Speaking as someone who previously worked for an ESOP company for ~7 years and has seen the benefits reaped by the employees, I can say that this intrusion of private equity really makes my blood boil. Eff’n capitalists. We can’t have anything nice, can we?
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It’s interesting to note how humans are considered to be like animals in some cases…
…while being considered to be removed from them (unique) in others:
In the 1970s, there was an experiment to test the build-up of these chemicals in the human body—and even then, back in the 70s when PFAS were less common—they could find no blood that could be used as the control group. In the end, they had to use archived blood from the beginning of the Korean War, in the 1950s. A 2015 study by the CDC found that 97% of Americans had PFAS in their blood.
Based on the timeline above, as well as how manufacturing plants release wastewater, the findings in the article posted below were not surprising:
The impact of humans on the environment has a long history, and hopefully we’ll get better at maintaining it rather than destroying it:
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A good encapsulation of how one of the (maybe the) most pervasive American myth got started.
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Wow, 12 years ago. I was just wondering the other day what’s become of him.
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Doing stand up, mostly, I believe… though I did find this:
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Is it just me that sees Singer’s philosophy as being a giant, convoluted reductio ad absurdum? I mean, it’s a mathematical paper which goes on for hundreds of tightly argued pages, each step rigidly following from the last, and then confidently finishing with “… ∴ 1 = 2 QED.” No, that’s not a proof by contradiction, he’s serious.
The only thing you can really say at the end of all that is that there’s a division by zero in there somewhere.
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Although this is a comedy sketch, I’m putting this here because the evolution of tech and smartphones is interesting. I’m in Minhaj’s camp - resistant to daily use of smartphone & apps. Marketers requests for mobile numbers and/or social media credentials for transactions seem to be turning into demands. Are companies more focused on data collection now than products? 
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Here’s what I do:
Use a free Google Voice number that is not connected to a cell phone number (I don’t think you can get away with that anymore, unfortunately); any company that refuses that number (Venmo, for example) doesn’t get my business.
If their tracking is sophisticated enough to know instantaneously that they won’t get cell data from the number, then they’ve just told me what they value, and I ain’t giving it to them!
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I can’t speak for other places in the south where the reverse migration is happening, but many of the POC moving to Atlanta are people of some means… the gentrification happening here is far less white than in other places, although there is certainly a racial angle at play here (just look at the ongoing struggle over Buckhead city hood, which is clearly racially driven, I’d argue).
There is also Charles Blow’s argument that this is what needs to happen to end white supremacy as a governing factor, as national governing power often resides down here…
But again, this strikes me as a choice that people of means are able to make (DuBois’ talented tenth), vs. what people need to do to survive (moving for cheaper housing, entrenched racism that blue states just aren’t addressing, etc). You can really see that dynamic in the second half of the video, where he talks about living in ATL, where the primary problem is more class based than race based (in the sense that much of the city government is Black, same with the police, etc, yet you still have problems like police brutality, etc).
But Blow might be right, that building a “new south” that is actually inclusive will depend on Black Americans, and progressives of all races looking to go to places that have been “written off” as “flyover” country, or what have you.
Of course, the real problem here is that we’re once again, expecting Black Americans to do all the hard work for creating a better society for all us. Ending white supremacy does benefit POC, but it benefits all of us, too. We all should be trying to dismantle that (along with male, heteronormative, etc, etc, supremacy), because it benefits us all when we have a more free, more egalitarian society.
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Most of what I’ve seen are middle-class retirees moving because cost of living is cheaper. My father falls into that category. He mentioned to me that a lot of younger people from the south have been working in northern states then coming back home to retire and care for their parents/older relatives. He’d never lived in the south before, and had a hard time adjusting. I wonder if those who “boomerang” struggle in the same way, since visiting isn’t the same as living there and places tend to change a lot over 20-30 years.
The talented tenth are able to afford to have a foot in both places and be snowbirds. It’s not clear if most spend enough time in the “new south” to qualify for voting there, though. Just as with nomads (digital or not), some choose a home base that makes it easier to have some consistency in healthcare and social networks. Gotta do more research on the numbers there.
Unfortunately when your survival is at risk, working to counter any threats becomes the highest priority. We’ll keep pushing back and enlisting the support of allies. It’s painful to watch attacks spreading to other marginalized groups, because oppressors never seem to be satisfied - they always need a new target. Fortunately, we have better tools to fight oppression in this century and it is easier now to call out those who are used to operating in secrecy. 
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conservative religious groups who see themselves as victims.
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