The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Spaces: Issue 248, February 9, 2025 (V5 #40)
We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.—George Orwell, 1984
Isolation may be the beginning of terror; it certainly is its most fertile ground; it always is its result. This isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together; isolated men are powerless by definition.—Hannah Arendt
When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.—Audre Lorde
…spending lots of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything….it’s exactly what they want.—Janus Rose
Books, Music, Art, Culture
Not All Superheroes Wear Capes, Some Don Gorilla Masks : This one-room exhibition is a good reminder of how this anonymous group of artists changed how we saw the art world, Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic, 2/3/25
Multi-level barrage of US book bans is ‘unprecedented’, says PEN America: Censorship at local to federal level recalls past authoritarian regimes ‘but this has never all happened at once,’ Marina Dunbar, The Guardian, 2/7/25: “We are seeing multiple levels of law, of political officials from local school boards to the federal government all trying to exert new ideological control to censor what can be taught in schools.”
What Publishing Can Do About Trump: Preserve the Independence of Our Bookstores and Libraries: A just world starves fascism of the nutrients it needs to thrive, Josh Cook, LitHub, 2/4/25: “The book world needs to fight and be a reason to fight.”
‘Stand up for what’s right’: Melville House co-founder on publishing Jack Smith and Tulsa reports: Stunned by Donald Trump’s return, Dennis Johnson saw a chance to hit back by publishing official reports into shameful episodes in US history, Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, 2/9/25
Carving Our Canoes: On the Value of Building a Communal Life in an Atomized World: Consider the Possibilities and Limits of Indigenous Knowledge For Relieving Contemporary Malaise, Tyson Yunkaporta, LitHub, 2/6/25: “We have to be realistic and acknowledge that ‘ancient wisdom’ is not your one-stop shop for salvation through regenerative design.” Book: Right Story, Wrong Story: How to Have Fearless Conversations in Hell
Judith Bernstein Warns Us: Never Again! That Bernstein’s political art is still so relevant is chilling, but like the first time around, it remains a source of comfort that we have her to lead us through, Natalie Haddad, Hyperallergic, 2/2/25: “Long before Donald Trump ran for office, Judith Bernstein used her art to condemn those who abuse power, from the museum to the White House, and to reveal them for who they really are: dickheads, cockmen, schlong faces, and, eventually, what she would call 'death heads.'”
Meditations in an Emergency: Be wild and true and undefeatable, Rob Brezsny, Astrology Newsletter, 2/4/25: Build community: “Share the cognitive load. Different people track different issues. Network intelligence beats individual overload. Remember: They want you scattered. Your focus is resistance.”
Urgent Messages from Eternity: An exhibition of Franz Kafka’s postcards, letters, and manuscript pages rekindles our sense of him as a writer deeply connected to his own time and place, Deborah Eisenberg, NY Review of Books, 2/13/25 issue: “He was sharply observant of himself as well as others…”
Etel Adnan Captured the Light of Many Suns : An artist and poet who traversed multiple cultures, Adnan’s creations are alive with both multiplicity and instability, Natalie Haddad, Hyperallergic, 2/4/25: “Communing with the paintings can be an intimate experience. Maybe for some it’s because of their small scale and meditative stillness; others may feel a personal connection with the imagery.”
‘She really is everything!’: how Doechii became a rap icon – and bagged a Grammy, Shaad D’Souza, The Guardian, 2/7/25: “Blending technical brilliance with emotional depth, the 26-year-old beat big names like Eminem to the best rap album award.”
The Making of an Anti-Woke Zealot: How Elon Musk Was Infected with the MAGA Mind-Virus: on the Paranoid Billionaire’s Rightward Swing, Eoin Higgins, LitHub, 2/5/25 Book: Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left
my house’s stairway is seized
with vertigo.
Matter having forsaken its laws,
we land in hell,
ascending to heaven.
—from The Manifestations of the Voyage, Etal Adnan
Politics, Economics, Technology
Of course it’s a coup: Miss the obvious, lose your republic, Timothy Snyder, Thinking About, 2/5/25: “Resistance to the coup is the defense of the human against the digital and the democratic against the oligarchic. If Musk controls these digital systems, Republican elected officials will be just as helpless as Democratic ones. The institutions that they voted to create can also be deleted, as Musk puts it.”
The 24-Hour Reality Check: Musk’s Impossible Power Grab And America’s Crisis, Mike Brock, Techdirt, 2/5/25: “Musk, a man who appears to view the United States government as merely another acquisition target for his interplanetary ambitions, is participating in the dismantling of constitutional governance. While we’re distracted by his tweets and his technological promises, while we debate his management style and his vision for efficiency, he’s helping to convert democratic institutions into instruments of private power.”
The Miners: The men who would strip the future for parts, Sarah Kendzior, Newsletter, 2/7/25: “We used to live on borrowed time, but now we live on stolen time, because the oligarchs are taking that too. They are deleting our data and records and history. The final step is deleting people, the last repositories of memory. The faster this disaster happens, the slower moves my mind.”
Is Elon Musk Serving Two Masters? Elon Musk’s efforts to slash the U.S. government could be a huge boon to China—a country to which Musk has significant financial ties, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling, New Republic, 2/7/25
In chaotic Washington blitz, Elon Musk’s ultimate goal becomes clear: Shrink government, control data and — according to one official closely watching the billionaire’s DOGE — replace “the human workforce with machines,” Jeff Stein et al, Washington Post, 2/8/25
Trump’s administration seems chaotic, but he’s drawing directly from Project 2025 playbook, Zachary Albert, The Conversation, 2/5/25: “Heritage views its job as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’”
Trump’s Project 2025 agenda caps decades-long resistance to 20th century progressive reform, Colin Gordon, The Conversation, 2/3/25: “Since the 1930s, conservative policy agendas have largely taken the form of reactions to the New Deal and the Great Society. The central message has routinely been that big government has overstepped its bounds and trampled individual rights, and that the architects of those reforms are not just misguided but treasonous. Project 2025, in this respect, promises not just a political right turn but to ‘defeat the anti-American left.’”
The Chaos Has Arrived: Welcome to the Next Four Years, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 2/4/25: “What America definitely needs right now is a credible opposition — someone to offer a promise of good governance, classic American values, and institutional stability as an alternative to Trumpian chaos. Unfortunately, I don’t think they have that yet. And until it materializes, we can expect the chaos to roll onward.”
Trump isn’t a narcissist – he’s a solipsist. And it means a few simple things: The president delights in being attacked, since it keeps the focus on him. The press should handle him like parents with an ornery child, John R MacArthur, The Guardian, 2/8/25: “Trump the solipsist doesn’t care if his policies fail to help the ordinary people who voted for him, and we anti-Trumpers should fear his supporters’ rage if they conclude that they’ve been duped by their hero. The backlash is more likely to be felt by liberals than by Trump, who will retreat safely to Mar-a-Lago and resume cheating at golf.”
How Child Psychology Explains Trump’s Wild Tariff Feints: Jean Piaget could tell you more about the president’s rationale—or the lack thereof—than any economist, Timothy Noah, New Republic, 2/4/25: “From the ages of 2 to 7…a child is unable to identify cause and effect logically and instead engages in transductive reasoning. A child might believe, for instance, that his taking a nap causes it to be afternoon, when in fact it being afternoon is what causes his parent to put him down for a nap. Most of us grow out of the transductive phase. Trump did not, making it difficult to distinguish his lies from his delusions.”
Bullying as a mode of power, Adam Tooze, Chartbook, 2/7/25: “In the conventional repertoire of power, the closest analogue to bullying is psychological warfare. It works by destabilizing and wearing down its victims.”
Connecting the Dots: Trump’s Tightening Grip on Press Freedom, Rebecca Hamilton, Just Security, 2/6/25: “…these signs should be appreciated for what they are: a concerted push to align the U.S. information ecosystem with Trump’s entrenched view that the independent media is “truly the enemy of the people,” and that it must be replaced with information sources aligned with his personal views and under the control of himself and his allies.”
Where’s the Real Power Nexus? How Does the Opposition Get To It? Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 2/7/25: “If you’re concerned about the constitutional crisis, I would use every opportunity to convey to lawmakers that a flat “no” on any assistance until the criminal conduct stops is the only acceptable position.”
Why We Should Still Audit the 2024 Election—and Every Election, Jessica Burbank, Drop Site, 2/8/25: “…“under the current circumstances when massive software breaches are known and documented, recounts are necessary and appropriate to remove all potential doubt and to set an example for security best practices in all elections.”
You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism: Authoritarians and tech CEOs now share the same goal: to keep us locked in an eternal doomscroll instead of organizing against them, Janus Rose, 404 Media, 2/6/25: “Whether it’s [New York Times columnist] Ross Douthat providing a sane-washing gloss on Trump’s mania or people on social media vehemently disagreeing and dunking on it, they’re legitimizing it as part of the discourse.”
Federal judge blocks Musk’s DOGE from access to Treasury Department material: The judge also ordered Musk and his team to “immediately destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from Treasury Department’s records and systems, if any,” Shayna Jacobs, Washington Post, 2/8/25
Here’s What Senate Democrats Should Be Doing to Fight Trump: Senate rules were explicitly designed to protect the minority. Democrats should exploit them mercilessly to slow Trump and Musk before they destroy the country, Aaron Regunberg, New Republic, 2/7/25: “If Democrats deny unanimous consent, they can grind Senate business to a crawl.” DW: CALL YOUR SENATORS NOW AND DON’T STOP!
‘The Damage to the Party Is Profound’: Three Opinion Writers on What Happened to the Democrats, Frank Bruni, Michelle Goldberg, Bret Stephens, NY Times, 2/6/25: “Democratic leaders are trotting out the same old news conferences and rhetoric, acting like the party of lawyers, and so far showing no compelling strategies for holding [Trump] to account.”
Everything is In-Between: How I went from an agent of change to an agent of care, Douglas Rishkoff, Newsletter, 2/4/25: “I keep quoting the medieval Hebrew Unetaneh Tokef prayer in this regard: we may not be able to change what is decreed in the Book of Life, but we can lessen the negative impact by being compassionate with one another. Or as the Ancient Greek Stoics argued, we have less influence over what powerful dictators might do to us than we do over our response to those actions.”
It's OK to Hate Him, John Pavlovitz, Beautiful Mess, 2/8/25: “I am okay with my practical hatred of Donald Trump, because I can't separate who he is from what he does—when what he does is the only tangible experience I have of him; when what he does directly impacts my children, the safety of my family, other people’s children and their families, the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the nation we call home.”
A New AI World, Scott Galloway, No Mercy/No Malice, 2/8/25: “Private assets can transform into public ones for a variety of reasons. Economists have different words for the process depending on the details. They are all Latin for ‘there is no money here.’”
What's going to happen to Ukraine now? The most likely scenario is some form of Finlandization, Noah Smith, Noahpinion, 2/8/25: “Ukraine’s demographics aren’t favorable, but neither are Russia’s.”
The Destruction of Gaza Runs Parallel to the Destruction of the Planet: This is the end of the world that never ends, Andreas Malm, LitHub, 2/6/25: “If you’re doing something that hurts somebody, and you know it, you’re doing it on purpose.” Book: The Destruction of Palestine is the Destruction of the Earth
Begin
in the architecture of a wound like that
of a shrine, of shelter:
fleeting.
—from “Ruptures,” Stefanie Kirby
Science, Environment
Ancient Climate Reconstruction Links Past and Future: A new map of climate conditions during the Pliocene epoch—the last time Earth’s carbon dioxide concentrations hit 400 parts per million—could offer clues about possible climatic changes in store for the 21st century, Aaron Sidder, Eos, 2/4/25: “The patterns and changes in the climate system during the Pliocene could presage how the planet will respond to near-future climate change....”
After the War, the Environmental Devastation in Gaza Runs Deep: The war in Gaza has taken a heavy toll on the environment, with water supplies contaminated, raw sewage pouring into the Mediterranean, once-fertile soils ruined, and the land stripped of trees. Experts say the extent of the damage needs to be tallied to help plan for a recovery, Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, 2/6/25
Lost cities of the Amazon: how science is revealing ancient garden towns hidden in the rainforest: Archaeologists using 3D mapping are uncovering the remains of thousands of green metropolises with composted gardens, fisheries, and forests groomed into orchards, Mac Margolis, The Guardian, 2/6/25
Why do plants transport energy so efficiently and quickly? Tech Univ Munich, ScienceDaily, 2/4/25: “Photosynthesis—mainly carried out by plants—is based on a remarkably efficient energy conversion process….A new study shows that quantum mechanical effects play a key role in this process.”
How AI narrows our vision of climate solutions. . .and reinforces the status quo: A new study demonstrates how chatbots bias public discourse in favor of modest, incremental tweaks to climate policy and environmental behavior, Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, 2/4/25
Dramatic drop in monarch butterfly count nears record 30-year low, Todd Richmond, APNews, 2/4/25: “Monarchs suffer when the mercury gets up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) and any temperatures above 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2 degrees Celsius) are lethal to the insects.”
New study shows insects highly absorb 5G frequencies, Theodora Scarato, Environmental Health News, 2/7/25: “The development of 5G and next-generation wireless communication networks could alter the nature of radio-frequency EMF exposure in the environment. This may have significant implications for biological organisms, including insects.”
Islands of the Feral Pigs: In Hawai‘i, people, pigs, and ecosystems only have so much room to coexist, and the pigs exist a little too much, Brendan Borrell, BioGraphic, 2/4/25: “Shame on the American people who stop cultural heritage.”
Temperatures at north pole 20C above average and beyond ice melting point: Scientists say unusually mild temperatures linked to low-pressure system over Iceland directing strong flow of warm air towards north pole, Ajit Naranjan, The Guardian, 2/4/25
The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA: By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s “ChatGPT for genomes” could pick up patterns that humans can’t see, accelerating biological design, Ingrid Wickelgren, Quanta, 2/5/25: “It’s almost like literary criticism on biology sequences. In that way, I’m still doing literary criticism.”
How to Prevent a Bird Flu Pandemic: Leading virologist Angela Rasmussen breaks down everything you should know about the latest bird flu outbreak, including how worried Americans should be, Angela Rasmussen, Zeteo, 2/6/25: “There has never been an outbreak where so much H5N1 was infecting so many different species.”
How Noether’s Theorem Revolutionized Physics: Emmy Noether showed that fundamental physical laws are just a consequence of simple: symmetries. A century later, her insights continue to shape physics, Shalma Wegsman, Quanta, 2/7/25: “Before Noether’s theorem, the principle of conservation of energy was shrouded in mystery; Noether’s simple and profound mathematical formulation did much to demystify physics.”
Health, Wellness
Study finds microplastic contamination in 99% of seafood samples: The peer-reviewed study detected microplastics in 180 of 182 samples comprising five types of fish and pink shrimp, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, 2/3/25
Our brains are filling with more and more microplastics, study shows: A new study shows that microplastics have crossed the blood-brain barrier — and that their concentrations are rising, Shannon Osaka, Washington Post, 2/3/25
When there is no weather report, and the birds have gone into separatism, then there’ll be stillness, an extension of stillness that is its own form of land—a renewed chance for peace. When Earth becomes a star and enters the world of Heaven, then there’ll be an emptiness that doesn’t rob time in order to keep itself calm. Then there’ll be another form in which to ferry peace.
—from “When Earth Falls into Heaven,” Morgan Võ
Birds, Birding
Birding in the Skagit Valley of Washington State, Desert Scientist, Daily Kos, 2/6/25: “The numbers of ducks, Bald Eagles, Trumpeter Swans, and Snow Geese were often difficult to even estimate.”
Ancient duck-like creature discovered in Antarctica may be the oldest modern bird ever discovered: A new and nearly complete skull of Vegavis iaai discovered in Antarctica suggests that modern birds originated before the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, Kristel Tjandra, Live Science, 2/5/25
You gotta understand, the path that you going on, everybody can't go
And you can't take everybody where you're going
You remember I used to talk to about the story about Abraham and Lot
And how he wanted to take Lot with him? Everybody can't go where you're going—from “Alligator Bites Never Heal,” Doechii
As you all know by now, we are in a fast-moving autocratic coup that feels impossible to keep track of. I can’t and won’t try to report every outrageous attack on our republic by Trump & co., but I will try to let you know what you can do oppose them.
Our shared values are at risk but we can still fight for democracy, freedom, and justice.
It is the communities we make will save us. Please send comments, share resources: participate, lead. We are the people who must do the work of democracy, and we are not alone.
Be well everyone. Stay strong. Keep in touch and always, love the ones you’re with. We need each other more than ever.
Love always—David
The world is dark but it is not hopeless.—Clarence Darrow