Kuttner, American Prospect, 5/24/22
Why George Carlin Is (Still) the Voice of a Disillusioned America: ‘George Carlin’s American Dream’ is as angry as I am, Jordan Calhoun, The Atlantic, 5/28/22: “America can be hopeless, and the best that many of us can do is to try not to let it swallow us, and try not to be hopeless alone. And then hopefully, when it passes, we can do what little we can to help improve lives.”
Must Watch: George Carlin: The Secret News: “Your house will never be completely clean.”
Coups Noirs
No atrocity or horrid event
from the past can equal the
ghastly enactments stored
in the future: In fact the
worst horrors of the past
were once the future
*
The light carries darkness
in its pocket.
—Ed Dorn
Books and Culture
Responding to book censorship, Atwood auctions fireproof ‘Handmaid’s Tale,’ Jaclyn Peiser, Washington Post, 5/24/22: Video – The Unburnable Book.
You’ve Never Heard Anything Quite Like Joe Rainey’s Avant-Garde Pow Wow Music: Signed to Justin Vernon and the Dessner brothers’ 37d03d label, this Midwestern artist is pushing traditional Native music in provocative new directions, Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork, 5/24/22
Jim Carroll – More Than “People Who Died,” Will Wills, Culture Sonar, 5/26/22
For John Wieners
We read life’s
style review shaking
from pacts drawn up in past
to weep for lost loves
—Jim Carroll
We Are All Strangers on the Land, Rabbi Brant Rosen, Shalom Rav, 5/21/22: “As the Torah teaches us: those who insist that the land “belongs” to them and them alone will only endanger the collective future of all who live upon it.”
‘How to Murder Your Husband’ author found guilty of murdering her husband, AP, LA Times, 5/26/22
Still at War
How long will the war last?, Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed, 5/27/22: “this is not a short-term emergency but, for those countries supporting Ukraine, a long-term commitment, that there is no easy diplomatic fix, and that Ukraine will keep on fighting for as long as it takes to regain its lost territory.”
Ukrainian fighters take to electric bikes in the war against Russia, Rachel Pannett, Washington Post, 5/26/22
Life in Wartime Ukraine: Two Essays, Andrei Krasniashikh, Translated by Tanya Paperny, with Katya Kompaneyets, LitHub, 5/25/22: “Geese saved Rome. Cats and dogs saved Kharkiv. Especially its children.”
Big Fossil’s Disaster Capitalist Response to Russia-Ukraine: The industry moved quickly to capture the narrative, going from disinformation blitz to policy wins within a matter of weeks, Amy Westervelt, The Intercept, 5/24/22
Open Source Intelligence May Be Changing Old-School War: Intelligence collected from public information online could be impacting traditional warfare and altering the calculus between large and small powers, Alexa O’Brien, Wired, 5/24/22
A Whole Age of Warfare Sank With the Moskva: A fierce debate is raging within the U.S. Marine Corps about what comes next, Elliot Ackerman, The Atlantic, 5/22/22
Must Read Article of the Week: The war in Ukraine and the triumph of the all-American anti-tank gizmo: Channelling Rayner Banham for 2022, Adam Tooze, Chartbook, 5/22/22: “Ukraine’s successful defense against Russian attack has become a dynamic (re)generator of ideology.”
Environment, Science, Big Ideas
Everything You Need to Know About Monkeypox: Here’s how to recognize monkeypox’s symptoms, how to prevent and treat the disease, and what to do if you think you’ve been exposed to it, David Cox, Wired, 5/27/22
Kelp Is Weirdly Great at Sucking Carbon Out of the Sky: The start-up Running Tide wants to use kelp buoys to fight climate change. The plan might not work, but it’s still a preview of our climate future, Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, 5/25/22
Climate change: radical activists benefit social movements – history shows why, heather Alberro, The Conversation, 5/24/22
Cry Wolf: Endangered Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Is Being “Sabotaged” by Ranchers Who Claim the Canines Are Killing Cattle — and the Federal Employees Who Sign Off on Reports, Spencer Roberts, The Intercept, 5/24/22
What the Rise of Craft Sake Says about Farming, Climate, and Culture: Nancy Matsumoto discusses heirloom rice varieties, the impacts of climate change on the sake industry, and why she believes the drink may be on the verge of an international renaissance, Twilight Greenaway, Civil Eats, 5/18/22
Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy Is Transforming the Way We Think About Mental Health Care: How mushrooms, LSD, MDMA, and ketamine could help treat mental illnesses, Stav Dimitripoulos, Self, 5/24/22
A bison range homecoming: Native tribes reclaim a Montana nature preserve : The Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes celebrate the restoration of lands they had stewarded for thousands of years, Sarah Mosquera, The Guardian, 5/27/22
Wanda Pascal takes Porcupine caribou protection fight to Washington, Sophie Kuiper Dixon, Cabin Radio, 5/23/22
Lab Notes: Building a consciousness meter with Christof Koch, Can we put a number on human consciousness? Rachel Tompa, Allen Institute, 5/25/22
First Patient Injected With Experimental Cancer-Killing Virus in New Clinical Trial: An experimental cancer-killing virus has been administered to a human patient for the first time, with hopes the testing will ultimately reveal evidence of a new means of successfully fighting cancer tumors in people's bodies, Peter Dockrill, ScienceAlert, 5/23/22
Physicists predict Earth will become a chaotic world, with dire consequences, Paul Sutter, LiveScience, 5/25/22: "If the Earth System gets into the region of chaotic behavior, we will lose all hope of somehow fixing the problem."
Physicists Rewrite the Fundamental Law That Leads to Disorder: The second law of thermodynamics is among the most sacred in all of science, but it has always rested on 19th century arguments about probability. New arguments trace its true source to the flows of quantum information, Phillip Ball, Quanta, 5/26/22
What does a black hole sound like? NASA has an answer, Matthew Schuerman, Michael Radcliffe, NPR, 5/28/22
On Stretch Wrap: The Diaphanous Material that Holds Together the Containerized World, Anne & Kelly Prendergrast, The Prepared, 5/27/22
What the public wants in COVID news vs. what the press provides: There's a contrast between what people search for and what reliable media provide, John Timmer, Ars Technica, 5/24/22
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
—from “Working Class Hero,” John Lennon
Birdland
Better Know a Bird: the Remarkable Migration of the Secretive Sora: You wouldn’t know it by their football-shaped bodies and awkward flight, but Soras cover more ground than any other North American rail, Carlyn Kranking, Audubon, 5/25/22
Piping plovers come to Sleeping Bear Dunes every year — and scientists are obsessed: Piping plovers are considered harbingers of environmental health in the Great Lakes ecosystem, Elissa Welle, Detroit Free Press, 5/28/22
High altitudes may be a climate refuge for some birds, but not these hummingbirds: Anna’s hummingbirds seem to struggle to hover when there’s less available oxygen, Rachel Crowell, Science News, 5/26/22
Iconic Hawaiian bird faces possible extinction: The ‘i’iwi, or scarlet honeycreeper, is threatened by avian malaria, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 5/24/22
Pelican Crisis: Hundreds of Sick, Injured Birds Reported Throughout California, Jodi Hernandez, NBC News, 5/27/22
“The Solar Age signifies much more than a shift to solar and renewable resource-based societies operated with more sophisticated ecological sciences... technologies. It entails a paradigm shift from fragmented “objective” reductionist knowledge and the mechanistic, industrial worldview to a comprehensive awareness of the interdependence of all life on earth”
—Hazel Henderson, The Solar Age, 1981 (The brilliant HH died May 21, 2022)
I just kick back and keep warm on the cold days
And laugh 'cause it ain't like it was in the old days
I figure when I make it to the Heavenly gates
They'll be working on my car and playing '78's
Wicked and weird, I'm a road hog with an old dog
Singing slow songs, tryin'a hold on
—from “Wicked and Weird,” Buck 65, written by Charles Wishart Austin/Graeme Ross Campbell/Richard Terfry
It feels like we are all just singing slow songs and trying to hold on. I hope we can. As some have pointed out: in America, violence is the point. The vast majority of us oppose violence, care about humanity, the planet, our children, the future, and we believe we can achieve a sustainable world. It is still, and always, up to us to make it happen.
As Ishmael Reed says in his great 1972 novel, Mumbo Jumbo: “We will make our own future text.”
Love to all, stay well, stay strong, write when you can. Thanks for reading The Weird Times.