The Sorensen Monologues

Tips for Dems to Avoid Expulsion

Justin Jones was fortunately reinstated by the Nashville Metro council as I was drawing this cartoon. It looks like Justin Pearson will also be reinstated this week. Their expulsion from the Tennessee legislature was a radically antidemocratic move from Republicans, yet you might not know it given some headlines that appeared last week. According to this excellent TPM article by Kate Riga, the AP went with the laughably anodyne “Amid polarization, minority party lawmakers face penalties.”

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Dirty Fuel, Clean Conscience

A few recent stories got me thinking about the oil industry this week, leading me to actually wonder how fossil fuel CEOs can stand to live with themselves given that the world is burning up in front of their faces, much as their own scientists predicted decades ago. Perhaps the most notable news was the “final warning” from climate scientists in the IPCC report that said we are on track to use up our carbon budget by 2030.

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You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!

I’ve been thinking for a while about how certain tech moguls who believe they’re on the cutting edge of human “progress” have absolutely retrograde ideas when it comes to gender (and race, for that matter). One aspect of this phenomenon is the “pronatalist” movement, embraced by billionaires and other wealthy weirdos who are trying to have as many babies as possible in an effort to repopulate the human race with their superior genes. Politicians like JD Vance — backed by Thiel — have openly called for a return to extremely traditional gender roles. Meanwhile, the tradwife movement is booming on TikTok.

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Big Grocer is Watching

I recently read an article about Kroger’s lucrative data business, which noted that the company had collected “35+ petabytes of first-party customer data.” This is 66 percent larger than the Library of Congress’s entire digital collection. The data is sold to third-party brands and advertisers seeking highly detailed information on customer behavior. Kroger has admitted that facial recognition cameras are also used in “select locations.” Albertsons has also been known to use facial recognition technology, along with many other major retailers. What they are doing with this biometric information remains unclear. We do know that using them for security can lead to false positives exacerbated by built-in biases (an NYU student famously sued Apple a few years ago for wrongly identifying him as a thief).

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Iraq War Memories

March of 2003 was a terrible time to be politically aware in the US. To anyone paying close attention to the Bush administration and the neocons’ agenda (spelled out by the Project for the New American Century), it was obvious from the beginning that the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice that had nothing to do with 9/11. It was also obvious that the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House was not exactly trustworthy, and should not have been given the benefit of the doubt. But in those days, much of American media fell into lockstep behind them, not wanting to be seen as unpatriotic in a time of WAR! 

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Framing Funnies: “Culture Wars”

The term “culture wars” is used by many well-meaning people, including many progressive writers and activists I admire. It’s a convenient way to refer to a number of issues. But in this current political moment, I think it’s a highly misleading euphemism. What we are experiencing in America right now is an asymmetrical attack on basic freedoms — a fascist movement that thrives on targeting certain groups, erasing history, and spreading dangerous falsehoods through a vast media apparatus. To call this a “culture war” is to legitimize the contemporary GOP and its extremist counterparts as a coherent and authentic “culture” worthy of respect. This is a misuse of the concept of culture, creating a false equivalence between marginalized groups and those who would harm or eliminate them in a quest for ever more power. 

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Train Wreck

This is about the right’s race-baiting response to the East Palestine train disaster, which you can read more about here. It’s clear that one party was trying to prevent such disasters, and the other was doing the industry’s bidding without concern for human health or safety. The narrative being put forth on the right, however, is that because East Palestine residents are mostly white and conservative, they have been “forgotten” by the Biden administration, unlike the “favored” (read Black) populations of Detroit and other cities that supposedly garner more sympathy. Given the high levels of environmental pollution many minority communities are exposed to, this assertion is asinine. It’s also incredibly dangerous.

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Missing the Story

A few relevant links:

Jessica Valenti on the proposed SC abortion bill

DeSantis takeover of high school athletics board and other official boards

New Idaho bill would criminalize administering mRNA vaccines

Nieman Reports on the open letter to the NYT on trans issues

The sheer volume of hand-wringing about trans kids would suggest this is a national emergency on par with climate change. It seems the mainstream pundit class has fallen for the GOP strategy of making transgender care a political wedge issue while largely ignoring the growing extremism of red state governments.

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Mail Fail

For more tales of postal dysfunction, I recommend this article in the Colorado Sun, which describes a breakdown of the system in several small towns around the Rockies. Part of the problem is high housing costs leading to a worker shortage, as we are seeing in other industries. But a huge factor is the “Amazon effect” — of post offices being absolutely overwhelmed with packages they are forced to deliver the last mile. Things have gotten so bad in Crested Butte that the town is looking into taking legal action to stop the post office from prioritizing Amazon over regular mail.

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E-commerce Chaos

I’m not necessarily opposed to online shopping — I find it necessary for certain items, although I shop locally when I can. Reviews seem especially inconsistent these days, with different people apparently receiving different products in some cases. 

There have been a few articles recently on the deteriorating quality and overall weirdness of Amazon’s website — this one delves into the highly competitive third-party seller market, increasingly dominated by factory-direct products from China.

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Beaten Down

To be clear, I am not saying protest and activism are worthless — they are more necessary than ever. Like many people, I’m frustrated by the inertia of our institutions, and profoundly alarmed about what DeSantis is doing in Florida (such as blocking AP African American studies classes, subjecting teacher to felonies for disallowed books, and installing right-wing extremists on the board of the progressive New College).

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Gas De-Rangement

For a decent summary on the risks of gas stoves, this Scientific American article is worth checking out. One recent study estimated that some 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases were attributable to emissions from gas stoves. 

While bans on new construction are being considered in many places, and already exist in a few cities like Berkeley, no one is actually confiscating stoves. The right-wing freakout over “stove bans” is mostly hot air, serving the purpose of demonizing liberals and whipping up panic over imaginary “government overreach” when what we have here is a clear case of government underreach.

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