Tag Archives: photo essays

Photos From Around The World Capture the Outpouring of Support After the Brussels Attack

Mother Jones

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Early Tuesday morning, a series of terrorist attacks ripped across Brussels, the Belgian capitol, leaving at least 31 dead. We’re following live updates to the story here. Similar to the December massacre in Paris, the attacks were quickly followed by a public outpouring grief, sympathy and solidarity, taking the form of makeshift memorials and specially lit landmarks.

Here is a selection of reactions from Europe and around the world:

People light candles at a memorial set up outside the stock exchange in Brussels. Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

The pencils in the cartoon below are a reference to the terrorist attacks on the offices of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, last January:

Pakistanis chant slogans during a rally to condemn the Brussels attack, in Multan, Pakistan. Asim Tanveer/AP

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Photos From Around The World Capture the Outpouring of Support After the Brussels Attack

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It’s Old People Who Have More Debt, Not the Young

Mother Jones

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Ylan Mui points today to a February note from the New York Fed called “The Graying of American Debt.” Here’s the basic picture:

The student debt story is about what you’d expect: young consumers have more of it, but their total debt load is lower than it was in 2003 because they have lower mortgage debt. Basically, they’re trading student debt for mortgage debt.

But older age groups make up for it with higher debt than they had in 2003. This is especially true at age 65, where total debt is up by about a third over the past decade. So what does it all mean?

The close relationship between credit score and age…reflects an average credit history that is considerably stronger among older borrowers….Further, older borrowers’ income streams are comparatively stable, and they have greater experience with credit. Survey of Consumer Finances data show that net worth levels for households with heads who are age 65 and older in 2013 are quite similar to their 2004-07 levels. This holds despite the evidence, seen in the second chart in this post, that consumers are holding substantially more per capita debt at age 65 and beyond. If history is any guide, then, we expect older borrowers to make more reliable payments. Indeed, our data show no clear trend toward higher delinquency at older ages as average balances at older ages have increased.

Hence the aging of the American borrower bodes well for the stability of outstanding consumer loans. At the same time, the likely combination of muted credit access and lower demand for credit that we observe among our younger borrowers may well have consequences for growth. The graying of American debt that we observe between 2003 and 2015, then, might be interpreted as a shift toward greater balance sheet stability, and away from credit-fueled consumption growth.

More stability, less growth. Just what old people want. But is it good for the country?

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It’s Old People Who Have More Debt, Not the Young

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 March 2016

Mother Jones

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Today is wildlife watching day. Our squirrel is sitting calmly on our fence snacking on something or other, and the cats are fascinated. They are extremely dedicated to the study of small, local ecologies—with an emphasis on fauna rather than flora.

In non-feline news, I was prepared to link to some baby rhino cuteness, but instead my sister recommends this video of a dog trying to get its human to play fetch. I hate to admit it, but dogs really are smarter than cats. Until they learn to purr, though, cats will always have the edge.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 18 March 2016

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Donald Trump Is Becoming Less Popular

Mother Jones

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Looking for something to cheer yourself up? I don’t have much for you, but I have something: Donald Trump seems to be getting slightly less popular lately. He’s still winning plenty of Republican primaries, but ever since the first week of January his net unfavorables have been drifting upward slowly but fairly steadily.

This won’t help Republicans much, since all their other candidates appear to be getting unpopular even faster than Trump. And although Hillary Clinton is doing a little better than Trump, she’s not going great guns in the favorability race either. In fact, as near as I can tell, everyone is becoming less popular except for Bernie Sanders, who appears to be the only person left in America with a positive favorable rating.

If there’s a difference here, I’d say that Hillary has been getting pilloried ever since Benghazi, while Trump has only barely been attacked at all. Once Democrats really start hammering him, he probably has further to fall. That’s the glass-half-full analysis, anyway. Take it for what it’s worth.

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Donald Trump Is Becoming Less Popular

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Friday Cat Blogging – 26 February 2016

Mother Jones

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Here is Hilbert resting magnificently on his red blanket on my desk. Upstairs, he has a gray-and-white polka dot blanket on Marian’s desk. I really need to clean this thing over the weekend. At this point, I think there might be more cat fur than actual blanket on my desk.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 26 February 2016

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South Carolina Polling Update

Mother Jones

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Not much is happening in the Democratic race in South Carolina. Bernie Sanders seems to have given up, and there’s been only one new poll in the last week. Still, just for the record, here are the final Pollster aggregates one day before the primary. Hillary Clinton continues to lead by more than 20 points.

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South Carolina Polling Update

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Yes! I Will Be Liveblogging Tonight’s Republican Debate

Mother Jones

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I have run out of excuses. I don’t have any house guests. I’m not going out to dinner tonight. Nobody is celebrating a birthday. My computer and I are fully available to liveblog tonight’s Republican debate.

So I shall. It “starts” at 8:30 pm Eastern on CNN, but it really starts at 9 pm. See you then.

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Yes! I Will Be Liveblogging Tonight’s Republican Debate

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The Kids These Days Are…In Surprisingly High Spirits

Mother Jones

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Republican pollster and language guru Frank Luntz has a new poll out. The bottom line is that young people are pretty damn liberal, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone. But considering the relentless parade of stories about how terrible life is for the kids these days, these three questions might very well surprise some people:

Optimistic about their “personal future”: 88 percent
Expect to be better off financially than their parents: 75 percent
Believe America’s best days are ahead of it: 61 percent

That doesn’t sound like a generation in the throes of existential angst and financial Armageddon. The last few decades—and the most recent one in particular—have been pretty lousy for a lot of people. But millennials haven’t done any worse than anyone else, and in some respects they’ve actually done a little better. Sometimes I wonder if we oldsters are projecting more of our own mopiness on them than they actually feel.

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The Kids These Days Are…In Surprisingly High Spirits

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Facebook Is Still Intolerant Toward the Emotionally Stunted

Mother Jones

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When I took German in high school, our go-to reaction for anything our teacher asked us was “Sehr interessant”—mainly because none of us knew enough German to say much of anything else. In this, we were much like Facebook, which allows you to respond to posts only by liking them. Today, though, Facebook’s command of emotional language got a big upgrade. Check out all the new responses:

That’s all fine, but what happened to “interesting”? Shouldn’t there be at least one icon that acts as a recommendation for a post without requiring you to commit to it one way or the other? Some of us are uncomfortable wearing our hearts on our sleeves, after all. I demand equal time for the emotionally stunted.

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Facebook Is Still Intolerant Toward the Emotionally Stunted

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Always Bring a Nuke to a Knife Fight

Mother Jones

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Yesterday Donald Trump finally went ballistic over Ted Cruz’s attacks against him. After listing half a dozen alleged lies, he made this threat:

One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President. If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately.

The great thing about this is that Trump doesn’t even bother pretending that he wants to sue Cruz because he truly believes Cruz isn’t a natural-born citizen. He just flat-out admits that he plans to do it purely as revenge for Cruz being mean to him. The Golden Rule here is simple: “They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.”

This appears to be a considerable source of Trump’s appeal. His supporters don’t care much about actual political positions; they care about having a mean SOB in office. They probably like Trump more because he’s going after Cruz out of anger rather than as a matter of principle.

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Always Bring a Nuke to a Knife Fight

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