The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 251, March 2, 2025 (V5 #43)
‘The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision,’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a reporter from state television. — Moscow Times, March 1, 2025
Defiance is what is called for in this moment—Steve Schmidt
Tyranny cuts off the singer’s head
But the voice from the bottom of the well
Returns to the secret springs of the earth
And rises out of nowhere through the mouths of the people.—Pablo Neruda
Art is Air. We have to resist the Regime’s pollution. I don’t want to be a poet who sadly dies saying - “I can’t breathe.”—E. Ethelbert Miller
Books, Music, Art, Culture
‘A chilling effect’: is Hollywood too scared to touch hot-button documentaries? This Sunday could see West Bank-set documentary No Other Land win an Oscar but it remains without US distribution, one of many challenging films facing problems, Adrian Horton, The Guardian, 3/1/25
Whose liberties need protecting, Jeff? Not this shit again, Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me, 2/26/25: “And if he read his own paper, he’d realize it’s not the freedom of the markets that needs a vigorous defense. It’s the liberties our country was supposedly founded on.”
How To Be a Fighter When You Feel Like a Punching Bag: Many of us are suffering from a kind of social atrophy, Kelly Hayes, Organizing My Thoughts, 2/28/25: “To take action in defense of ourselves and others politically, we need to engage with other people.”
‘A Loving Caw from a Nameless Friend:’ A new collection of Emily Dickinson’s letters reveals them to be a major literary achievement, related to her poems and perhaps exceeding them in experimental energy, Christopher Benfey, NY Review of Books, 2/27/25 issue. “I smile when you suggest that I delay ‘to publish’–that being foreign to my thought, as Firmament to Fin.”
Roberta Flack, Virtuoso Singer-Pianist Who Ruled the Charts, Dies at 88: With majestic anthems like “Killing Me Softly” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” Ms. Flack, a former schoolteacher, became one of the most widely heard artists of the 1970s,Giovanni Russanello, NY Times, 2/24/25
David Johansen, Who Fronted the New York Dolls and More, Dies at 75: In the 1970s, he and the transgressive Dolls were proto-punk pioneers. He later refashioned himself as the pompadoured lounge lizard Buster Poindexter, Gavin Edwards, NY Times, 3/1/25
Gracie Abrams, the year’s biggest pop star: ‘Trump has only been in office a month, and everybody is more at risk:’ After dodging toxic fans, ‘nepo baby’ jibes and her own projectile vomit, the 25-year-old has just spent eight weeks at UK No 1. She explains why she’s now writing about our dark, uncertain future, Alexis Petridis
Anvil, the Forgotten Magazine of Heartland Marxism, Marc Blank, Jacobin, 2/23/25: “ Its popular vision for a multiracial socialism in the heart of the US could hardly be more urgent today.”
Escaping the Simulation: Social media addiction, algorithms, and how to reclaim our agency, Hugh Jones, Hannah Koizumi, Liberal Patriot, 2/24/25: “…modern social media has transformed into an all-consuming addiction machine—call it the “Simulation”—that rearranges our experience of reality around whatever drives our engagement and, in turn, generates ad revenue from our attention.”
Roots of Stone: on Finding Your Story In That of Your Ancestors—“The woman in my mind had a certainty about rootedness I had never achieved,” Diana McCaulay, LitHub, 2/27/25: “If there is anything approaching a single story of humanity, it is surely one of movement, whatever the impetus.”
I Teach at Harvard. Store Managers See Me as a Threat, Reginald Dwayne Betts, NY Times, 2/23/25: “But no matter how fast I pedal, there are some things I will never be able to leave behind.”
We Are Living in the Eternal Truman Show, Joan Westenberg, Newsletter, 2/24/25: “We’re both relentless consumers and the relentlessly consumed.”
‘A true free-speech emergency’: alarm over Trump’s ‘chilling’ attacks on media: Warning comes as FCC, chaired by Trump ally and Project 2025 author, orders investigations into US media groups, Adam Gabbatt, The Guardian, 2/24/25
Why Trump's Latest Attack on the Press is So Alarming: Trump is now controlling what information gets from the White House to the public, Dan Pfeiffer, Message Box, 3/2/25
We should own the economy: A new book about the future of capitalism and an invitation to participate in it, Elle Griffin, The Elysian, 2/25/25: “We need to change who owns capital.” WeFunder to invest in the book.
Hope Wilding: Our Resistance Invigorates Us, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 2/25/25: “No matter what happens, our task is to love each other tenderly and wildly as we alleviate suffering and cultivate liberation.”
Ronald Johnson’s American Romanticism: An inheritor of a distinct tradition that stretched back to Coleridge and Emerson, Johnson’s naturalistic poetry was immersive and intimate all at once, David B. Hobbs, The Nation, 2/26/25
Nature Will Be
reported.
All things
are engaged in writing their history.
The air is
full of sounds;
the sky, of tokens…
Ron Johnson
Politics, Technology, Economics
The She Made Him Do It Theory of Everything, Rebecca Solnit, Meditations in an Emergency, 2/26/25: “In mainstream discourse, it's become standard to blame the excesses of the right on liberals, the left, feminists, Black Lives Matter, affirmative action, environmental protection, and BIPOC and LGBTQ people. It's a way that the right is granted masculine prerogatives and the left feminine responsibilities for the right's behavior. It's also routine to blame the Democratic Party for what the Republican Party does.”
Help Me Understand... The New World Order: It's easy to see what's happening but hard to intuit what comes next, Yascha Mounk, Newsletter, 3/2/25
Trump administration sets out to create an America its people have never experienced − one without a meaningful government, Sidney Shapiro, Joseph P. Tomain, The Conversation, 2/27/25: “Our recent book, How Government Built America, shows why the administration’s aim to eliminate government could result in an America that the country’s people have never experienced – one in which free-market economic forces operate without any accountability to the public.”
Any fool can break things: Elon Musk is vandalizing America's greatest treasures, Bill McKibben, Crucial Years, 2/28/25: “The Trump administration is not confining itself to vandalism; it’s also telling straight up lies.”
How Trump and the GOP Fixed the 2026 Election — Yes, 2026: Here’s how they are already stealing it…Thom Hartmann, Greg Palast, Hartmann Report, 2/26/25: “The Republican plan is to win next year’s election this year. Yes, the voting will be bent, jacked and hammered this year, 2025, one year before the official voting. Because this is the year of The Great Purge.”
How the Right Uses Social Media to Create a Powerful Propaganda Machine: A Conversation with Renée DiResta: Countering its messaging will require opponents to learn from its strategies while restoring truth-telling and decency, Aaron Ross Powell, Unpopulist, 2/24/25: “There’s so much going on that rather than jumping in, everyone is waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.”
Time for a Little Anarchy: Looking for a leftist aesthetic, Patrick Nathan, Entertainment, Weakly, 2/25/25: “Taken together, it’s hard not to conclude that connective platforms, in their cooptation of leftist ethics by fascist aesthetics, are a kind of libertarian psy-op meant to root out and eliminate solidarity among leftist movements or coalitions.”
Elon Musk’s conflicts of interest ‘should scare every American’, experts say: Doge’s work allows Musk to keep control of companies with billions in federal contracts as he guts government agencies, Peter Stone, The Guardian, 2/27/25
Musk In Your Computers: An Interview With Nathan Tankus: On risks to democracy nobody even thought about, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 3/1/25: “… this constitutional crisis is still extraordinarily serious.”
Two Steps Backward, Lawrence Freedman, Comment is Freed, 3/1/25: “The Trump administration is a soap opera. The president is the producer and the star, responsible for the plot lines, the script, and the cast (all of whom are chosen to look the part.)
What happens when you don’t bend a knee and kiss a big fat ass, Lucian K. Truscott IV, Newsletter, 2/28/25
It Was an Ambush: Friday marked one of the grimmest days in the history of American diplomacy, Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, 2/28/25 (No paywall)
The Trump Embarrassment: What to do now? Joe Klein, Sanity Clause, 2/28/25: “We will not indulge your egomania. We will not indulge your cruelty. We will not be diverted by the fake victimology of the left; we will stand with the real victims, those denied food and vaccines by your vicious policies—of all races. We will make no distinctions according to race. We will be Americans only.”
America is ruled by gangsters now: Three takeaways from Trump's disastrous meeting with Zelensky, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 3/2/25: “the U.S. has chosen a set of leaders who are deeply immoral, and who cannot be expected to obey any norms of common decency….the U.S. is now effectively a gangster state. Trump’s meeting…emphasizes how clumsy his administration is.”
The War Trump Chooses: That wasn't Trump against Zelens'kyi. It was Americans against reason, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 3/1/25: “If we attend to what Vance and Trump said yesterday, we can work our way to the unreason of American policy, and to the chaos that will follow.”
Refusing to Help DOGE 'Dismantle Critical Public Services,' 21 Tech Experts Resign, Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams, 2/25/25 “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
Ocasio-Cortez blasts GOP for letting Elon Musk kill drug pricing reform: She slammed the Republican Party for allowing Elon Musk to derail bipartisan drug pricing reforms, calling the move a clear example of oligarchic control over American politics, Alexis Sterling, Nation of Change, 2/28/25
Democrats Are Stuck Using LinkedIn Tactics In a Post-X World: Supporting liberal democracy unfortunately remains a domain of performative civility. It's time for the language of the streets, Tom Watson, The Liberal, 2/24/25
Grow a Spine: Democrats Have a Lot to Learn From the German Left: The German elections show we don’t need to moderate fascism, we need to oppose it, Natasha Lennard, Intercept, 2/25/25
What Would a Liberal Tea Party Look Like? Democrats might have a chance to replicate the energy of the 2009 grassroots movement—if they actually want to, David A. Graham, The Atlantic, 2/24/25: “To recover their mojo, Democrats need some sort of organizing principle, real or purported.”
Selling Out Our Public Schools: For decades, the term “school choice”—and the programs it signifies, which divert public money to private schools—was widely and rightly dismissed as racist. Now it’s the law in thirty-three states, Diane Ravitch, NY Review of Books, 3/13/25 issue
Cruel and Usual: Republicans Prepare to Gut Medicaid: And their own supporters will be among the biggest victims, Paul Krugman, Newsletter, 2/27/25
Lethal drones in Ukraine show what's coming, Mark Hurst, Creative Good, 2/28/25: “The authoritarians and oligarchs are operating freely, without guardrails. But “the rest of us” have a chance to shape the future, too. It starts with awareness.”
In the intervals between
war and worse, we discern the score
ready to whirl with
planets and stars that coil
around our fragile core
orderly and composed
like a tragic chorus
—from “Tempo,” Oksana Maksymchuk
Science, Environment, Wilderness
By the Numbers: How Much Trash You’re Really Throwing Away Each Year: Breaking down the massive waste streams of the world’s most commonplace items: plastics, clothes, food, and electronics, Kyle Bagenstose, Atmos, 2/24/25: “An estimated 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to unconsumed food.”
A packaging quandary: Plastic may have less environmental impact than alternatives: Plastic is lightweight and uses relatively little material, so in the big picture it crushes the competition, Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 2/26/25
How Climate Change Puts the Safety of Drinking Water at Risk: Wildfires, floods, intense heat, droughts, and other extreme events fueled by climate change are threatening water systems in the U.S. and around the globe. Experts warn of the increasing threat of contamination and the need to improve infrastructure to keep drinking water safe, Jim Robbins, Yale Environment 360, 2/27/25
What happens when we gut federal science funding? An experiment I would prefer not to conduct, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 2/26/25: “…it’s an ideological purge. Trump and Musk have decided that America’s scientific establishment is a hotbed of woke ideology that needs to be torn out root and branch, regardless of the damage to the country’s strength in science and technology.”
US Forest Service firings decimate already understaffed agency: “It’s catastrophic. We are losing an entire generation of talent and passion,” Katie Myers, Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco, & Izzy Ross, Grist, 2/27/25
Farmers Sue Over Deletion of Climate Data From Government Websites: The data, which disappeared from Agriculture Department sites in recent weeks, was useful to farmers for business planning, the lawsuit said, Karen Zraick, NY Times, 2/24/25
Scientists are trying to figure out how to help the ocean absorb even more climate-changing pollution: They want to accelerate a natural process that locks down carbon dioxide for thousands of years, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 2/26/25
Solar, batteries to lead US power plant construction in 2025: The country is set to build a record 63 gigawatts of new power this year as demand surges — and almost all of it will be carbon-free, Julian Spector, Canary, 2/28/25
How Rivers Carved the Canyons of the Central Colorado Plateau: A new study offers insights into a puzzling piece of the geological history of the Grand Canyon and surrounding regions, Rebecca Owen, Eos, 2/25/25
Giant ice bulldozers: How ancient glaciers helped life evolve, Curtin Univ, ScienceDaily, 2/25/25: “…as glaciers carved through the landscape, they scraped deep into the Earth's crust, releasing key minerals that altered ocean chemistry.”
First global study of the extraordinary role of animals as architects of Earth: Researchers calculated that creatures large and small rival the landscape reshaping power of half a million major floods each year, Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, 2/26/25
In Hawai‘i, Restoring Kava Helps Sustain Native Food Culture: Hawai‘i declares its beloved beverage as safe, bypassing federal labeling ambiguities and paving the way for kava to fulfill its environmental and economic potential, Naoki Nitta, Civil Eats, 2/24/25
Where the Savior Fish Still Swims: In an era of collapse, a fabled fish keeps coming back to Nisg̱a’a nation, Shanna Baker, BioGraphic, 2/25/25
How to build data centers without raising grid costs — and emissions: Building dirty power plants to serve the AI boom could spell climate disaster. Luckily there are ways to meet surging demand that are cleaner, faster, and cheaper, Jeff St. John, Canary, 2/26/25: “With the right balance of wind, solar, and batteries, topped off by power from the connecting grid or from on-site fossil-gas generators…can be “cleaner than any part of the grid…80% clean energy.”
Aluminum is essential to many everyday products – but at what environmental cost? Demand for many of those products is growing rapidly, YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, 2/28/25
New device could allow you to taste a cake in virtual reality: From fish soup to coffee, 'e-Taste' delivered, study finds, Ohio St Univ, ScienceDaily, 2/28/25
New Maps of the Bizarre, Chaotic Space-Time Inside Black Holes: Physicists hope that understanding the churning region near singularities might help them reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics, Lyndie Chiou, Quanta, 2/24/25
Wildfire
One spark of resistance
is all it will take
to retake what has suddenly
been taken
E. Ethelbert Miller
Health, Wellness
As the Texas outbreak grows, how contagious is measles, really? Maria Godoy, Alyson Hurt, NPR, 2/28/25: “…measles is one of the most contagious diseases on Earth.”
New data show widespread chemical contamination of drinking water, Douglas Main, New Lede, 2/26/25: “A newly released trove of data reveals widespread pollution of US tap water with more than 320 chemical contaminants, including industrial chemicals and farm-related pollutants.”
Violence alters human genes for generations, researchers discover, Univ of Florida, ScienceDaily, 2/27/25: “First study of its kind reveals epigenetic signatures of violence passesd to grandchildren.”
Birds, Birding
High microplastic levels in bird lungs suggest widespread air pollution impact, Katherine Egan Bennett, Phys.Org, 2/27/25
How fish biologists discovered birds of paradise have fluorescent feathers: A first survey of museum specimens finds biofluorescence in 37 of 45 species, Susan Milius, ScienceNews, 2/24/25
What a week! It feels like each day is worse than the last. Despite the constant barrage of terrible, earth-threatening, psyche-damaging news and events we are witnessing, we must, we will resist fear, and the despair that fear can engender.
We must resist, oppose, and constantly speak up for what we believe in. This is our fight for democracy, freedom, and justice. Please send comments, ideas; keep in touch, build community. We must remind ourselves every day that we are not alone in this fight.
Stay strong. Love the ones you’re with. We need each other more than ever.
Love—David
The world is dark but it is not hopeless.—Clarence Darrow
Long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got my life to live
And all my love to give and
I will survive….