Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth WarrenIs everything okay over there, MoJo?
Elizabeth Warren, guys.
Newtown, in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, was inundated with so much charity that it became a burden. More than eight hundred volunteers were recruited to deal with the gifts that were sent to the city—all of which kept arriving despite earnest pleas from Newtown officials that charity be directed elsewhere. A vast warehouse was crammed with plush toys the townspeople had no use for; millions of dollars rolled in to this relatively affluent community. We felt their pain; we wanted to help. Meanwhile—just to begin a very long list—almost twenty million American children go to bed hungry each night, and the federal food-stamp program is facing budget cuts of almost twenty per cent. Many of the same kindly strangers who paid for Baby Jessica’s medical needs support cuts to state Medicaid programs—cuts that will affect millions. Perhaps fifty million Americans will be stricken next year by food-borne illness, yet budget reductions mean that the F.D.A. will be conducting two thousand fewer safety inspections. Even more invisibly, next year the average American will release about twenty metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and many in Congress seek to loosen restrictions on greenhouse gases even further.
Such are the paradoxes of empathy. The power of this faculty has something to do with its ability to bring our moral concern into a laser pointer of focussed attention. If a planet of billions is to survive, however, we’ll need to take into consideration the welfare of people not yet harmed—and, even more, of people not yet born.
"Paul Bloom: The Case Against Empathy : The New Yorker
I think this piece is incorrectly titled but v important
Where Is Benghazi Poll - Greatest. Poll. Ever. - Esquire
I mean Egypt is not the worst guess, but CUBA?
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(via Facing Controversies, White House Dodges Questions - NYTimes.com)
F-ing fantastic photo choice NYT.
Just read a doozy of an article telling Angelina Jolie to check her privilege and now the author is calling commenters who (respectfully!) disagree with her sweetheart and honey and shooing them away. It’s bizarre.
Oh internet. Especially when Jolie wrote this in her article
“Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. The cost of testing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obstacle for many women.”
Listen, I just hope this gets my mom to finally think about being tested, so I can know what my next step is. But she’s fearful of what she’ll find, especially having been in remission for 10 years (knock on wood). I get it.
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npr:
Unlike many celebrity chefs, who treat cooking like some mystical and convoluted ritual, Ina Garten (The Barefoot Countessa) approaches each dish with the nonchalance of someone who could be doing something else. That’s because she could be. Between 1974 and 1978, Garten worked in the Office of Management and Budget at the White House; starting in 1976, she was responsible for the budget of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and for part of the Department of Energy’s. How Garten went from analyzing nuclear policy to overseeing her own cooking empire is one of the unlikelier stories of American reinvention.
Photo: Therealbs2002/Wikipedia
Ina Garten for life.
