Strong Enough?
Pulling the thread that connects Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough” and boygenius’s “Not Strong Enough” in both directions.
Listen on Apple Music, Spotify or Last.fm.
Made the Roy Choi salsa verde tonight and, folks? It’s good.
Admittedly fudged the recipe a bit based on what was on hand but it’s a hell of a starting place.
Allstate is still using “security questions I can probably find the answers to if you’ve filled out your Facebook profile even a little bit” in 2023. Woof.
I’m in the Delaware Call today!
The Politics of Design will be a lighthearted series of critiques focusing on the branding of state and local politicians.
First up: the logo for Delaware gubernatorial hopeful Matt Meyer.
Finished reading: Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah McBride 📚
I absolutely tore through this book. Partially out of personal interest in McBride’s story, as she is my state senator and has a really good change to be the first out transgender member of the US House of Representatives, but mostly because she’s an engaging storyteller with an incredible story to tell.
This is pretty clearly a political memoir, one written to give background as the candidate ascends in the public sphere. McBride is pretty transparent about her ambitions, but manages to be ambitious in a way that never feels transactional to me. She deftly is able to zoom out from a personal story to illustrate a policy point or value statement in a way that makes the connections obvious, and offers some insight into how she will govern that have since been demonstrated in her tenure in the state senate.
Her “why” is incredibly clear, and I am hopeful she will be able to bring an undiluted version of it back to Washington.
Here’s Representative Eric Morrison on his controversial vote on HS 1 for HB 121 (the Seaford LLC voting bill):
Governing is not easy, and things are not always as they appear on the surface. As happens time and again, we as Democrats had to do the responsible and right thing for Delawareans. We do not have the luxury, for example, of throwing temper tantrums like petulant children and walking out in the middle of session like every member of the Republican House Caucus did Wednesday evening, while Democrats stayed on the floor and performed the jobs we were elected to do. In this entire situation, we as Democrats took the high ground and did the right things for Delaware, and I am proud of it.
(More background here.)
My position remains that many of the surprising “yes” votes have previously earned our trust and should not be vilified on principle. Especially given that it was clear all parties knew the bill had not immediately future in the Senate.
As much as I would love to live in a world where all my favs could always vote on principle and tell the GOP to eat shit, we’re not there yet. We don’t have the numbers. If we can flip 2 more house seats, we theoretically have a supermajority that presents us from this kind of nonsense every late June.
Which is why I’m working with at least one candidate to flip a clearly dem-friendly district. And I’m willing to work with you, if you are running against a Republican in a flippable house district, I will do your logo & branding design pro bono.
Let’s stop complaining about governing process and Delaware Way bullshit. Let’s work together to make these goons officially irrelevant.
John Carney has not moved on
When Delaware Governor John Carney announced that he would allow House Bill 1 and House Bill 2 to become law without his signature, he declared that it was “time to move on” from the debate around recreational marijuana. However, by appointing former Delaware State Trooper Robert Coupe to oversee the rollout of the recreational marijuana industry, Carney has proven that he has done anything but “move on.”
House Bill 2, enacted this past April, establishes and regulates the recreational marijuana industry in Delaware. Portions of the bill were specifically crafted to redress the racist war on drugs that has ravaged countless communities in Delaware. The bill gives those who reside in areas disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs preferential access to the legal marijuana market. The bill also earmarks tax revenue for the Justice Reinvestment Fund, “where it will be used for projects to improve quality of life for communities most impacted by the prohibition of marijuana and ‘war on drugs’ era policies.”
So what does that have to do with Robert Coupe?
Coupe spent nearly 28 years in the Delaware State Police, and has filled a number of administrative roles in the criminal justice system since retiring from the force. Governor Carney believed this professional experience makes Coupe an ideal candidate: “There are few people across our state who are more well-respected, and more committed to serving the people of Delaware, than Rob Coupe,” the governor said in a press release. “He’s exactly the right person to take on this new challenge.”
Unfortunately, the same experience that excites Governor Carney should have disqualified Coupe from consideration for the role of the Marijuana Commissioner. This is not an indictment of Coupe as an individual, but an acknowledgement that Coupe comes from the same criminal justice system whose harms he is tasked with remediating.
If the bill’s intent is to undo some of the harms caused by decades of racist war on drugs-era overpolicing, why is Governor Carney appointing someone with such a criminal justice-heavy background to oversee the bill’s implementation?
The answer: Governor Carney has not, in fact, “moved on.” Carney’s own draconian views on cannabis are well documented. Despite these views, he opted not to veto the bills, realizing that both chambers of the Legislature had the votes to override his veto and politically embarrass him. But, by choosing a commissioner with a decades-long background in law enforcement, Carney gets to save face while giving a slap in the face to everyone who advocated for the bill’s passage, who has been unfairly impacted by the war on drugs, who believes in restorative justice, and who just wants to get high. Carney could have opted for a commissioner who knows the industry, or someone who has been impacted by the War on Drugs to ensure the commission would work to remediate its harms.
Instead, he chose to appoint a cop. That’s not “moving on.”
Before calling for a vote, Cooke spent ~10 mins doing what I can only describe as scolding everyone in the room who had the temerity to suggest the bill wasn’t good enough. Wish we could give specifics but his scolding blew out the mic; all we know for sure is that he was Big Mad.
The 80% off all ebooks sale at Verso Books ends this Wednesday. (Looks like most of their paper books are also 20-30% off, too.)
You know your boy copped:
- Revolutionary Mathematics – Justin Joque
- Hegemony Now – Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams
- Prisoners of the American Dream – Mike Davis
- If They Come in the Morning – Angela Y. Davis
- Radical Technologies – Adam Greenfield
- Keystroke Capitalism – Aaron Sahr
Janet F*cking Weiss
A testament to the sheer power and grace of Janet Weiss. Featuring Sleater-Kinney and Quasi, along with her time in the Jicks and select guest appearances.
Listen on Apple Music, Spotify or Last.fm.
State legislators have attempted to ban CRT in every state in the nation, except Delaware.
DNF: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz 📚
Huge fan of the author’s previous work, but I simply could not find an entry point. Too many characters, and the emotional stakes were too abstract. I made it about 100 pages in.
Just dropped the needle on this monster for the first time in a long time and let me tell you, it still absolutely owns.
Definitely not going to take this personally.
If you’re suddenly in the market for a less fashy RSS reader, I can wholeheartedly recommend NetNewsWire.
(I’m also experimenting with Readwise Reader, which I’ll have more to say about soon, but its RSS features are currently underwhelming.)
Finished reading: Everything Is Combustible by Richard Lloyd 📚
Downloaded this audiobook from the library after Tom Verlaine’s passing put me in a Television mood. It’s read by the author, which is usually great, but Lloyd reads as if the manuscript was written by someone else and placed before him shortly before the session began. His voice betrays no real attachment to any of the stories or people.
It seems very important to Lloyd that the reader know he did a lot of drugs and had a lot of sex. Less important, however, was sharing what his relationship with any of his bandmates in Television was like. We eventually learn that he and Verlaine fell out over money and creative control, but Billy Ficca and Fred Smith are treated like furniture in Lloyd’s narrative.
(Personally, I was also annoyed at how little insight was given into his time as a sideman for Matthew Sweet, but that’s neither here nor there. All we really learn is that Sweet loved video games and hated flying.)
Overall, there’s some compelling stuff here, but poor editing and Lloyd’s own tendency to dive into metaphysical non sequiturs (like his vivid memories of being born or teaching himself how to not breathe as a child) mean the reader has to put in a lot of work to find them.
Because of the way campaign finance works (or doesn’t work) in America, it’s often much easier to understand a candidate’s priorities by understanding their donors rather than listening to their stump speech.
This rundown is… illuminating.