The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces
The Weird Times: Issue 84, December 19, 2021 (V2 #32)
“I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.” —bell hooks
A false statement gets made. The headlines feature that false statement. That statement spreads. Social media chimes in. The false statement is challenged. And the headlines change to account for that challenge. But the focus of the story, and the social media discussion around it, is still on the initial falsehood. An example: Back in 2018, Trump tossed out the idea that maybe the Russians meddled in our elections in favor of the Democrats. The suggestion was based on nothing. But that day, Jake Tapper spent the first 12 minutes of his CNN show with a guest who shot down the notion Trump floated. But the time was still spent on the question of whether Russians meddled in favor of the Dems. That scenario is a win for the liar because it gets the false idea out there, confuses the average news consumer, and achieves the goal Steve Bannon so eloquently described as flooding the zone with shit. – Dave Pell, NextDraft
“This is nation-ending stuff we’re dealing with here and folks better wake up soon. I’ll do my part. Think about what yours is.” –Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy
Pounding on the door
America Witnessed a coup attempt. Now it’s sleep-walking into another disaster: What happened on 6 January was an attempt to overturn the election results and the rule of law. The threat is far from over, Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian, 12/13/21: “The crisis isn’t just that we had a coup attempt and have a political party that has gone rogue, but that much of the rest of the nation seems to be normalizing or forgetting or sleepwalking through the crisis. The warnings are getting more urgent.”
Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats paying attention? Voting rights activists say the country has not fully awakened to the threat, Sam Levine, David Smith, The Guardian, 12/19/21
American Mao: Trump's Republican purge amounts to a cultural revolution, Lucian Truscott IV, Newsletter, 12/18/21
Biden's Annus Horribilis: And the terrifying tenacity of Trump's cult, Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish, 12/17/21: “All I can say is that at the end of 2021, there is a thin line between realism and despair.”
Are Facebook and Google criminal enterprises, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 12/17/21: “This is grim news to end the year on, I know, but it’s important to remember what’s at stake when we talk about digital tech: namely, the richest, most powerful companies in human history are flagrantly enabling crime for profit, on a global scale, with zero consequences.”
The Log4J Vulnerability Will Haunt the Internet for Years: Hundreds of millions of devices are likely affected, Lily Hay Newman, Wired, 12/14/21
The Mysteries Remain
The mysteries remain,
I keep the same
cycle of seed-time
and of sun and rain;
Demeter in the grass,
I multiply,
renew and bless
Bacchus in the vine;
I hold the law,
I keep the mysteries true,
the first of these
to name the living, dead;
I am the wine and bread.
I keep the law,
I hold the mysteries true,
I am the vine,
the branches, you
and you.
—H.D.
What surrounds
The Year in Climate: A Summer that Really Scared Scientists, Bill McKibben, New Yorker, 12/16/21: “The reason all this is so frightening is that it suggests fundamental parts of the way that the planet works have begun to shift, allowing for physical phenomena we’ve never seen before. It suggests, that is, that the predictions provided by global-climate models—which are frightening enough—may be too optimistic.”
Protecting Earth: If ‘Nature Needs Half,’ What Do People Need? The campaign to preserve half the Earth’s surface is being criticized for failing to take account of global inequality and human needs. But such protection is essential not just for nature, but also for creating a world that can improve the lives of the poor and disadvantaged, Carl Safina, Yale Environment 360, 12/14/21
12 books on climate and the planet for the holidays: Twelve books meet this fraught moment with confidence, vision, reflection, and imagination, Michael Svoboda, Yale Climate Connections, 12/13/21
Eating to Extinction: A Conversation with Food Journalist Dan Saladino: Hosted by the Hay Festival Winter Weekend, The Virtual Book Channel, LitHub, 12/8/21
The Man Who Predicted Climate Change: In the nineteen-sixties, Syukuro Manabe drew a graph that foretold our world today—and what’s to come, Stephen Witt, The New Yorker, 12/10/21
It takes a village to raise a child. Is communal living the future of parenting: An intriguing new movement is experimenting with the kind of co-living that defined families for millennia. I decided to find out more, Sophie Brickman, The Guardian, 11/29/21
This New Tech Cuts Through Rock Without Grinding Into It: A startup called Petra uses super-hot gas to penetrate bedrock. The method could make it cheaper to move utilities underground—and make electric lines safer, Khari Johnson, Wired, 12/9/21
How better design can make rural Alaska homes healthier: Homes designs imported to the Arctic from elsewhere are contributing to health problems to disproportionately affect Alaska Natives, Yereth Rosen, Arctic Today, 12/8/21
Microplastics are wreaking havoc on human cells, Damian Carrington, National Observer, 12/10/21
Warming Trends: A Potential Decline in Farmed Fish, Less Ice on Minnesota Lakes and a ‘Black Box’ for the Planet: A column highlighting climate-related studies, innovations, books, cultural events and other developments from the global warming, Katelyn Weisbrod, Inside Climate News, 12/18/21
Climate change has destabilized the Earth’s poles, putting the rest of the planet in peril: New research shows how rising temperatures have irreversibly altered both the Arctic and Antarctic. Ripple effects will be felt around the globe, Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, 12/14/21: “The rapid transformation of the Arctic and Antarctic creates ripple effects all over the planet. Sea levels will rise, weather patterns will shift and ecosystems will be altered. Unless humanity acts swiftly to curb emissions, scientists say, the same forces that have destabilized the poles will wreak havoc on the rest of the globe.”
And rebounds
People ‘microdosing’ on psychedelics to improve wellbeing during pandemic: Addiction expert says findings of survey suggest small doses of drugs being taken to treat health issues, David Batty, The Guardian, 12/2/21
21 really good things that happened in 2021: Behind the scary headlines, the human race is making a tremendous amount of progress, Chris Taylor, Mashable, 12/15/21
How a Rebellion Planted Seeds of Revival in Rural Mexico: In 2011, the women of Cherán led a revolt against illegal logging and corruption. Today, the forests are coming back, and the Indigenous community is returning to its roots, Romina Cenisio, Atlas Obscura, 11/30/21
The Race to Find ‘Green’ Helium: Helium is a critical—and finite—resource. The future of our most indispensable technologies depends on a new supply, William Ralston, Wired, 12/16/21
How to cool one of the fastest-warming cities in the West: In Phoenix, a new heat office hopes to prevent more people from dying of extreme heat, Jessica Kutz, High Country News, 12/16/21
WAMPUM: An Indigenous-Designed Path to Sea Level Rise Adaptation: Northeastern and mid-Atlantic tribal nations lived sustainably on the coastline for centuries before colonization. How can their experiences inform strategies for sea level rise adaptation? Jane Palmer, EOS, 12/16/21
On Henry’s Farm, Experimenting with Radical Adaptation to the Climate Crisis: For the past 25 years, Illinois organic farmer Henry Brockman has observed the impact of climate change on his farm. He’s now trying to save it, and its legacy, Lori Rotenberk, Civil Eats, 12/6/21
Darwin in a lab: Coral evolution tweaked for global warming, Caleb Jones, AP News, 12/10/21
Bugs across globe are evolving to eat plastic, study finds: Surprising discovery shows scale of plastic pollution and reveals enzymes that could boost recycling, Damian Carrington, The Guardian, 12/14/21
How Deion Sanders Turned Jackson State Into the Best Story in College Football: On Wednesday, the top-ranked recruit in the country shocked the world by announcing he’ll play at Jackson State. The news has flipped college sports on its head—and sheds light on just what’s so remarkable about the Coach Prime experience, Rodger Palmer, The Ringer, 12/16/21
The Crucial Ingredients For Decarbonizing An Economy, And Safeguarding A Region,
Lessons from a year of reporting on climate solutions for Washington, Oregon and British Columbia, Robert McClure, Peter Fairley, Investigates West, 12/15/21: “The economics of carbon-free living have fallen into place. Renewable solar and wind power now typically costs less than fossil-fuel alternatives. This is also largely true across North America, and beyond.”
The sounds of science
NASA releases new photos of Jupiter — and a recording of its moon that sounds like R2-D2, Maria Luisa Paul, Washington Post, 12/19/21
A Gene-Tweaked Jellyfish Offers a Glimpse of Other Minds: Researchers have created jellyfish whose nerve cells light up when they fire, offering a tantalizing view of neurology before the rise of the brain, Amit Katwala, Wired, 12/13/21
Plantwatch: how in winter, bark can act like leaves for trees: For some trees, photosynthesis can take place in the bark, letting the tree supplement its food reserves, Paul Simons, The Guardian, 12/15/21
Scientists Successfully Bioprint World’s Largest Lab-grown Steak: Okay, That’s Pretty Cool, Victor Tangermann, The Byte, 12/13/21
Japanese scientists develop vaccine to eliminate cells behind aging, JIJI, Japan Times, 12/12/21
Samsung and IBM Could Break the Nanosheet Threshold in Chips With 'Vertically Stacked Transistors’: This design can either double the performance of chips or reduce power use by 85%, Loukia Papadopoulos, Interesting Engineering, 12/13/21
Oy My Chron abounds
America Is Not Ready for Omicron: The new variant poses a far graver threat at the collective level than the individual one—the kind of test that the U.S. has repeatedly failed, Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 12/16/21
Omicron Follow-Up 1: Simpson's Paradox vs. the Upper Respiratory Tract Hypothesis, Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories, 12/17/21
Don’t Be Surprised When You Get Omicron: America is in for a lot more breakthrough infections. Here’s what to do if you fall sick, Yasmin Tayag, The Atlantic, 12/15/21
As the omicron variant threatens to wipe out monoclonal antibodies, the U.S. is saving up one that will still work: Sotrovimab, a treatment from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline, is expected to remain effective against omicron, Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post, 12/16/21
Reading List:
The Human Element: A Time Capsule From the Anthropocene, James Balog
If You Want to Know How I Got Brainwashed, Betsy Dovydenas
The Killing of Wolf Number Ten, Thomas McNamee
The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber, David Wengrow, Radio Open Source program about this book here.
Zoë Bakes Cakes, Zoë François
Before I Grew Up: A Stunning Illustrated Elegy of Life, Loss, Our Search for Light, and Loneliness as a Crucible of Creativity: An uncommonly original and tenderhearted celebration of how an artist becomes an artist, Maria Popova, The Marginalian, 12/19/21
‘I want to get as much done as I can’: Keanu Reeves on poetry, grief and making the most of every minute, Tom Lamont, The Guardian, 12/19/21:” Each year, he says, seems to slip away that little bit faster than the last, something that always puts him in mind of the turning wheel of an audio tape. “When you’re young,” he says, “you have a big old reel of that tape left, right? And so it appears to revolve slowly. Then, time passes, and there’s less and less tape left on the reel. It spins faster. It spins faster.””
Birding Rounds
New lights-out initiative takes flight in Austin to protect migratory birds, John Egan, Culture Map Austin, 12/16/21
Energy-saving strategy helps hummingbirds fuel their long migrations: Ruby-throated hummingbirds redeploy an energy-saving strategy they use to survive overnight without food to build energy stores for migration, eLife, Science Daily, 12/14/21
Biologists try to beat the clock to save Maui’s endangered birds: Federal, state agencies seek to control mosquitoes that spread avian malaria, Dakota Grossman, The Maui News, 12/17/21
Last seen in … birdwatchers asked to join hunt for world’s 10 rarest birds: Search for Lost Birds project is asking birdwatchers everywhere to help track down species sometimes not seen for centuries, Graeme Green, The Guardian, 12/17/21
Notable Literary Deaths in 2021: An Incomplete List of the Writers, Editors, and Great Literary Minds We Lost This Year, Emily Temple, LitHub, 12/15/21
Send lawyers, guns, and money
The shit has hit the fan – Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns and Money
“My heart's in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand's in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught.” —Happy birthday Jean Genet, 1910-1986
‘She contained multitudes,’ Memories and Tributes to bell hooks, ‘The beloved community bell helped to create’ remembers a teacher, friend, mentor and the impact her work will continue to have, Tamura Lomax, Stephanie Troutman, Imani Perry, Quentin Walcott, others, The Guardian, 12/19/21: “hooks made clear that men’s pain, insecurities, fears, and inability to connect with others emotionally are all connected to men’s allegiance to patriarchy. She is sort of saying, “The call is coming from inside the house!””
Winter Solstice, Tuesday, 12/21/21 at 10:59 a.m. eastern US time
At Winter Solstice, and for the season of giving, I offer this:
Now, taking a few more moments to offer gratitude to yourself for taking this time for yourself . For taking care of your own heart, for lightening the burdens, the hurts you have accumulated in your live. Remembering, that this is a practice of letting go and moving in the direction of more peace, happiness and freedom. Breathing in stillness for as long as you wish, and when you are ready, gently open your eyes and slowly returning to the present, to this moment, this place, to resume your day.
Be well all. As we are in another period of danger and fear, hope and strength are what we must summon forth. Sending warm wishes and much love to all. All with all with all in all.
“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.” —bell hooks