Tag Archives: mother

Friday Cat Blogging – 12 September 2014

by SheenaC94n Posted on September 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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A few of you have written to ask if we plan to get another cat. The answer is probably yes, but not immediately. And what does “not immediately” mean? There’s no telling. A new cat could walk into our lives tomorrow, or it might take a little while longer. We’ll see.

In the meantime, my mother’s cats continue to be perky and photogenic, and ever since she learned how easy it is to take pictures with her iPad and email them directly to me, I’ve been getting more photos of her brood. Below you can see the latest. Mozart has pretty plainly settled in to alpha cat status, and Ditto just as plainly isn’t quite sure he’s happy about that. But it’s too late. Ditto has the bulk, but I think Mozart has whatever indefinable feline quality it is that makes him boss. It’s his house now.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 12 September 2014

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Quote of the Day: Salt Your Pasta Water, Capiche?

by AdolphClarkson Posted on September 12, 2014

Mother Jones

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From Starboard Value LP, a private investment firm critical of Olive Garden’s current management:

If you Google “How to cook pasta”, the first step of Pasta 101 is to salt the water. How does the largest Italian dining concept in the world not salt the water for pasta?

Quite so. On the other hand, Starboard refers to Olive Garden as an “Italian dining concept,” which is a strike against them. So I guess I don’t know who to root for in this monumental battle for control of low-quality quasi-Italian food.

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Quote of the Day: Salt Your Pasta Water, Capiche?

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Here’s Why Congressional Approval for War Is So Important

by DwightPILbeb Posted on September 11, 2014

Mother Jones

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In my previous post, I complained that I wasn’t sure what would prevent further escalation in Iraq “aside from Obama’s personal convictions.” A friend emails to ask just what I’d like to see. In the end, aren’t the president’s personal convictions all that prevent any military operation from escalating?

It’s a fair point, and I’m glad he brought it up. The answer, I think, lies in congressional approval for military action, and this is one of the reasons I think it’s so important. If Obama is truly serious about not sending combat troops into ISIS-held areas in Iraq, then let’s get a congressional resolution that puts that in writing. Let’s get an authorization for war that spells out a geographical area; puts a limit on US troop deployments; and specifically defines what those troops can do.

Would this be airtight? Of course not. Presidents can always find a way to stretch things, and Congress can always decide to authorize more troops. But nothing is airtight—nor should it be. It’s always possible that events on the ground really will justify stronger action someday. However, what it does do is simple: It forces the president to explicitly request an escalation and it forces Congress to explicitly authorize his request. At the very least, that prevents a slow, stealthy escalation that flies under the radar of public opinion.

Presidents don’t like having their actions constrained. No one does. But in most walks of life that deal with power and the use of force, we understand that constraint is important. Surely, then, there’s nowhere it’s more important than in matters of war and peace. And that’s once of the reasons that congressional authorization for war is so essential.

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Here’s Why Congressional Approval for War Is So Important

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Let’s Not Give ISIS Exactly What They Want

by RefugioDurbin Posted on September 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Yesterday I wrote a post noting that a supposedly war-weary public had suddenly become awfully war happy. “All it took,” I said, “was a carefully stagecrafted beheading video and the usual gang of conservative jingoists to exploit it.” Here’s a Twitter conversation that followed (lightly edited for clarity):

DS: Think of what you wrote: “All it took was…beheading”? I opposed W’s but this is what wars are made from & I think rightly so.

Me: Really? So any group anywhere in the world merely needs to commit an atrocity to draw us into war?

DS: On what other basis should wars be fought if not to stop groups from committing atrocities against Americans?

I’m not trying to pick on anyone in particular here, but it’s pretty discouraging that this kind of attitude is so common. There’s no question that the beheading of American citizens by a gang of vicious thugs is the kind of thing that makes your blood boil. Unless you hail from Vulcan, your gut reaction is that you want to find the barbarians who did this and crush them.

But that shouldn’t be your final reaction. This is not an era of conventional military forces with overwhelming power and no real fear of blowback. It’s an era of stateless terrorists whose ability to commit extremely public atrocities is pretty much unlimited. And while atrocities can have multiple motivations, one of the key reasons for otherwise pointless actions like one-off kidnappings and beheadings is their ability to either provoke overreactions or successfully extort ransoms. Unfortunately, Americans are stupidly addicted to the former and Europeans seem to be stupidly addicted to the latter, and that’s part of what keeps this stuff going.

In any case, a moment’s thought should convince you that we’re being manipulated. We’ve read account after account about ISIS and its remarkably sophisticated command and publicity apparatus. The beheading video is part of that. It’s a very calculated, very deliberate attempt to get us to respond stupidly. It’s not even a very subtle manipulation. It’s just an especially brutal one.

So if we’re smart, we won’t give them what they want. Instead we’ll respond coldly and meticulously. We’ll fight on our terms, not theirs. We’ll intervene if and only if the Iraqi government demonstrates that it can take the lead and hold the ground they take. We’ll forego magical thinking about counterinsurgencies. We won’t commit Western troops in force because we know from experience that this doesn’t work. We’ll avoid pitched battles and instead take advantage of our chances when they arise. Time is on our side.

Above all, we won’t allow a small band of medieval theocrats to manipulate us. We need to stop giving them exactly what they want. We need to stop doing stupid stuff.

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Let’s Not Give ISIS Exactly What They Want

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Images Rule Our World

by OXQRickplcblqyy Posted on September 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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One of the most famous anecdotes from the Reagan years comes from Lesley Stahl, then a reporter for the CBS Evening News. After airing a long, critical piece during the 1984 campaign, she got a cheerful call from Dick Darman at the White House. “We really loved it,” he said. “Five minutes of free media.” Dan Schill tells the rest of the story:

Stahl asked, “Why are you so happy? Didn’t you hear what I said?” Giving the punch line of the parable, Darman said to Stahl, “You guys in Televisionland haven’t figured it out, have you? When the pictures are powerful and emotional, they override if not completely drown out the sound. I mean it, Lesley. Nobody heard you.”

Stahl said she examined her piece again, this time with the sound off, and found that the Reagan official was right—her story had accepted the Reagan frame and was practically an unpaid political commercial—a brilliant montage of Reagan surrounded with flags, children, balloons, and cheering supporters.

Asked if this experience changed the way she produces her stories, Stahl said, “Not really. I’m still trapped, because my pieces are written to the pictures we have.”

I was reminded of this story once again yesterday when TMZ released elevator video of Ray Rice slugging his then fiancée and knocking her unconscious. It was a brutal attack and reaction was swift and uncompromising. Rice was released by the Baltimore Ravens, the NFL suspended him indefinitely, and his sponsors began abandoning him almost immediately.

And yet, that video told us nothing. We already knew what had happened. Based on previous video, we knew that Rice had punched Janay Palmer hard enough to knock her out. We just didn’t have it on tape.

And it’s not only the NFL that reacted differently after the new video was released. Even the folks who criticized the league’s anemic response back in February are now far more outraged. The video affected everyone’s reaction.

Why? Is it the visceral effect of images? Does it have something to do with an instinct to avoid drawing the most damning conclusions until an image makes it impossible to evade the truth any longer? Or is it all a charade, and lots of people are just pretending to be more outraged because they know it’s now expected of them?

I don’t know. But the internet is now the domain of LOLcats, BuzzFeed listicles, and charts of the day—the latter for those of us who like images but also like to believe we’re too smart to be manipulated by them. The fastest growing social media sites are Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and others like it. Blogs are often so stuffed with YouTube videos that you can refill your coffee cup while you wait for them to load. Millions of formerly peaceable people—people who already knew perfectly well that ISIS was a barbarous bunch of thugs—suddenly want to go to war because we now have pictures of that barbarism. Images rule everywhere. It’s not just Lesley Stahl who’s trapped in Lesley Stahl’s world anymore. We all are.

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Images Rule Our World

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Is It Time For Yet Another War?

by Chet66Bkpm Posted on September 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Dave Weigel sums up the recent American reaction to ISIS:

On August 18, the airstrikes helped Iraqi forces take back the Mosul dam from ISIS. The next day, ISIS released a video of captured journalist James Foley being beheaded by one of their men.

The video, surely meant to sow fear and breed over-reaction, succeeded magnificently. The panic showing up in polls, in which the number of Americans favoring airstrikes in Iraq and Syria has surged, has been matched by a return of panic-first politics….The long Democratic dream, from Kerry to Obama, of reducing terrorism from an existential threat to a managable nuisance, is just not an election-winner.

This is, sadly, not surprising at all. For years, the conventional wisdom has been that Americans are weary of war, and the conventional wisdom is largely correct. At the same time, it’s always been obvious that Americans remain easily susceptible to the same kind of bloody-shirt waving that got us into the Iraq war in the first place. The only thing that’s saved us is the fact that President Obama isn’t a bloody-shirt waver. Even when he’s initiated military action, his public persona has been quiet and reluctant.

But now we’re seeing just how easy it is to whip Americans into a war frenzy yet again. Even with Obama striking his usual no-drama pose, the public is becoming increasingly belligerent. All it took was a carefully stagecrafted beheading video and the usual gang of conservative jingoists to exploit it. For now, the lack of presidential blood lust is holding back the tide—barely—but that’s a thin reed. If Obama wanted to go to war, it would be the work of a moment to whip up a war frenzy in a solid majority of the country.

And just think about how tempting it must be. A full-blown military assault on a loathsome enemy like ISIS would almost certainly be a big campaign winner for Democrats this fall.

War weary? Sure, as long as the president keeps a low profile. But if he decides to change his mind, the American public will back him up. After all, Americans have historically gotten a little restless if they don’t have a new war every four or five years, and it’s been about that long since we pulled out of Iraq. Maybe we’re due.

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Is It Time For Yet Another War?

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Obama Announces Policy Change, Hill Dems Complain. Film At 11.

by CeciliaPud Posted on September 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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Here’s a Twitter conversation between me and Ezra Klein on Saturday:

Klein: What I’m hearing from Hill Dems is that they’re happy the immigration order is delayed, but angry at how poorly the issue has been handled

Drum: Of course they are. That’s the eternal complaint when they can’t think of anything substantive to gripe about.

Klein: I think that’s too pat a response: sometimes issues are poorly handled.

Drum: Sure. But lately, Ds complain about *every* issue being badly handled. (Or having “bad optics.”)

Klein provides more detail here, and Andrew Sullivan rounds up the liberal reaction here. But is there really any serious political malpractice going on? There is to this extent: the White House apparently didn’t read the tea leaves properly earlier this summer when it announced that Obama would take executive action on immigration after it became clear that Republicans in the House were unwilling to act. Following that, though, Obama’s only choice was either to stick to his guns or announce a delay. The former would have irked congressional Democrats, so he chose to announce a delay.

It’s hard for me to see anything poorly handled here. The truth is that anytime a president changes course, a bit of awkwardness is baked into the cake. It’s inevitable, and if you can’t accept that you shouldn’t urge a chance of course. What’s more, I don’t see anything in Obama’s actions that made this any better or worse than usual. It was pretty routine, and will be forgotten by all but political junkies within days. Democrats are probably doing themselves more damage with another round of their all-too-routine whinging than Obama did by announcing the delay in the first place.

That does leave one question, though: Did Obama consult sufficiently with congressional Dems before he initially announced that he planned to take executive action on immigration? Frankly, the political implications of that announcement were so obvious that it beggars the imagination to suppose that he didn’t. Everyone in the world immediately knew that (a) it would help drive Latino turnout and (b) it might pose problems for Democrats running close races in red states. Obama’s political team might not be Olympic caliber, but there’s no way they failed to talk to “Hill Dems” about immigration back in June, is there? I’d be very interested in reading a neutrally-reported deep dive about this.

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Obama Announces Policy Change, Hill Dems Complain. Film At 11.

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Photos: Inside Urban Shield, the Convention for Warrior Cops

by CeliaZeller Posted on September 5, 2014

Mother Jones

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Each year, the Alameda County Sheriff’s office hosts Urban Shield, a trade show and series of exercises for first responders, primarily police department SWAT teams from around the nation. (Similar events have also been held in Boston and Dallas.) The first two days are taken up by a trade show, where vendors show off gear from armored vehicles to dog-mounted cameras and anatomically correct medical dummies. Mother Jones’ Shane Bauer is attending this year’s event and has been tweeting some of the highlights.

Here’s all the gear that was being hawked:

Some choice quotes, photos, and video from the convention:

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Photos: Inside Urban Shield, the Convention for Warrior Cops

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Friday Cat Blogging – 5 September 2014

by Sonya9741pkhl Posted on September 5, 2014

Mother Jones

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I have sad news today. Domino’s thyroid finally got the better of her, and she’s been a pretty sick kitty for the past month or two. About six weeks ago she gave up on dry food, so we switched to wet food. That helped, but she gradually ate less and less of it. A couple of weeks ago she stopped eating entirely no matter what we tried. She’d lap up microscopic amounts of gravy or tuna juice a couple of times a day, but that was it. She just wouldn’t eat anymore.

By last week she was very thin, and her energy level was pretty low. She slept most of the time in her favorite hidey-hole, and came out only a few times a day for five or ten minutes at a time. By the start of this week she’d gotten a bit unsteady on her feet, and it was obvious the end was near. I talked to our vet earlier this week, and yesterday we took Domino in and had her put to sleep. I hated doing it, but I’m certain it was the right thing to do. She didn’t show it, but she must have been in a fair amount of pain, which was only going to get worse over time.

To the very end, she was sweet and sociable, which made it even harder. She lost her meow several weeks ago, but she never lost her purr or her love of tummy rubs. She was a good cat. She’ll be missed.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 5 September 2014

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Euro Area Economy Is Even Worse Than Ours

by ChristiWallner Posted on September 5, 2014

Mother Jones

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Would you like some more dreary economic news? No? Too bad. The latest GDP report for the euro area is in, and GDP was flat compared to Q1 and up only 0.7 percent compared to last year. This comes on top of news from a few days ago that euro-area inflation is down to 0.3 percent, which is dangerously close to deflation territory. The basic GDP chart is below.

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Euro Area Economy Is Even Worse Than Ours

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