The Sorensen Monologues

This Week’s Cartoon: “Killer Kleen”

I found out about the scented-laundry-product study last week thanks to a brief article in The Oregonian. To quote the original press release from the professor who led the research:

Analysis of the captured gases found more than 25 volatile organic compounds, including seven hazardous air pollutants, coming out of the vents. Of those, two chemicals – acetaldehyde and benzene – are classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as carcinogens, for which the agency has established no safe exposure level…Emissions from the top five brands, they estimate, would constitute about 6 percent of automobiles’ acetaldehyde emissions.

Puts “mountain fresh” scent into a whole new perspective, doesn’t it?

Longtime readers know I violently hate leaf blowers. I still can’t believe most people regard these infernal shrieking monsters as a “normal” part of life. There’s always one blasting away in my neighborhood, destroying the peace and quiet. I’ve noticed that the amount of work being done with them is often minimal or downright imperceptible compared to the public disturbance they cause. I swear, my neighbor just enjoys waving his blower around like a metal detector as he strolls through his perfect grass. And yet we can’t necessarily see the crud they spew into the air, or the sound waves radiating out for blocks, so it’s all good, man.

I lived in rural Virginia for several years, where some people still burned their trash. In case you were thinking of escaping to the country to avoid dryer vents and leaf blowers…

For more on the ultra-plush toilet paper issue, Greenpeace has been on the case. I’m not a TP radical, but I’ve always been of the opinion that super-soft rolls run out too quickly.

PS: A Daily Kos commenter linked to an article about these awesome Japanese toilets. I want one.

A Political Cartoonist’s Worst Nightmare

The political cartooning community was shaken today by news of Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat’s beating by pro-Assad thugs. They broke his hands to stop him from drawing cartoons critical of the President.

This horrifying incident reminds me of an exchange I had earlier this summer when meeting with political cartoonists from the Middle East and North Africa through a State Department program. Naturally, a prominent topic of discussion was the freedom of speech we American cartoonists enjoy. I was on crutches thanks to a skiing accident (I’m mobile now, thank you), and I made a dumb joke, obviously tongue-in-cheek, about how the Obama administration didn’t like one of the cartoons I drew. “Ah, so you are like an Arab cartoonist!” one of the visitors joked back. The whole room laughed, maybe a little too hard. Gotta admire the bravery of the Ali Ferzats of the world.

This Week’s Cartoon: “The Latest Debt Ceiling Demands”

Ugh, what more can I say. This whole thing reminds me more and more of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine every day. Manufacture a crisis, use the ensuing sense of panic to impose draconian cuts to programs people desperately need, and voila! Utopia at last. Never mind that Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times, and Dubya 7, or that Clinton balanced the budget, or that the vast bulk of our current deficit was formed under Bush. The hypocrisy is simply astounding.

The m&m’s in the first panel are, of course, a reference to Van Halen’s infamous contract rider stipulating that the brown ones be removed. David Lee Roth has explained that the point was not to be a prima donna, but to test to see if stage crews had read the contract carefully. I love this quote:

I came backstage. I found some brown M&M’s, I went into full Shakespearean ‘What is this before me?”… you know, with the skull in one hand… and promptly trashed the dressing room. Dumped the buffet, kicked a hole in the door, twelve thousand dollars’ worth of fun.”

I decided to make the m&m’s that Republicans object to the green ones, since, you know, they hate anything green.

OBL

I’m glad Osama’s dead, but I’m finding this whole thing anticlimactic. It’s not that I’m above feeling satisfaction when a mass murderer dies, but the point when I would have felt much emotion apparently passed long ago. Too many years of carnage — of countless Iraqi and Afghan civilians massacred, innocents tortured to death in secret prisons, young American soldiers blown up — weigh on me. I don’t blame people for celebrating this moment in history. I just don’t see it as a “game-changer” except, perhaps, politically.

Also, the really bad editorial cartoons starring fierce-looking eagles zooming in on bin Laden are starting to roll in. Don’t these people watch Colbert?

A Toast to Troubletown

I’ve been meaning to write about my friend and colleague Lloyd Dangle ending his altweekly strip Troubletown. Troubletown has been one of my favorite cartoons over the years, and this was its last week. I can attest to the fact that he’s a nice guy, too. We did a cartoon reading together once in Berkeley, and he totally saved my butt by borrowing a digital projector from a friend so I could show my Powerpoint slides. (Lloyd always used an old-fashioned slide carousel to avoid such predicaments.) He also let me stay in his son’s room at his house and cooked me a great dinner. Not only can he draw, but the man knows how to prepare an artichoke! We at Casa Slowpoke raise our drinking glasses high.

Escape From Ronald Rump… Again

Matt’s latest cartoon has moved me to share a comic I drew seven years ago, the last time we went through a Donald Trump-oriented media frenzy (click for larger version).The corresponding blog post from April 27, 2004:

I sometimes watch late-night comedy shows while drawing the strip. One night recently, THREE shows in a row had interviews with Donald Trump or a sketch about Trump. When the networks want to ram something inane down our throats, they sure don’t hold back. No wonder a majority of Americans still think Iraq had something to do with 9-11, even though the White House once quietly admitted this was false (it was barely covered).

So, you see, this happens once every seven years. He’s like a PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS!

Stumptown Comics Fest

I’m going to be wandering around the con this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, and will be appearing on a panel Sunday at noon about the possibility of starting a NW chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. If you happen to be there, you are invited to bump into me as I drift about and say hello.

This Week’s Cartoon: “Conservative Counseling”

Continuing with a long series of obnoxious happenings in matters repro, South Dakota has passed a law that pretty much forces women to seek “advice” from those faith-based  “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” that I blogged about a few weeks ago. These centers are, as you might expect, notoriously unscientific. Poor South Dakotans. This is the second time I’ve had to make fun of them for this sort of thing. In all fairness, I will say the Badlands are lovely, and I spent a fine evening in Rapid City a couple years ago.  South Dakota is also the home of the Corn Palace and a giant pink prairie dog (see below).

I debated whether or not to call this strip “Conservative Counseling”  because I have misgivings about the term “conservative.” It implies the opposite of radicalism,  yet a number of self-described “conservative” pundits have policy prescriptions that are, to put it gently, nothing short of dramatic. But in the end, the alliterative “c’s” had it.

[Afterthought: for a fascinating map of passport ownership that ties into the fourth panel of the cartoon, see this post by Krugman.]

WTF Email

A reader is upset about my Unplanned Parenthood cartoon:

Hi Jen, this is in response to your recent depiction of Planned Parenthood. First of all, I am not irrationally upset, please do not delete this message upon noting that it is a complaint. My lady associate and I found the particular section “Sexual Assault Victim” to be offensive and particularly insensitive. You have obviously never been raped, though many readers of Santa Cruz Weekly have been. You probably ruined someone’s day. Play nice, bitch.

Now, the second panel of that cartoon obviously criticizes the viewpoint of the Unplanned Parenthood counselor, who suggests the sexual assault victim was “probably showing a little thigh.” It illustrates the horror and absurdity of being told such a thing. This reader seems to think I’m attacking Planned Parenthood itself. But it says right underneath the title, “Pregnancy Centers, GOP style!” For some people, I suppose cartoon interpretation is a bitch.

Japanese Snow Monsters!

If you enjoyed my Oregonian story about the snow ghosts in Whitefish, Montana, you might want to check out these totally cool photos of the Japanese equivalent — snow monsters!

(To give credit where credit is due, the above photo was originally posted here, prior to the snow monsters page linked above.)

Thanks to reader John A. for the link.

A Telling Chart

From ThinkProgress, about news coverage of Affordable Care Act rulings (click for full size):

That danged liberal media strikes again!

Lara Logan Rocks

I actually linked to this video nearly five years ago, but it’s worth a replay now. The clip shows Logan being interviewed a highly condescending Howard Kurtz, who was needling her about why the reporting from Iraq was so “negative.” I came away from this very impressed by Logan, and was saddened today to hear about what happened to her in Egypt.

[UPDATE: Reading more about Logan, I see she’s made some comments about Afghanistan that suggest she’s been embedded with the military too long. But I still admire the way she handled Kurtz here.]