The Sorensen Monologues
My Experience With Obamacare: Comic for Kaiser Health News
I’ve drawn a follow-up to my earlier comic for Kaiser Health News about being a freelancer in search of decent health insurance. This one is about my experience getting covered through the Affodable Care Act.
The NRA interviews Surgeon General Candidates
You know your country has gone off the deep end when a Surgeon General nominee encounters fierce political opposition because of this:
On the local level, the NRA has tried to bar pediatricians from counseling parents about the risks of keeping guns at home. The American Association of Pediatrics recommends that doctors begin to talk to parents about gun safety even before their baby is born and continue the conversation yearly, just as doctors talk to parents about the dangers of swimming pools and the importance of bicycle helmets. Florida passed a gag law in 2011; crafted by an NRA lobbyist, the bill forbids doctors from “making written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm or ammunition by the patient or by a family member of the patient.” A district court ruled the following year that the law restricted physicians’ rights to free speech and the case is now in the appeals process. Murthy’s opposition to pediatrician gag laws was one of the reasons cited by the NRA and Rand Paul in their attempt to disqualify him.
TV Appearance on Fusion Network
I recently appeared on Open Source with Leon Krauze to discuss America’s extreme economic inequality. The show is on the Fusion Network, a new cable channel from ABC News and Univision.
Political cartoonists are rarely interviewed on TV, which is strange when you consider how frequently opinion columnists or obscure academic authors make appearances as talking heads. Thanks to Fusion for having me as a guest.
No Fly List comic for ACLU
One of the projects I’ve been working on is an comic for the ACLU about innocent people trapped on the No Fly List. 
(Click to read the whole story on the ACLU website)
Working on this story (based on actual client testimony) was a real eye-opener. As things stand now, these people have alarmingly little recourse to clear their names.
Oral arguments in the ACLU’s lawsuit Latif v. Holder took place this week in Portland, OR.
The Herblock Prize!
The past month or so has probably been the busiest of my entire career as a cartoonist. In the meantime, I’ve been remiss about updating the blog, so I’m going to try to get caught up here with a few posts.
One major development is that was named the recipient of the 2014 Herblock Prize, a prestigious editorial cartooning award from the Herb Block Foundation. (I had been named Finalist in 2012.) It’s a humbling experience, being part of the legacy of such an influential cartoonist who was so consistently on the right side of history. I’ve received more kind emails and comments than I can keep up with, which has been truly heartwarming.
Here’s additional coverage from the Washington Post.
Corporate Cosmos
While working on this cartoon, it had not yet come to my attention that Stephen Hawking had just released a new paper in which he declared “The absence of event horizons mean that there are no black holes – in the sense of regime from which light can’t escape to in finity. There are however apparent horizons which persist for a period of time.” National Geographic and other outlets ran with the somewhat sensationalist quote of Hawking saying “There are no black holes.” However, as this handy PBS article explains:
To be clear, Hawking was not claiming that black holes don’t exist. Astronomers have been observing black holes for decades, said Joseph Polchinski, theoretical physicist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
What Hawking did was propose an explanation to one of the most puzzling problems in theoretical physics. How can black holes exist when they seem to break two fundamental laws of physics — Einstein’s laws of relativity and quantum mechanics?
On a different note, an astronomer emailed me to point out that “it is actually much harder to fall into a solar mass black hole than the Sun itself because the former is just so small.” Which is an interesting point, to which I say the CEO of EZ-Naut is more concerned with appearances and marketing than scientific reality.
Great podcast on the origins of “jaywalking”
In response to this week’s cartoon on pedestrian rights, a reader sent me a link to this fascinating article and podcast about city streets in the early 20th century. The streets used to be for people, many of whom resented the introduction of cars, which had a tendency to slaughter children. Automobile interests promoted the concept of “jaywalking” to ridicule pedestrians — a belittling term with connotations of “country bumpkin.”
Coincidentally, one of the hosts of the podcast (Jesse Dukes) is someone who was at the University of Virginia at the same time I was. I didn’t know him personally, but I’m pretty sure we crossed paths during my day job years at the library.
Ped X-ing
As noted here, police apprehended a female jogger during a jaywalking sting in Austin last week, startling the woman, then proceeded to drag her to a squad car and arrest her for failing to produce I.D.
I was reminded of this article from a couple months back about the L.A.P.D. busting pedestrians with $197 tickets for stepping off the curb seconds after the “DON’T WALK” sign had started flashing. $197!
I’m not a confrontational person, but if there is one issue that could plausibly lead to my being tazed by a cop, it is this awesomely stupid and unfair harassment of pedestrians. I live in Austin; the traffic is generally ghastly. People traveling on foot deserve encouragement and respect, not gotcha operations that slap them with outrageous fines.
And what selective concern about safety! I can’t be trusted to cross the middle of the street when no cars are coming, but talking on a cellphone while driving is legal in many places. But hey, if you’re proceeding on the “WALK” signal when a distracted driver turns into you, it’s no problem, right?
I realize there are pedestrians who do unsafe things like wandering across highways drunkenly in the middle of the night, or obliviously crossing at a green light in front of traffic. Police should be focusing on these egregious cases, not the majority of people going about their business without posing real safety risks. And again: while I don’t know what the Austin fines are, L.A.’s $197 is way too steep, with the potential to cause hardship for many people.
The Dignity of Work
Politicians are constantly moralizing about the “dignity of work.” I’m all for being able to pay the bills, but I find the phrase condescending, as though people in need of the social safety net don’t quite grasp the concept of a job. And plenty of jobs are lacking in dignity; I’ve worked a few myself.
While doing some image research for this cartoon, I made a fascinating discovery. Did you know the Porta-john industry has its own trade publication, Portable Restroom Operator Monthly? Or that the 2014 Pumper and Cleaner Expo, billed as “the largest annual event in the world for the liquid waste industry,” will be held next week in Indianapolis? Not to suggest such work is undignified, mind you. But I bet they earn their pay.
Valentine’s Day illo
Here’s a cover I drew for the Inlander altweekly in Spokane, WA (click to enlarge):
I used a cool Photoshop trick for the little rays around the heart, which I’m quite proud of.
