Few petroleum engineering graduates

April Siese of Daily Kos reported that in 2017 the number of graduates with petroleum engineering degrees was more than 2,300. This year there are 400 graduates. Baby Boomer workers are retiring and there won’t be enough young workers to replace them. Working in Big Oil was a way to earn big bucks, especially when profits are high, as they are now. But Millennials and GenZ link job satisfaction to how a company or industry treats the environment. And a petroleum job is now seen as unappealing. Instead, these kids are studying renewables and sustainability. Big Oil can’t get enough workers? That’s another way to shut them down. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported recent polls show the approval rating of the Supreme Court continues to decline and now showing more disapproval. Also, in generic ballot matchups independent voters continue their shift to Democrats. Aysha Qamar of Kos reported a new Arizona law has made it illegal for people to make video recordings of police officers within eight feet of them. In addition to being Constitutionally suspect it also erodes police accountability and trust. Arizona House Democrats tweeted, “Republicans want cameras on teachers & kids but not police.” Ron Filipkowski, who is an attorney, historian, and former Republican, tweeted:

Based upon one complaint that the state’s new anti-CRT law was violated at a staff training seminar, OK Gov Kevin Stitt announces today he is launching an investigation of the Tulsa Public School system.

To which Ruth Ben-Ghiat added:

Authoritarianism requires the creation of legal frameworks that then allow political enemies to be harassed and silenced on a grand scale.

In a post from a couple weeks ago Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported on a continuing trend of conservatives saying parents who take children to such places as Drag Queen Story Hour are committing child abuse and should have their children taken away. The parents should perhaps even be put in jail. Add in all the rhetoric about LGBTQ people falsely accused of being pedophiles and groomers coupled with America’s gun fetish things could get deadly for LGBTQ people and their parents and others who love them. The next day Marissa Higgins of Kos reported Proud Boys, a hate group, gathered around the Pine Valley Library in North Carolina to yell at parents and kids entering for a Pride story time. Reports are unclear whether the Boys were just in the parking lot or had gotten as far as outside of the room where the event was held. Either way many kids were terrorized. And the far right is getting good at terrorizing kids. In a more uplifting story Lilly Quiroz of NPR’s Life Kit talked to Milena Gioconda Davis about sex education for queer kids. These kids may not be tied to existing gender narratives and can explore outside the norms and patterns. Sex can be anything that brings pleasure coupled with arousal. It doesn’t need to end in orgasm. Get to know your body and what pleasure feels like to you and what doesn’t. Understand your own sexual needs and wants. Take the messages from the world and see if they fit. If they don’t fit, get rid of them. Now when you add another person to the mix you already have a guidebook on what is and isn’t pleasurable you can share with that person. Since that guidebook can change and since consent is important share that guidebook frequently. Also listen to what is and isn’t pleasurable for the other person. Most sexually transmitted diseases are treatable so they are not a mark of shame and they do not mean your sex life is over. In a post that’s been in my browser tabs for nearly four months Ortiz discussed a new peer-reviewed study that looks at the cost of the harm done by debunked “conversion therapy.” The cost of just the therapy is about $650 million a year. The cost of the harms associated with the therapy – the substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts – is estimated to be another $8.58 billion. Research from the Trevor Project found that youth who were subjected to such therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide than those were not. And 40% of LGBTQ kids have considered suicide. Traumatizing kids who attend LGBTQ events, declaring parents who approve of LGBTQ people should have their kids taken away, and Don’t Say Gay bills only make more of these kids consider suicide.