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News your connection to The Boston Globe
The Most Authentic Restaurants
Indian, Greek, Mexican, Thai, Italian, and more
(Globe Staff Photo / Wendy Maeda)
With the city awash in ethnic eateries, we set out to discover who really cooks it up right - whose shepherd's pie tastes straight from an Irish farmhouse kitchen, whose shredded pork in garlic sauce captures the genuine flavors of Shanghai, whose salmon tagine mimics true Moroccan cooking, whose tomato sauce is spot-on Sardinian, whose brown bread and baked beans would make longtime New Englanders proud. Hit these 29 restaurants, and take a virtual trip around the world.
Italian, Northern and Southern
Purists argue there is no true northern or southern Italian cuisine, only regional cuisine. Still, some generalizations can be made: Fare from the north favors rich cream sauces; the south tends to tomato-based toppings. Mamma Maria in the North End eschews red sauce, so we're calling it our northern Italian pick. It excels in offering traditional dishes. The elegantly decorated dining rooms, including one with space for just one table, cover two floors of a brick row house. Standouts include a perfect plate of salumi (cured meats) topped with delicious bread salad, a traditionally Tuscan dish of rabbit and hand-cut pappardelle, and osso buco with Milanese-style saffron risotto. The chocolate torte with mint gelato is a transcendent finish. Don't shy away from the schlocky name; Mamma Maria is as close as you'll get to northern Italian cooking the way it's meant to be done.
A wonderful example of southern Italian cooking (really, southwestern, specifically Sardinian) can be found at Maurizio's, a North End restaurant with dining on two floors. You'll find ingredients native to Sardinia, like the pecorino Sardo, a sheep's milk cheese. Tilapia is served the Sardinian way, baked with Parmesan cheese on top. A pasta dish features a delicious combination of ground beef, lamb, and veal in a red-wine-and-tomato sauce with malloreddus - a small gnocchilike shell-shaped pasta made here with a saffron flavoring; the wonderful osso buco is served with lentils (saffron and lentils both are compliments of Sardinia's Arab invaders). The dolci list is short and honey-sweet, as it would be back on the sensible little island that inspired it.
Mamma Maria, 3 North Square, Boston, 617-523-0077,; Maurizio's, 364 Hanover Street, Boston, 617-367-1123
Indian, Northern and Southern
Indian cooking differs radically from region to region: Northern India is famous for its tandoori dishes, tomatoey curries, and flat-breads like nan and paratha; southern Indian food is mostly vegetarian, with creamy, often coconut-based sauces and condiments, and is usually served with some form of rice. Almost all of the Indian restaurants in the Boston area offer northern Indian food, with a few regional dishes thrown in. A great choice is Cafe of India in Harvard Square, where the tandoori chicken is succulent and done to a turn - no easy feat. Its saucy, mostly northern Indian curries are also quite good: the chicken tikka masala is tangy and complex, and the lamb dishes, like the rogan josh, are meltingly tender and flavorful.
In Billerica, Masalaa Boston offers vegetarian dishes from the entire subcontinent but has plenty of south Indian options. Everything we've tried at this unassuming eatery has been fabulous, and the banana leaf-lined plates are a charming touch. The south Indian fare includes silky vegetable chetti-nadu curry, masala dosas (crispy crepes made of rice and lentil flour, stuffed with chunks of spicy potatoes), and fried idly (steamed rice patties sauteed with onions and spices). Other clear winners are the palak paneer (verdant, smoky with cumin, and studded with chunks of farmers' cheese) and malai kofta curry (tender vegetable dumplings bathed in a rich cream-and-cashew sauce).
Cafe of India, 52A Brattle Street, Cambridge, 617-661-0683,; Masalaa Boston, 786 Boston Road/Route 3A, Billerica, 978-667-3443
New England
To qualify as offering the area's most authentic New England cuisine, a restaurant must use typical regional ingredients - cranberries, squash, maple syrup, corn - prepared in ways instantly recognizable as ours. The Fireplace, with owner and Brooklyn native Jim Solomon tending the hearth, is such a place. True, it's not a bastion of history like those other restaurants whose names are part of the city's culinary lore, but its menu is rife with New England classics. Here you can find squash bisque with leeks, grilled-chicken-and-corn chowder, roast turkey with mushroom bread pudding, maple-glazed pork ribs, and apple-cranberry crisp. Add a wood-burning fireplace in the dining room, with fire-roasted meats to boot, and that's good enough for us.
The Fireplace, 1634 Beacon Street, Brookline, 617-975-1900,
Tu y Yo outside Somerville's Davis Square is where transplants from Mexico come to get their fix. This colorful family-style restaurant, called a fonda in Mexico, is where you'll find such delicacies as cuitlacoche, the addictively earthy corn fungus sometimes described as a Mexican truffle. It's where you'll find a deep, rich, complex mole verde, proving that in true Mexican cooking, mole doesn't necessarily include chocolate. This is not where you'll find a burrito, a strictly-for-the-gringos invention. The entrees fall under the heading "Mom's Cuisine," and next to each dish is the name of the recipe author and year. The presence of cuitlacoche depends on the owners' sources in Mexico, so it's not always available, but when it is, a must-try is the pollo Yunkaax (the Aztec god of maize), chicken stuffed with the corn fungus and covered in spinach sauce.
Tu y Yo, 858 Broadway, Somerville, 617-623-5411,
As soon as you enter Tangierino, you feel transported. Gauzy curtains divide the restaurant into sections, with seating available on couches and chairs, lighting provided by candles and decidedly dim (which makes menu reading a challenge), and Moroccan music playing in the background (and sometimes the foreground). Complimentary homemade Moroccan bread - chewy and soft-crusted, seasoned with fennel seeds - whets your appetite, along with light, lemony hummus and an olive puree. Authentic appetizers include harira, a chickpea-and-lentil soup tangy with lemon, tomatoes, parsley, and cilantro; it's served with a carved wooden spoon "like my grandmother had," claims a Moroccan native who once dined with us. A characteristic of Moroccan food is a combination of sweet with savory, as in the b'stila, flaky phyllo pastry filled with ground chicken and almonds, spiced with cinnamon, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. There is a wide choice of tagines, named for the domed clay pots in which they're cooked. A salmon tagine is redolent of cilantro, preserved lemon, and olives. For dessert, the authentic option is limited to a pastry tray of three: a fig turnover, a biscot-tilike cookie called fekkas, and a rose-water-scented baklava (the best of the bunch).
Tangierino, 83 Main Street, Charlestown, 617-242-6009,
Agni Charalambous Thurner, our Greek Cypriot friend, was skeptical the first time we took her to Ithaki Mediterranean Cuisine. Many Greek restaurants adapt their specialties for an American audience. But this Ipswich eatery, housed in a low white building and decorated with sunny Mediterranean colors and grand floral arrangements, doesn't veer when it comes to the classics. The dolmadakia, rolled grape leaves stuffed with savory ground beef and rice, are served with an intense avgo-lemono, the traditional egg-lemon sauce. "This is thickened just with eggs," says Thurner, "and it isn't heavy." The cinnamon-scented moussaka, layered eggplant slices and ground lamb (miraculously not oily), with a rich bechamel topping, is crusty in its terra-cotta dish. A dessert called galaktoboureko, an eggy custard in phyllo pastry that is all air and richness, is hard to find well-made anywhere. Alas, about a third of the menu is centered on other Mediterranean cultures. Authenticity reigns at Ithaki if you decide to eat like Homer.
Ithaki Mediterranean Cuisine, 25 Hammatt Street, Ipswich, 978-356-0099,
Boston has a particularly egregious dearth of authentic Spanish restaurants, though that may soon change, as the new BarLola recently started serving tapas in the Back Bay and Ken Oringer's take on the cuisine, Toro, is set to open this fall in the South End. For now, Taberna de Haro in Brookline is as close as it gets. The airy little yellow-walled place radiates a Spanish spirit of conviviality and an infectiously energetic approach to food and wine that puts to shame what passes for tapas at other faux-Mediterranean restaurants. At Taberna de Haro, the menu draws a distinction between raciones, meant to serve three or four diners a bite or two each, and pinchos, traditionally a finger-sized portion for one but here a little bigger. The glory is in the flavors, from the fiery sauce draping the patatas bravas (potatoes), to the smoky-sweet chorizo braised in hard cider, to the tender pulpo a la gallega (octopus) with potatoes, olive oil, and pimenton. While the best-known Spanish restaurants in the area have barely changed their menus in years, Taberna de Haro introduces new items and specials regularly. That's perhaps the truest Spanish quality of all.
Taberna de Haro, 999 Beacon Street, Brookline, 617-277-8272
Sit at one of the well-worn tables (perhaps the one with an Emerald Isle expletive carved in it) at Matt Murphy's Pub in Brookline Village and just wait for one of the brisk waitresses to call you "luv." Have a midday meal of hearty oxtail soup or a plowman's lunch of spiced beef with pickles and brown soda bread. At dinner- time, consider one of these favorites: The shepherd's pie boasts tender lamb and a crisp potato crust, and the rabbit potpie is served with a crunchy rabbit leg and fruit chutney. It's food you would find in Irish farmhouse kitchens.
Matt Murphy's Pub, 14 Harvard Street, Brookline, 617-232-0188,
When we think of authentic food, we think of dishes made the same way for generations. But cuisine changes with the times. The monthly specials at Oga's Japanese Cuisine in Natick, one of the few sushi spots around that is actually Japanese-owned, showcase the ways that food is evolving in modern Japan. Sushi master Toru Oga creates miniature tableaus on the plate - one month it may be a checkerboard design of maguro (deep red tuna), yam, and seaweed dolloped with mullet roe. Kobe beef may show up as delicate and delectable carpaccio topped with pine nuts or as a hefty steak topped with amazingly fragrant Japanese mushrooms. Mushrooms might also pop up on skewers with scallops, shrimp, and zucchini, to be cooked by the diner on a hot stone. If only traditional sushi will do, Oga and his chefs do a stellar job of that, too, spinning out fantasies of sparkling fresh sashimi and elaborate maki rolls. Though the rest of the seating is comfortable, the best treat comes if you successfully angle for a spot along the bar to watch the chefs work. You could almost be in Toyko.
Oga's Japanese Cuisine, 915 Worcester Road, Natick, 508-653-4338,
If you're looking for something on the lighter side, keep right on walking past this Dorchester institution. But if it's stick-to-the-ribs braised or fried foods you crave, Chef Lee's II Soul Food is where it's at. The food is served with a generous hand and a warm smile, from smothered chicken livers to fried pork chops, from pig's feet to oxtails. The sides are what you'd expect for classic Southern fare - collards, black-eyed peas, beans and rice, candied yams, and more. Expect a long line at lunch, when the regulars patiently wait their turn at this cafeteria-style joint. (But while you're waiting, check out the impressive photo gallery of African-American luminaries like Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and Martin Luther King Jr.) Then grab a seat at one of the tables by the window, or get your grub to go. Either way, be prepared to have little room left for dessert but plenty of cash left in your wallet. It's good eats - and cheap.
Chef Lee's II Soul Food, 554 Columbia Road, Dorchester, 617-282-2243
Wonderfully authentic food can be found at Fasika Ethiopian Restaurant. Don't let the seen-better-days exterior deter you from entering. Inside, you can choose from two seating areas: The front of the restaurant offers standard tables and chairs, while the back features low-backed chairs and mesobs, woven wicker tables less than 2 feet in diameter. On the mesob, your server will place a platter of injera, a huge spongy pancake, atop of which sits the entrees your table has ordered. You'll also receive a side of more injera. Tear off a bit and use it to scoop up your dinner. Fasika makes its injera the authentic way with teff, a tiny grain in the millet family that is high in protein and has a slightly sourdough flavor. The pancake is a perfect foil to the spicy meat, bean, or vegetable stews, such as misir wet, red lentils seasoned with a chili mixture called berbere. An appetizer salad, timatim fitfit, is an Ethiopian version of a bread salad - torn bits of injera are tossed with tomato and lemon juice. If you're up for it, end your meal the traditional way: with coffee and kitfo, a spiced beef tartare.
Fasika Ethiopian Restaurant, 23 South Huntington Avenue, Jamaica Plain, 617-731-3833
Thailand-born Dan Tanabat - co-owner with three other Thais of Patou Thai in Belmont - spent years at a Texas country club (where he learned the customer was never wrong) while training in hospitality at a local college there, finished his schooling at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, and then opened this elegant restaurant. At first glance of the menu, you see all the curries you might find at any of a number of Thai places and, of course, pad Thai. But look closer. There is nothing ordinary here, and it's all wonderfully authentic. (The furthest Patou ventures from his country's classic cuisine is a pan-seared halibut in red curry sauce, made with typical ingredients but presented in a more stylish fashion than Tanabat sees at home.) Our favorites include a vinegary salad with shrimp topped with slender strands of crunchy green papaya that are addictively good. Garden rolls have such thin skins that you can see through them to the big flat leaves of Thai basil rolled up with rice vermicelli, chicken, and crunchy vegetables. The cooks in the kitchen make a wonderful creation for themselves - tiny pieces of halibut skin dropped into the deep-fat fryer until they curl and crunch - that Tanabat sends out to regular diners. This is a dish that fishermen's families ate, because after they sold the fish, the skin was all that remained. You can't get closer to authentic than that.
Patou Thai, 69 Leonard Street, Belmont, 617-489-6999
Kosher, Ashkenazic and Sephardic
In the world of kosher cuisine, two traditions have evolved: Ashkenazic, that is, European-style cooking, and Sephardic, the cuisine of Jews from primarily Middle Eastern and North African countries. For classic Ashkenazic food, head to Rubin's Kosher Restaurant Delicatessen in Brookline. The ambience is nothing special - with Formica tables and vinyl booths - but the menu is overwhelming. All the traditional items are offered, from chopped liver to chicken soup with kreplach (a dumpling filled with ground beef) to slow-cooked brisket. Best are the New York deli-style sandwiches (on rye or pumpernickel, of course) stuffed with lean corned beef, hot pastrami, tongue, or smoked turkey breast. And the nondairy "cheese" cake is surprisingly good.
Rami's, just a few blocks down the street from Rubin's, serves up terrific Sephardic Israeli kosher cuisine. The menu is small, but what the restaurant does it does very well: hummus, falafel, baba ganoush, and Israeli salad made with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and pickled cabbage. The house specialty is shawarma, meat - in this case, marinated turkey - layered onto a spit and slow cooked with spices; it's sliced to order and finished on the grill. There's also kebab, oblongs of ground beef seasoned with garlic and parsley. Enjoy with a can of mango juice for a true kosher Israeli experience. You order at the counter, and there are a handful of tables.
Rubin's Kosher Restaurant Delicatessen, 500 Harvard Street, Brookline, 617-731- 8787,; Rami's, 324 Harvard Street, Brookline, 617-738-3577
No local place re-creates a little slice of France better than Craigie Street Bistrot, in a residential area just outside of Harvard Square. Perhaps it's the warm, restful, efficient atmosphere. It could be the friendly staff, which really know its French cuisine. It certainly is the fine wines and the food - from the ethereal green garlic nage in a coquillage of mussels, crab, and Maine shrimp to the velvety braised pig tails over Puy lentils to the succulent veal sweet-breads with black truffle shavings. Chef-owner Tony Maws exhibits exacting French cooking techniques and dedication to his fresh ingredients. The menu changes daily and reflects the best of the market. Maws's perfectionism recalls the legendary and exacting 17th-century French chef Vatel - and you almost shudder to think what might happen should the fish delivery not arrive.
Craigie Street Bistrot, 5 Craigie Circle, Cambridge, 617-497-5511,
The Monzer family from Beirut opened Reef Cafe almost two years ago, offering the cooking of Lebanon prepared by mother Mariam. The small restaurant boasts a large television turned to an Arabic station. The food, says son Salam, "is very homemade." Mariam makes the laban, a thick yogurtlike cream, from scratch, along with the traditional white garlic sauce, a potent mixture whipped from lots of garlic and oil. Her chicken-and-potato stew, barely seasoned so you reach for the garlicky sauce, is served with rice, slender spears of pink turnip pickles, and chopped salad. One of the most unusual items on the menu is a grassy bowl of soup made with lentils simmered in water with potatoes, onions, and celery and flecked with chopped hearty greens. You can imagine centuries of women stirring this simple, flavorful pot.
In a strip mall across from Randolph High School, Tony and Tammy Do run the year-old Pho So 1 Boston. He makes the soups (the famous Vietnamese pho) while she serves the customers or makes dishes like the crisp salads topped with shrimp or poultry and grilled meats served on glassy vermicelli or steamed rice. The sour ground-pork spring rolls have a gutsy and piquant filling of vinegary salad with a sausagey pork nugget. Like the rolls, other dishes have touches not often found at Vietnamese eateries. Chicken noodle pho is aromatic with gingerbread spices and deep brown from beef stock. Besides the traditional bun, a mound of rice noodles topped with shredded lettuce, bean sprouts, and grilled meats, Pho So 1 Boston offers "rice on a plate," a dozen variations of grilled succulent meats - such as honey-coated chicken thighs - on rice with crisp vegetables. Tony Do's parents, Huong and Thu, own a restaurant by the same name in Dorchester; when the family moved to Randolph and saw the large Asian community there, they decided to open another one. The only variation from the cooking of their homeland are a few Chinese dishes, which Tammy says they make for some customers who don't want to try real Vietnamese food.
Pho So 1 Boston, 51 Memorial Parkway, Randolph, 781-961-6500
Bacalhau, or salt cod, is the definitive food of Portugal, so much of a staple that it's sometimes referred to as "o fiel amigo," the faithful friend. At O'Cantinho in Cambridge, bacalhau is on the menu, to be sure. It appears baked with caramelized onions, fried as little cakes, and stuffed into sandwiches. But it's just the beginning of the definitively Portuguese dishes served here. Fava beans are stewed to tenderness and laced with slices of the garlicky sausage linguica. Soft white cheese is drizzled with a tangy red vinaigrette and set beside slices of spicy ham. And almost all of the entrees showcase the country's abundant seafood, like stews of shellfish or pork loin with clams. But what really makes it feel as if you're in Portugal is the warm atmosphere. The saffron-colored room is cozily small and decorated with blue-and-white pottery, the owner's children hang out here during the day, and the waitress won't let you take your leftover arroz de mariscos (seafood-studded saffron rice) home unless you promise to refrigerate it promptly. One of O'Cantinho's sister restaurants, Atasca on Broad- way, recently closed; to fill the void, O'Cantinho has added a wider-ranging dinner menu and a short but sweet selection of beer and Portuguese wines. What a faithful friend.
O'Cantinho, 1128 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, 617-354-3443
You know you're in Turkish heaven when the cooks prepare eggplant in dozens of ways, each more inventive and delicious than the next. At Family Restaurant Brookline, the purple-skinned fruits can be ordered, for example, pureed and creamy (for spreading on the homemade bread), cooked with tomatoes to make a cold salad, or stuffed with ground meat for a striking entree - all dishes with roots firmly in the Ottoman Empire. This modest Brookline Village eatery for many years was a dinerlike restaurant where hearty breakfasts and ordinary American fare reigned (hence the name). When Turkish owners took over, they kept the name and the breakfast and lunch menus, but added their kebabs and other specialties. So you don't know where you've landed until you taste the eggplant and Turkish dishes. The famous adana kebab, delectable ground lamb pressed onto skewers, comes with a pool of yogurt sauce mixed with croutons. Warm cheese pitas are housemade, spread with feta cheese and shaped into ovals so they look like golden boats with creamy tops. A peasant dish of green beans, simmered with tomatoes and lamb until the beans have practically melted, could only be served at a place without any pretense. The kind waitresses struggle with English, but they're patient and happy to explain their cuisine. Many dishes are garnished with a single hot pepper and whole tomato, both lightly charred. Turkish food is a delightful mixture of aromatics, rich meats, crisp salads, long-cooked vegetables, mild heat, and intense flavors. Sip a cold Turkish beer and huddle over the aromas as they're sent from the kitchen, and you could mistake this place for Istanbul.
Family Restaurant Brookline, 305 Washington Street, Brookline, 617-277-4466
In a Korean restaurant, one authenticity test is the panchan, or little side dishes that come with the meal. New Jang Su, in a nondescript strip mall in Burlington, passes this test, and others, beautifully. On a recent visit, the waitress set out six panchan, including fish cakes, pickled radishes, and two fiery kimchis (one cucumber, one cabbage). And then the barbecue bonanza began. She unrolled a thin strip of meat connected to a short rib, snipped it off, and placed it on the table's built-in grill, where it sizzled next to shaved beef. One noteworthy dish is the chap jae, with glassy noodles just sticky enough and brimming with bright vegetables. The restaurant is divided in two, one side with the built-in barbecue grills at the tables, and one without. The barbecue side is always packed, and with precious few exceptions, always with Koreans.
New Jang Su, 260 Cambridge Street, Burlington, 781-272-3787
Chinese, Shanghai and Sichuan
Restaurant lore may dictate that only grungy holes in the wall offer "real" ethnic food. So it must follow that CK Shanghai - with crisp white tablecloths, a decent wine list, and a handsomely appointed room, and in Wellesley to boot - could never qualify. Wrong. C.K. Sau, who owned New Shanghai in Chinatown for more than a decade, moved to the suburbs, and with him came the most delicate and delicious dishes possible from his native region in China. Cold appetizers like crisp, sweet, tangy cucumbers or vegetarian goose - tofu crisped to resemble the skin of the bird and then stuffed with a filling of crunchy bamboo shoots and mushrooms - tease the palate. Sea scallops in a startlingly addictive black pepper sauce, lobster in a winy sauce with tomatoes, shredded pork in a sweet-hot garlic sauce, a whole fish studded with pine nuts in a brightly flavored sweet-and-sour sauce - the dishes go on and on like a gourmet's hit parade.
Interested in Chinese fare from the Sichuan Province? Head to Medford. Zheng Hu, the proprietor of Chilli Garden, insists on importing her peppercorns from Sichuan, where she grew up. Not only that, they must be last year's crop. The chili powder is imported, too, and ground by hand. Spices such as star anise, cloves, cassia bark, and dried sand ginger are all shipped from China, and all are part of what makes her restaurant the most authentic Sichuan experience to be had in these parts. Bacon is smoked in the kitchen of the little restaurant, in a slice of shops off of Medford Center. The payoff is in eating Chilli Garden's food. Cold noodles look pale and modest until the fiery red chili sauce is twirled into them; then they take on a yin-yang quality, hot-bright against the tongue, cushioned by the gentle texture of the noodles. Whole fish in spicy sauce tingles at the back of the mouth as the fish melts on your palate. Wild boletus mushrooms with bits of green pepper are earthy, a taste of autumn. And for those who seek the exotic - at least to Western tastes - there are many dishes like pork tripe with garlic and cucumber, beef tongue with napa cabbage and chili powder, and duck feet with spicy soy sauce. Although the menu includes many Mandarin dishes, Hu and her staff try to steer the diner toward the Sichuan specialties. After all, what good is Chilli Garden's obsession with authenticity unless others can taste the results?
CK Shanghai, 15-17 Washington Street, Wellesley, 781-237-7500; Chilli Garden, 41 Riverside Avenue, Medford, 781-396-8488
Churrascarias, the buffet-style restaurants where skewers of meat are brought to you tableside, are all the rage in local Brazilian dining, but for an equally authentic (and cheaper) experience, check out Padaria Brasil Bakery. This no-frills store, with locations in Allston, Milford, and Framingham, lets you sample traditional fare that you won't find in most Brazilian restaurants. For a filling breakfast, a hearty slab of dense yucca-coconut bread hits the spot, but skip the coffee and wash it down with tangy caldo de cana (sugar-cane juice). Flaky chicken potpies and cheese rolls are tasty afternoon snacks, and you can take home a loaf of fresh bread for your dinner table. The selection can be overwhelming, but luckily the staff is happy to make recommendations.
Padaria Brasil Bakery, 125 Harvard Avenue, Allston, 617-202-6783; 173 Main Street, Milford, 508-422-9840; 165 Concord Street, Framingham, 508-872-8698; 63 Hollis Street, Framingham, 508-872-2677
In a Class by Themselves
A few gems stand alone - literally. Either they are the only game in town, or what little competition they have doesn't come close. Competition may make you stronger, but these four don't need to be pushed. They are superb all by themselves.
The Helmand has a unique edge on the few other restaurants serving Afghan fare: The owner is the older brother of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai. But long before Karzai became president, the cozy spot in East Cambridge was renowned for its succulent kebabs, fragrant rices, and bread made in a wood-burning stove. Try the aushak, ravioli filled with leeks, on a sauce of yogurt, mint and garlic, and topped with ground beef.
The Helmand, 143 First Street, Cambridge, 617-492-4646
Born in Cambodia, Longteine de Monteiro, along with her family, brought her country's wide variety of culinary flavors to the area in 1991, and The Elephant Walk has been a local favorite ever since, spawning two more locations. Perennial favorites include s'gnao mouan, a wonderfully tangy chicken soup with lemongrass, lime juice, and Asian basil, and the deeply flavorful Alaskan black cod in a soy-garlic marinade, drizzled with ginger- coconut sauce.
The Elephant Walk, 900 Beacon Street, Boston, 617-247-1500; 2067 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, 617-492-6900; 663 Main Street, Waltham, 781-899-2244;
Chez Henri is making some of the best French- Cuban food around, using ingredients such as plantains, yucca, chayote, and mango. The food, while an inspired take on island cuisine, can't really be called authentic, but the Cuban sandwich on the bar menu is the tastiest this side of Miami. It's filled with rum-and-molasses marinated pork, ham, Gruyere cheese, and pickles and served with plantain chips.
Chez Henri, 1 Shepard Street, Cambridge, 617-354-8980,
At La Casa De Pedro, chef-owner Pedro Alarcon serves the food of his native Venezuela in a cheerful dining room decorated with paintings of tropical birds and flowers. He gives his late mother, Leda Rios, a lot of credit for his food, from the sopa de Mama (Mom's chicken soup) to Leda's pargo, a succulent, lightly fried whole red snapper tossed with onions and balsamic vinegar. For a real Latin experience, sit in the secluded back courtyard and sip sangria.
La Casa De Pedro, 51 Main Street, Watertown, 617-923-8025,
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SUZETTE LABOY | August 17, 2013 12:03 AM ET
ISLAMORADA, Fla. -- Sharks abound in the waters off Florida. But not on this day at this particular spot off the Keys as some `young scientists' are on watch for them.
About a dozen high school students – guests of the University of Miami's marine research program – went aboard the vessel Curt-A-Sea. Their mission: to help scientists capture sharks, measure them, take blood and conduct other tests before tagging them so they can be tracked. The sharks would then be released back into the ocean.
Shark Series Part 2
SidneyAnne Stone | July 31, 2013 10:21 AM ET
If you are not familiar with shark finning, it is a brutal process in which the shark's fin is removed for the purpose of making shark fin soup. The shark is then thrown back into the water where he/she is unable to swim and drowns to death. For a graphic clip of an actual occurrence of shark finning, click here. It is my hope that after viewing this clip you will want to join the fight to protect sharks.
Many in the ocean conservation community know what a problem shark finning is and what a threat it poses to the environment. Further, any major disruption to our ecosystem stands to threaten our entire existence. Much like the butterfly effect, when you kill a shark, you just don't know what kind of impact that can have on our environment. By eliminating an apex predator, you set off a chain of dominoes and there is no telling where they may stop. The amount of gross overfishing that has occurred in recent years may have already caused enough damage to cause certain species to become extinct in our lifetime. Organizations like Oceana allow you to log on and make your opinions known about the practice of shark finning.
Just last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill banning the trade of shark fins in the state of New York. While shark finning was already illegal in waters off New York, this also makes it illegal to trade shark fins in the state -- further enforcing New York's intolerance for the practice. Governor Cuomo stated, "Not only is the process inhumane, but it also affects the natural balance of the oceanic ecosystem." As my readers know, I am always a proud New Yorker but particularly at moments like these. Unfortunately, New York is in the minority on this issue so speak up and write to your local representatives, senators, Congress and governor and advocate for the environment that we all share!
Matt Rutherford's Mission to Make Ocean Research Affordable
Lesleyann Coker | May 21, 2013 2:27 PM ET
In 2012, Matt Rutherford became the first person to solo circumnavigate North and South America. He completed the non-stop 27,000 mile journey in 10 months in a tiny, old sailboat.
During the course of his epic journey, the then 31-year-old capsized in the Arctic battling waves, avoided being smashed by a tanker and navigated a maze of icebergs large and small. In South America, he experienced Cape Horn's famous beauty and cruel winds. He also faced the literal doldrums - areas near the equator without any wind. And all while spending more than 300 days in complete solitude.
Politicians monitored his progress, and a documentary for the Sundance Film Festival is in the works.
Now the ambitious sailor has launched a non-profit company, Ocean Research Project, which aims to identify new, lower-cost methods of conducting ocean research.
At the beginning of May, he set sail on his latest adventure in the Atlantic. Before his departure from St. Katharine docks in London, he spoke to Lesleyann Coker.
In 2012, you became the first person to solo circumnavigate the Americas and the Northwest Passage. What motivated you to attempt such a journey?
It all started as a fundraiser for a local Annapolis-based non-profit called C.R.A.B [Chesapeake Regional Assessable Boating]. At this point I've raised over $120,000 for the non-profit by doing the trip. I'm also a great admirer of [Ernest] Shackleton, and his story inspired me to try something that most people thought was impossible.
How did you get started in sailing?
I bought a little 25-foot boat from the '60s back in 2004 and sailed it from the Chesapeake Bay to the Florida Keys. I knew nothing about sailing when I left. I made every mistake possible, but over time I taught myself the skills necessary to cross oceans, and eventually, sail around the Americas.
What's your connection to Senator Tom Harkin and Governor Martin O'Malley?
Martin's wife, Katie, saw me off the dock the day before I left and I've been invited to their house several times since my return. Tom spoke about me on the floor of the Senate after I passed Cape Horn. He has shown an avid interest in my story. Tom Harkin is an old school Democrat who understands how important it is to reach across the aisle. He will be missed [after he retires next year], especially on environmental issues.
2013-05-20-IMG_1766.JPGThe Sailing Channel has produced a documentary about you, Red Dot in the Ocean. What's its status?
It looks like we may get into Sundance if it's done in time. Nothing is guaranteed. They approached me to make a documentary, and after a month of "contract negotiations'" we started the film. Here's the trailer.
You recently founded a new 501c non-profit called Ocean Research, which aims to dramatically lower the cost of conducting ocean research. What are the typical costs of ocean research, and what will be your costs? How will you approach the problem differently?
The typical running costs for scientific research in the open ocean is between $6,000 and $15,000 a day, depending on the organization. With Ocean Research Project, for our first expedition we have a daily running cost of $73 a day.
We're living in a changing economic environment; you can no longer think big boats, big crew, big budget. Instead, a non-profit should think small boat, small crew, small budget. By doing this, you not only reduce the cost of the expedition, but also the overhead.
All too often when $100 is donated to a non-profit, $90 goes to salary, renting office space, paying the electric bill, etc. With Ocean Research Project, the majority of the funds raised go to the mission.
What will be the implication of reducing the cost of ocean research? More research? Why is ocean research important?
Once you have reduced the cost of the expeditions, you can travel farther for longer and collect more data. There's still a prehistoric way of thinking within much of the general scientific community. Too many scientists think the organization that spends the most money or has the biggest research vessel somehow collects the best data.
The reality of the matter is that by working with universities and bringing along one or two scientists who bring their own equipment and are trained to use them properly, you can collect a wide variety of important data about our changing oceans. It's true, we cannot have submarines and helicopters, but most research is done by equipment that can be installed or carried onboard a 40-50 foot sailboat.
Ocean research is important because we are all affected by the ocean no matter where you live. The ocean not only produces food for 25 percent of the world's population, but also produces between 50-75 percent of the world's oxygen through Phytoplankton, which lives in the ocean. The problem is the ocean is not part of any country, and it's out of sight out of mind.
There has not been enough research done within the open ocean because in the past scientists have tried to collect important data with big boats and big budgets. I sailed 27,000 miles, over the top of Canada and around Cape Horn on a 27-foot boat without stopping. I can tell you from experience you do not need a 150-foot, two million dollar boat to cross an ocean or do good research.
You're about to embark on a research mission [he embarked the first week of May]. Where are you going, what are you researching, and what do you expect to learn?
MR: During our first expedition we will be at sea for 75 days collecting data, while sailing 6,500 miles of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic Ocean is home to the Atlantic Garbage Patch and coincides with one of the five major oceanic gyres. The Sargasso Sea Gyre is a huge spiral of seawater formed by colliding currents. Most offshore sailors have seen floating junk on the high seas, but it's a problem that has not been thoroughly explored in the mid-Atlantic. It's the poster child for one of the worldwide ocean problems: plastic that's initially created with human hands, then ends up in the ocean, often found inside animals' stomachs.
We have several objectives for this expedition:
We'll conduct a Sargasso Sea marine debris reconnaissance survey using standardized data collection methods. This study will add to the global understanding of quantity of marine debris in the gyre and will stimulate awareness of the consequences of manmade debris. This project is run in collaboration with our Partner 5 Gyres.
We'll conduct ocean acidification data collection to supplement existing efforts to portray the acidity condition within a gyre in an open ocean marine debris laden environment. This data may reveal a significant concentration of high acidic marine water that may jeopardize the livelihood of critical marine life.
The vessel will act as a mobile observing platform reporting atmospheric and oceanic observations to NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. It serves as a voluntary observing ship to feed international atmospheric and oceanic modeling databases that depict global weather forecasts, climate studies, and support mariners' safety at sea. Work will be in cooperation with our partners which include NOAA's Voluntary Observing Ship, the Ship of Opportunity Program and the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory.
What are the dangers involved in this research project?
There is always danger in the vast open ocean. That said, reward lives in the house of risk.
I can teach a person the skills necessary to cross an ocean alone, but I can't teach the mentality a person needs to sail alone across an ocean. Either you've got it or you don't. If you don't learn to control fear, fear will control you.
Exploration is the physical expression of intellectual passion.
How can people follow the progress of your journey, or support your non-profit?
You can follow the expedition at There will be a tracking device on the boat so you can see our position, and a weekly blog so you can hear the story as it's happening. You can also donate on the website.
Photo Credit; Matt Rutherford
Want to Save Starving Sea Lion Pups? Here's How
Megan Pincus Kajitani | March 18, 2013 11:26 AM ET
Tears streamed down my 7-year-old daughter's face this cloudy, March morning, as we watched the plight of a lone female California sea lion pup, clearly exhausted, struggling to keep her head above water and get herself to our local beach's jetty.
The Sea Lions' Struggle
In our city of Carlsbad, Calif., just up the coast from downtown San Diego, at least 40 malnourished, young California sea lions have been rescued since January. According to a local news story, about 150 malnourished or injured sea lions are typically rescued in our region each year -- but this year, from Jan. 1 to not even mid-March, there have already been 130 rescued.
This morning when we called the local sea animal rescue center about the stranded pup, their voicemail said they are extremely busy. A spokesperson from there told the local news that there's "something going on out in the ocean" in relation to our sea lions' food supply. Clearly.
The Bigger Picture
But here's the thing: This isn't just a local issue, and it isn't just about this specific group of sea lions' food supply.
Something is going on with all marine mammals' food supply. Something major is happening with all of our ocean ecosystems. These malnourished pups are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Dr. Bruce Monger, an oceanographer at Cornell University, told my class in eCornell's Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate Program that we as a society have "maxed out the ocean."
Many marine scientists believe that, at the rate we're going, the seas will be barren by 2048. (Did you get that? No sea life in 35 years!)
Like the roaming plains buffalo shot by humans to extinction, Dr. Monger says, we can extract every single animal out of the ocean. And with commercial fisheries not just taking all the fish but also seabirds, sharks, dolphins, turtles and every other kind of sea animal (most thrown out by the trawlers, dead, as "bycatch"), we are doing just that.
The sea lions of the Pacific Rim and Alaska are now endangered because, Dr. Monger explains, fishing "took away all their food, and they are starving to death." I contacted Dr. Monger this week and asked him about the California sea lions: Are they next?
He told me scientists are studying two main factors likely causing the crisis with this species: overfishing and climate issues. But, clearly, he said, "the sea lion pups are probably starving because their mothers are starving." Clearly.
You Can Help Save Them
So, here's the other thing: You can actually do something to stop this ocean crisis, whether you live here on the coast, in the middle of farmland or on a mountaintop. We all can.
I get that it's hard, I'm a former sushi lover myself, but we must stop eating fish. There simply are not enough fish left to keep them on our plates, and still leave enough to keep our ocean animals alive. Period.
I've heard all the justifications, and my replies go something like this:
• You can still do your sushi ritual, just do it with veggies instead of fish (as my half-Japanese, sushi-loving husband and I now happily do).
• Farmed fisheries are no better, with incredibly high rates of disease, which is unhealthy, inhumane and harms wild fish as well.
• Eating land animal meat is also harming the oceans, by the way. An amazing fifty percent of the world's fish catch is fed to industrial farm animals, not to people (as Dr. Will Tuttle explains in The World Peace Diet). And nitrogen runoff from those factory farms is creating huge "dead zones" where no sea life can survive.
The good news is that pleasurable, healthy, social eating is possible with plant-based food. It just takes making the choice -- to help animals rather than eat them.
Actually, Dr. Monger believes it's both personal choice and political will that will save or destroy our oceans: Beyond urging us to avoid eating fish and other meat, he urges us to speak out against the government subsidies that fuel overfishing.
"The fish in the ocean are as much yours as the fishing industries', and if you would rather see your fish left in the ocean, you have the right to speak up and ask your leaders to help," he says. "If you remain silent about it, someone is going to step in and take [your ocean life] away from you for their own profit."
The Next Generations
This morning, my sniffling 7-year-old asked me why the malnourished sea lion we watched could not find food.
As fishing boats trawled closer to shore than I've ever seen them, I wanted to tell her that the sea lion and her brothers and sisters will find food. That they have plenty of food to find. That the ocean is ripe with life.
But, the truth is, I can't tell her that, because as each day passes, it is becoming less true.
I told my daughter instead that we can make a difference for that sea lion by calling the rescue center to help her. And on a bigger scale, we can make a difference for all sea lions, by not eating their food and by educating others about their dwindling food supply.
Through her tears, my daughter asked me if I could educate more people today.
So, I'm writing this piece today for my daughter, for the sea lions and all the animals, and for the future. Before it's too late -- at the very least -- please do your part to save our ocean animals by letting the fish be food for them, and not for you.
Janie Campbell | December 15, 2012 7:55 AM ET
Some people say -- and they make a good case -- that to understand Miami you have to understand the forces and influences of the drug trade, money, and Cuban immigration.
Or you can look at the corals, according to Colin Foord and Jared McKay, the UM-trained marine biologist and experimental musician who form the scientific artist duo Coral Morphologic.
The pair tie their work, which involves not only growing but filming and soundtracking corals in their glowing Overtown aquaculture lab, to Miami's distinction as the only mainland U.S. city on a coral reef, with corals even growing inside the city limits.
You might even blame the tropical polyps for those vibrant "I'm In Miami, Bitch" tank tops.
"There aren't any other life forms on the planet that are as natural fluorescent as living corals; this is something that wasn't even really observable by mankind until 50 years ago," Foord told HuffPost. "The colors of Miami -- these bright neon colors -- have always been the essence of the city before the city was even here. The cement in the buildings is made from the ground-up skeletons of fossilized coral. The colorful essence is literally built into the city."
Colonies of corals, Foord says, also reflect who we are as a 21st century metro. It's a concept he and McKay have highlighted by projecting them onto South Beach buildings during Art Basel, onto AmericanAirlines Arena, and during festivals in Britain, Sundance, and Miami's own Borscht Film Festival. Saturday night at Borscht 8, they'll debut a new work called "Fungia."
Their "scientific and artistic exploration of living coral reef organisms... radiated the most beautiful and unexpected work I saw," wrote curator Patterson Sims, the man behind four Whitney Biennial exhibitions, after an arts tour of Miami in April.
(Story continues below.)
By using their carefully tended, DIY aquariums to both create and fund their art -- a side business selling cloned corals to aquarium owners helps keep the lab lights on and the artists and animals in constant symbiosis -- the pair not only highlight the Magic City's incredibly rich and unique makeup, but draw multiple parallels between reefs and humanity.
"We really see corals as futuristic organisms," Foord explains. "They're very modern. We live in a time when the world that you're born into is totally different than you die in; it necessitates that you're constantly adapting to technology. It's a changing world and the actual biosphere is also now changing more than ever. Being that they're cemented in place, [adapting] is just what corals have been doing for millions and millions of years."
But our corals point not only to Miami's past and present, but future.
"If given the chance -- if sea levels are to rise -- the corals will happily move back into the city and start growing on our infrastructure," Foord said. "We already know they're growing inside the city limits on our trash. This is the flip side of projecting onto buildings. Miami has always been an ephemeral place: it's underwater, it's out of the water, it's underwater, it's out of the water.
"Anyone who thinks the sea level rising washing South Beach back into the ocean is a terrible environmental catastrophe is misinformed about the very nature of South Beach as a real estate scheme to begin with. It's another side of the story of climate change and human interactions with the planet that every time there's a catastrophe there's an opportunity for life to take advantage of new real estate to colonize."
How is it possible two middle school best friends from New Hampshire know Miami better than most Miamians do? Foord moved to the Magic City to study marine biology at UM, then McKay came down to start Coral Morphologic in 2007. Relative newness didn't stop them both from becoming instrumental in pushing Miami culture forward. They've helped nurture Wynwood's arts scene, started a record label, and discovered four new species of zoanthids, confirmed by DNA testing and published in the Journal of Marine Biology.
Next year, they'll install a Knight Foundation-funded aquascape video project at Miami International Airport and plan to start on a full-length Imax-style film.
"Coming in as outsiders, we maybe have a more objective perception of what's really happening here, what has happened, and what is likely to continue to happen in the future," Foord said. "At the same time, our whole perception of Miami has been shaped by our friends, artists and musicians who have grown up here that have really tuned us into a lot of things that someone from outside Miami would have a very hard time engaging with as far as a 'real' Miami.
"Without the arts scene and without all these artists and amazing people that Miami is blessed with, I don't think we'd have ended up on this track. We're definitely a product of our environment here."
What Happens Underwater During a Hurricane?
Janie Campbell | November 2, 2012 11:38 AM ET
By Brian McNoldy, University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science
We think we’re pretty familiar with hurricanes – strong winds, storm surge, flooding rains, ominous satellite images from space, and radar loops when they get near land. But what goes on at and below the ocean’s surface when a hurricane passes overhead? Quite a lot, actually!
Effects on the ocean properties
The upper levels of the ocean are typically strongly stratified by temperature and by salinity. That is, colder, saltier water lies below the warmer, fresher water near the surface. When a hurricane comes by, it mixes everything up, resulting in a muddled and more homogeneous upper ocean. That means the surface water is cooler and saltier than it was previously was, and deeper water is warmer and less salty than it previously was. However, in very shallow coastal areas, the copious amount of fresh cold rain water from the hurricane can actually reduce the temperature and salinity of the near-surface water.
Time series of the vertical profile of temperature and salinity from the ocean’s surface down to 200m, and spanning one day prior to the hurricane’s passage through 2.5 days after the passage. The dramatic mixing down to approximately 150m is evident. Time in days relative to the passage is listed along the horizontal axis. This particular case is from Hurricane Frances (2004) on 1 September. (Sanford et al., 2007)
The colder surface water upwelled by the hurricane can actually be a fairly significant player in controlling the hurricane’s intensity. A strong slow-moving hurricane will upwell cold water much more effectively than a weaker and/or fast-moving hurricane. And since hurricanes require warm ocean water to fuel their “engine”, that upwelling can end up weakening the storm. The trail of upwelled cooler water left behind a storm is called a “cold wake”, and shows up clearly on maps of sea surface temperature.
Map of sea surface temperature before (left) and after (right) Hurricane Isabel in 2003. Isabel’s track from the eastern Atlantic all the way into the mid-Atlantic coast is evident by the cold wake left behind. (NASA/GSFC)
Intense hurricanes can generate 60′+ waves, and at the ocean surface, the boundary between the water and the air becomes nebulous. Amidst the formidable waves, sea spray and foam streak horizontally across the surface at high speed, blurring the view of the ocean’s surface in this photo from an aircraft flying through a hurricane.
Photo of the sea state under Category 4 Hurricane Isabel taken from 400 feet above the surface. Note that the aircraft was not in or near the eyewall at this time or altitude. (Will Drennan, RSMAS)
But below the ocean’s surface, the currents and turbulence beneath those waves can also be quite destructive. Unlike places above the surface, the ocean doesn’t “forget” about the storm very quickly… strong currents and turbulence have been known to exist up to a week after the storm passes overhead. Damaging currents can extend down to at least 300 feet below the surface, capable of dismantling coral reefs, relocating ship wrecks, breaking oil pipelines, and displacing huge volumes of sand on the seabed.
Simplified schematic showing the parts of an ocean wave. At the surface, there are crests and troughs. Crests are separated by a wavelength. The depth to which a wave’s effects can be felt depends on the wavelength and wave height.
Effects on marine life
Some studies conducted in the Caribbean Sea have shown that in the year following a hurricane, coral cover is reduced by 15-20 percent (more or less, depending on the intensity of the hurricane) in the affected areas. There are several factors that go into the negative effect on coral: 1) the turbulent water breaks it, 2) the days of muddied water reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the algae in coral tissue, 3) the fine suspended particles clog the pores, and 4) the tremendous amount of rain reduces the salinity of the shallow ocean in the immediate area which can stress coral.
Large self-propelled marine animals such as sharks seem to be minimally affected, since they can detect tiny changes in pressure as larger waves at the surface approach, as well as the reduced surface pressure associated with the storm itself, and go deeper or leave the area. However, hurricanes have been known to result in tremendous numbers of dead fish, crabs, sea turtles, oysters, etc due to reduced amounts of dissolved oxygen in the water, rapid salinity changes, and violent surf.
Just like us up here on the surface, marine life suffers for months to several years from the death and destruction following a hurricane.
Brian McNoldy
Senior Research Associate
University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science
Author of Tropical Atlantic Update
Follow Brian on Twitter: @BMcNoldy
(Flickr photo via Surf Cabo)
What Does A Coral Reef Sound Like?
Janie Campbell | October 26, 2012 12:17 PM ET
What does a coral reef sound like? Perhaps surprisingly, it isn't a cacophony of indie-band boings and wriggles.
In fact, thanks to University of Miami PhD candidate Erica Staaterman, you can hear a Florida coral reef in the video above, which documents her research into the behavior of pelagic fish larvae.
Billions of such "baby fish" are born every year, but must find their way to a coral reef to survive -- a needle in a haystack journey, as Staaterman describes it. For her research at UM's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, she set out to determine whether larval fish use the soundscape of the reef as a navigational tool.
The project, which in video form is a finalist in the National Science Foundation's "Creating the Future" contest, involves playing the reef back to fish larvae in a special underwater chamber and then documenting their behavior.
(To us it sounds like frying bacon, but maybe we're just typing hungry.)
"Coral reefs comprise less than 1 percent of the ocean, but they are one of the most important areas on the planet both ecologically and economically," Staaterman says in her video. "Due to human impacts like overfishing and climate change, they're also one of the most threatened marine habitats. We need to discover how fish larvae find their way home, because the replenishment of reef fish populations depends upon the success of this next generation."
Click above to hear the abiotic and biological symphony of a Florida coral reef, and vote here for Staaterman's video.
RISE: Climate Change and Coastal Communities
Stephanie J. Stiavetti | July 24, 2012 10:38 AM ET
This month yet another new study about climate change* was released. But this one is different. Unlike many previous studies in which scientists are hesitant to draw causal connections between global warming and specific weather events, this study comes out and says it: "Global warming makes heat waves more likely." The study also found that global warming is making other weather extremes more likely, such as droughts and heavy rains.
Higher global temperatures heat up the oceans, as well. When the water in the seas heats up, it expands -- this is called thermal expansion. Thermal expansion is one of the biggest causes of sea level rise. Throw in melting glaciers adding more volume to the rising waters and more frequent heavy rains, and we've got a big problem for the more than 600 million people around the world who live in coastal areas that are less than 30 feet above sea level. And it's not just those people whose homes are right beside the water. Many others are at risk as floodwaters inundate sewage treatment plants, airports, freeways, and farmland.
RISE: Climate Change and Coastal Communities explores this international issue through the lens of a single place: the San Francisco Bay Area. Six multimedia web stories take a look at the personal lives of men and women living along the water who are facing a rising tide.
Save the Polar Bears, Save Ourselves
Sylvia Earle | April 20, 2012 3:06 PM ET
Spill Cleanup? Just a Cost of Doing Business?
Jackie Savitz | January 31, 2012 9:41 PM ET
Here's a new item to add to the long list of expenses that are putting our country into deficit spending: cleaning up oil spills. While we keep hearing that companies like BP are on the hook for the costs of cleanup, in truth, much of the cleanup will be paid for by the U.S. Treasury itself. As it turns out, BP and other oil companies can write off the costs of cleanup, forcing about a third of the billion dollar cleanup tab to come out of the Treasury. So, besides the normal billions of dollars that we already forego each year by giving tax breaks to some of the richest companies in the world, now we have billions more that those who spill oil into our oceans can get from our bank account even after committing one of the most heinous environmental crimes imaginable.
Thankfully, Congress is taking notice, but will it have the political will to end this ridiculous giveaway? So far, Big Oil and its allies have been all too effective at preventing any legislation whatsoever from passing in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon Spill. Today, Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) introduced the "Oil Spill Tax Fairness Act" to end the practice of allowing oil companies to take tax breaks after they've caused an oil spill. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the bill could save the Treasury more than a billion dollars a year by placing cleanup costs squarely on the laps of those that made the mess.
Remember, these are companies making record profits. Today, Exxon announced that it earned $41 billion in 2011, up 35% from 2010. Yet there seems to be no end in sight for the broader slate of tax gimmicks that result in billions of dollars lost to the Treasury each year. At the very least, these bad actors should pay to clean up their own messes. I have nothing against writing off business expenses, but a major oil spill is not, and never has been considered a normal "cost of doing business." Nor should it be. Killing workers, devastating marine life, including dolphins, corals and endangered sea turtles, shutting down fisheries, making people sick, and destroying the cultural fabric of coastal communities should never be considered just a cost of doing business. And companies like BP that take tremendous risks with our resources certainly should not be rewarded for doing so.
Congress and the Administration should be doing much more in response to the Gulf Spill, like imposing real safety requirements, lifting the horrendously low liability cap, ending tax handouts to oil companies, and ultimately moving us away from offshore drilling. But at the very least passing the "Oil Spill Tax Fairness Act" would be a good first step.
Wallace J Nichols | October 4, 2011 10:23 AM ET
The ocean is the single biggest feature of our planet.
Phytoplankton in the ocean provide more than half of our oxygen and provides the basis of the primary protein for more than a billion people.
Humans have derived unmeasurable inspiration, joy, recreation and relaxation from the ocean for millennia.
But we have treated the ocean poorly, and its decline in recent decades has been catastrophic for our planet and its people.
We have put too much into the ocean, in the form of oil, sewage, fertilizers and pesticides, antibiotics, plastic pollution, noise and increasing levels of CO2.
We have taken too much out of the ocean by subsidizing and encouraging inefficient and destructive overfishing, bottom trawling, long-lining, purse seining, dynamite fishing, irresponsible aquaculture and illegal hunting.
We need an Ocean Revolution.
It is our coast and our ocean.
The time is now to Occupy The Ocean.
[Repost this anywhere you like, adding to it as you will.]
| September 19, 2011 5:42 PM ET
By David Biello
(Click here for original article.)
Jellyfishes rely on drifting to eat. They take their luck with currents, and create tiny eddies to guide food toward their tendrils. Yet in waters from the Sea of Japan (aka East Sea) to the Black Sea, jellies today are thriving as many of their marine vertebrate and invertebrate competitors are eliminated by overfishing, dead zones and other human impacts. How have these drifters of the sea reversed millions of years of fish dominance, seemingly overnight?
Biologist José Luis Acuña of the University of Oviedo in Spain and his colleagues now suggest that jellyfishes are just as effective at mealtime as fishes when judged by the right measures. "Jellyfishes are ancient organisms, which use a primitive predation mechanism based on generating feeding currents to bring the prey into contact with their bodies," Acuña explains. "In spite of this primitivism, jellies are as effective as fishes in catching prey and in transforming the energy acquired [into] body growth and reproduction."
So where fishes use their eyes to spot planktonic prey, jellyfishes rely on body size—like the lion's mane jellyfish's 37-meter-long tentacles—to maximize their success. To achieve that size gain, predatory jellyfishes have relied on water incorporated into their tissues—the refrigerator-size Nomura's jellyfish from the Sea of Japan comprises mostly water. A larger body requires more energy to move, so jellies let the surrounding water do the work for them, which makes them some of the slowest swimmers in the sea. And measured by the amount of carbon in their bodies—rather than total weight—jellies consume and incorporate as much prey as fishes do, Acuña's team found. The results are detailed in the September 16 issue of Science.
"It is very neat work," says ecologist Kylie Pitt of Griffith University in Australia, who is working on similar research. When combined with overfishing, climate change, fertilizer runoff–induced dead zones and other human impacts on ocean fishes, a watery evolutionary stage has been set for a jellyfish takeover—dubbed the "gelatinous ocean" by some scientists.
There are exceptions to this rule: The cannonball jellyfish—a seafood delicacy in Asia—shoots through the water at 15 centimeters per second, a decent clip. And the return to ocean conditions last seen in the Ediacaran period more than 540 million years ago—when jellies last ruled the seas—has been a boon for certain fishes in habitats like the Benguela Current in the South Atlantic off Namibia in Africa, where jellyfish-eating gobies have replaced sardines in the food chain. The growing abundance of these jelly-feeding gobies now serves to provide sustenance to the predators that formerly feasted on the sardines, such as seabirds, larger fishes and, ultimately, humans. "We need research to be sure of what new ecological scenarios are arising," Acuña says.
"It is time to take [jellyfishes] seriously," Acuña adds, both as a marine predator and a future seafood source.
BP's Bad Timing
Jackie Savitz | September 8, 2011 4:51 PM ET
If you were BP, wouldn't you wait for the right time to go back to the U.S. government to ask for more permits to drill? What would seem like a good time to do that? Surely, it wouldn't be when oil is gushing uncontrollably from a BP site on the cold, dark ocean floor, or a day when oiled birds were washing up on beaches. Certainly fisheries closures wouldn't still be keeping Gulf fishermen from working, and people wouldn't still be rebuilding their lives, after losing jobs, and even loved ones following the explosion.
I picture BP coming back for more drilling rights on a bright, sunny day, with clear blue skies, birds chirping and butterflies fluttering around. Flowers would be blooming, and green marsh grasses would be swaying with the fresh breeze. The kind of day when it seems as if there is not a care in the world.
Sadly, that's not how the Gulf looked yesterday, or today. BP's announcement that it wants more drilling permits came on a day when the Gulf still looks more like a traumatized post-disaster site than the pretty picture of recovery we so hope for. Everywhere we look we see reminders that the oil is not gone and people and wildlife are still suffering.
Just two weeks ago there was a large oil sheen spotted in the Gulf, not the first since the Deepwater Horizon of course, but one which was tracked back to an area near two abandoned wells. There are about 27,000 such wells in the Gulf with the potential to leak at any time, and oftentimes do so unnoticed since they are neither monitored nor adequately inspected.
Then, just last week, a new oil sheen was found near the site of the Deepwater Horizon. BP's initial response was less than helpful, but independent chemical analysis showed that the oil looks an awful lot like theirs. The sheen can't really be explained by a passing boat, or a leaking rig. A natural seep is a very low odds possibility, not to mention a convenient theory for BP. But many believe this oil may be coming from the well, either from the abandoned riser, or from a leak springing from a fracture caused by the blowout. BP has no good explanation. They say they don't see the sheen. But it's bad timing to be asking for more drilling.
Maybe they couldn't see the sheen because far from being a clear, sunny day, the ocean is stirred up thanks to Hurricane Lee. Lee isn't the first hurricane to hit the area since the spill, and it won't be the last. It's a reminder that more permits for drilling in the Gulf may not be such a good idea. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita famously led to numerous spills in Hurricane Alley. When there's a hurricane threatening the existing Gulf rigs, it may be a bad time to ask for more permits.
And finally, anyone who did think it might be a nice beach day may have been disappointed to be greeted by a fresh new batch of tar balls on the shoreline. BP oil? Authorities are not yet sure. But one thing is for sure: it wasn't the first set of tar balls to wash up, and it won't be the last. Especially not if BP and other oil companies continue to insist that their right to drill trumps everything else in the Gulf. Oh, and one other thing: It's probably not a good day to ask for more drilling rights.
| June 23, 2011 6:13 PM ET
In case you needed any reminder of the awe-inspiring wonders in nature, this video will do just that.
We don't know how we missed this incredible footage from last year, but we weren't the only ones, and it's definitely worth posting no matter how old.
YouTube user Seainggreen documents the hatchings of a giant Pacific octopus, which can lay up to 100,000 eggs, according to Wikipedia.
From the video's description:
A giant pacific octopus mother who lived just across from downtown Seattle had her hatch right under the noses of local divers. Her den was sequestered in Cove Two in West Seattle, in a location that spared her from predators and over-visitation by humans. On September 4 (aka early, early on September 5), 2010, the eggs began hatching. It's a time of mixed emotion; joy at the hatch, and sadness at the knowledge that this event means the mother's life will end. The hatch lasted a full week, after which the mother died.
Sit back, and prepare to be blown away by mother nature -- jump to 3:24 if you want to get right to it.
WATCH (via Digiphile):
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Blogs | Mother Jones Mother Jones logo en Mitch Albom Becomes an Issue in Michigan House Primary <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>According to a conservative PAC, Republican House candidate David Trott is one of the five people you meet in Hell. Trott, who is <a href="" target="_blank">challenging</a> first-term GOP Rep. Kerry Bentivolio in the GOP primary for Michigan's 11th district, runs a law firm that specializes in mortgage foreclosures. In a new ad, a Virginia-based group called Freedom's Defense Fund highlights a foreclosure Trott's firm processed in 2011 that left a 101-year-old homeowner, Texana Hollis, out on the street:</p> <object height="354" width="630"><param name="movie" value="//;version=3"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="354" src="//;version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="630"></embed></object> <p>The eviction highlighted in the ad came about after the woman's son fell behind on his property tax payments and ignored repeated warnings. But there was a happy ending: <em>Detroit Free-Press</em> columnist and <a href="" target="_blank">airport bookstore king</a> Mitch Albom bought the house and transferred it back to Hollis.</p> <p>As I reported in January, Trott has a hand in every step of the foreclosure process—he even owns the newspaper where foreclosure notices are required to be posted. But while the ad itself is brutal, it probably won't do much damage, because Freedom's Defense Fund is only spending $15,000 to run it on local cable channels. That's consistent with a group that spends much of the money it raises paying Washington-area direct-mail outfits. Of the $1.6 million FDF spent in 2013, just $120,000 went toward candidates or independent expenditures. As <em>Think Progress</em> <a href="" target="_blank">notes</a>, $1.2 million went to fundraising services, which means the PAC is spending most of the money it raises on raising more money.</p> </body></html> MoJo Elections Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:59:19 +0000 Tim Murphy 247431 at We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for March 13, 2014 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/0313-630.jpg"></div> <p class="rtecenter"><em>Lance Cpl. Steven T. Peterson, a machine gunner with Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division and part of Black Sea Rotational Force 14, subdues a simulated enemy during a mechanical arm control holds course after being exposed to oleoresin capsicum spray on Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, March 5, 2014. The Marines were directly exposed to the OC spray, then instructed to complete a course with different stations which required them to execute different take down techniques on a simulated enemy combatant. Black Sea Rotational Force 14 is a contingent of Marines to maintain positive relations with partner nations, regional stability and increase interoperability while providing the capability for rapid crisis response, as directed by U.S. European Command, in the Black Sea, Balkan and Caucus regions of Eastern Europe. (<a href="" target="_blank">U.S. Marine Corps photo</a> by Lance Cpl. Scott W. Whiting/Released)</em></p> </body></html> MoJo Thu, 13 Mar 2014 14:05:15 +0000 247426 at Guns May Soon Be Everywhere in Georgia <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Soon gun owners in the state of Georgia may be allowed to pack heat almost anywhere—including K-12 schools, bars, churches, government buildings, and airports. The "Safe Carry Protection Act" (HB 875) would also expand Georgia's Stand Your Ground statute, the controversial law <a href="" target="_blank">made famous by the Trayvon Martin killing</a>, which allows armed citizens to defend themselves with deadly force if they believe they are faced with serious physical harm.</p> <p>The bill could pass as soon as next week, before the current legislative session ends on March 20. It is the latest effort in the battle over gun laws that continues to rage <a href="" target="_blank">in statehouses around the country</a>. It is perhaps also the most extreme yet. "Of all the bills pending right now in state legislatures, this is the most sweeping and most dangerous," Laura Cutiletta, a staff attorney with the <a href="" target="_blank">Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence</a>, <a href="">told PolitiFact</a>. Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun-reform advocacy group founded by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords after she was shot in the head, <a href=";">has deemed it</a> the "guns everywhere" bill. For its part, the National Rifle Association <a href="">recently called</a> HB 875 "the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent state history."</p> <p>In addition to overturning current state laws and dramatically rolling back concealed-carry restrictions, HB 875 <a href="">would loosen other</a> gun regulations in the state. <a href="" target="_blank">The law</a> would:</p> <ul> <li>Remove the fingerprinting requirement for gun license renewals</li> <li>Prohibit the state from keeping a gun license database</li> <li>Tighten the state's preemption statute, which restricts local governments from passing gun laws that conflict with state laws</li> <li>Repeal the state licensing requirement for firearms dealers (requiring only a federal firearms license)</li> <li>Expand gun owner rights in a declared state of emergency by prohibiting government authorities from seizing, registering, or otherwise limiting the carrying of guns in any way permitted by law before the emergency was declared</li> <li>Limit the governor's emergency powers by repealing the ability to regulate the sale of firearms during a declared state of emergency</li> <li>Lower the age to obtain a concealed carry license from 21 to 18 for active-duty military and honorably discharged veterans who've completed basic training</li> <li>Prohibit detaining someone for the sole purpose of checking whether they have a gun license</li> </ul> <p>The sweeping bill would also expand the state's Stand your Ground law into an "absolute" defense for the use of deadly force in self-protection. "Defense of self or others," the bills reads "shall be an absolute defense to any violation under this part." In its current wording, the bill would even allow individuals who possess a gun illegally—convicted felons, for example—to still claim a Stand Your Ground defense.</p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/georgia-guns-concealed-carry-stand-your-ground"><strong><em>Continue Reading »</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Crime and Justice Guns Top Stories Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:00:09 +0000 Hannah Levintova 247396 at In a Radical Shift, California Police Chiefs Push for Regulation of Medical Marijuana <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div> <div id="mininav" class="inline-subnav"> <!-- header content --> <div id="mininav-header-content"> <div id="mininav-header-image"> <img src="/files/images/motherjones_mininav/marijuana-leaf-225_0.jpg" width="220" border="0"> </div> </div> <!-- linked stories --> <div id="mininav-linked-stories"> <ul> <span id="linked-story-244126"> <li><a href="/politics/2014/02/pot-marijuana-legalization-map-states"> Maps: Will Your State Be Next to Legalize Pot?</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-215461"> <li><a href="/blue-marble/2013/02/google-earth-tour-marijuana-farms-environment-video"> How Industrial Pot Growers Ravage the Land: A Google Earth Tour</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-89881"> <li><a href="/politics/2011/01/marijuana-industry"> The New Marijuana Service Industry</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-210701"> <li><a href="/mojo/2012/12/mitch-daniels-marijuana-federalism"> When Republicans Love Legalized Pot</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-81351"> <li><a href="/politics/2010/10/california-medical-marijuana-pot-card"> How to Get a Pot Card (Without Really Trying)</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-141947"> <li><a href="/politics/2011/12/tony-dsouza-marijuana-growers"> The New Dealers</a></li> </span> <span id="linked-story-206156"> <li><a href="/politics/2012/11/breckenridge-rockies-amendment-64-marijuana-colorado"> Welcome to the Amsterdam of the Rockies</a></li> </span> </ul> </div> <!-- footer content --> </div> </div> <p>California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, but like the pimply-faced stoner dude you may have known in high school, it hasn't had the healthiest of relationships with Mary Jane. The Golden State differs from most others with medical pot laws in that it doesn't actually regulate production and sale of the herb. Instead, it lets cities and counties enact their own laws—though in practice most haven't. The result has been the Wild West of weed: <a href="" target="_blank">Almost any adult can score a scrip</a> and some bud from a local dispensary, assuming, of course, that it hasn't yet been <a href="" target="_blank">raided</a> and shut down by the feds. </p> <p>But all of that might be about to change. The California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA) <a href="" target="_blank">recently announced</a> support for a bill that would put the state in the business of regulating the medical pot trade. Though you'd think cops would have pushed for such a thing decades ago, the reality is quite the opposite: The CPCA and other law enforcement organizations have, until now, opposed pretty much every reform to California's medical marijuana system for <a href="" target="_blank">fear</a> that anything short of completely abolishing it would legitimize it.</p> <p>The CPCA's change of heart "is a huge for us," says Nate Bradley, executive director of the California Cannabis Industry Association, the state's marijuana industry trade group. Bradley agrees with his police adversaries that tighter regs would legitimize medical marijuana, which is why the CCIA has pushed for them since the group's inception four years ago. Bolstering his case, the US Department of Justice last year <a href="" target="_blank">announced</a> that it would no longer raid dispensaries in states that it believes are regulating them adequately—a formulation that seemed to exclude California. <a href="" target="_blank">New rules</a> issued last month by the Obama administration allow banks to accept funds from pot dealers, but only if they're licensed in the state where they operate.</p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">So why are California's drug warriors reversing course? "We could no longer ignore that the political landscape on this issue was shifting," the CPCA explained in a letter written jointly with the League of California Cities. Polls and changing federal policies suggest that medical pot reform "could be enacted," and that "without our proactive intervention, it could take a form that was severely damaging to our interests."</span></p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">The bill that law enforcement groups are backing, SB 1262, is flawed, but it's something that "we can work with," says Bradley, who previously worked as a cop in California's Yuba County. Advocates of medical pot don't like how the bill constrains the ability of doctors to recommend marijuana, <a href="" target="_blank">outlaws potent pot concentrates</a> such as hash oil, and puts regulation in the hands of the Department of Public Health, rather than the Department of Alcoholic Beverages Control.</span></p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/california-police-chiefs-regulation-medical-marijuana"><strong><em>Continue Reading »</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Civil Liberties Top Stories marijuana Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:00:07 +0000 Josh Harkinson 247321 at Marco Rubio Wants to Save the Internet From Foreigners <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Sen. Marco Rubio, still engaged in his campaign to reconnect with his tea party roots after blowing it on immigration reform, announced today that he plans to introduce a bill that would "prevent a 'takeover' of the Internet by the United Nations or another government regime." <a href="" target="_blank">Steve Benen is puzzled:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>To be sure, there are foreign governments that censor their citizens’ access to online content, but it’s not at all clear why Rubio sees this as a domestic threat here in the U.S. As best as I can tell, there is no effort to empower the United Nations or anyone else to regulate the Internet on a global scale. Such a policy would certainly be scary, and would require opposition, but at present, it’s also non-existent.</p> </blockquote> <p>For the most part, Rubio is probably just glomming onto a random bit of jingoism that he thinks will rile up his base. Still, there's actually a kernel of substance to this. Right now, the US Department of Commerce exercises ultimate control over the DNS root zone, and ICANN, a nonprofit that administers the DNS naming system, does so under contract <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_icann_logo.jpg" style="margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;">to the Commerce Department. And while ICANN has a global governance structure, it's based in Los Angeles and has historically had a heavy American management presence.</p> <p>But that could change. <a href="" target="_blank">Last year,</a> in response to some of Edward Snowden's spying revelations, ICANN's board of directors issued a statement that called for "accelerating the globalization of ICANN and IANA functions, towards an environment in which all stakeholders, including all governments, participate on an equal footing." <a href="" target="_blank">Last month</a> the European Commission joined in, releasing a statement that lamented a "continued loss of confidence in the Internet and its current governance" and proposing new governance that would "identify how to globalise the IANA functions" and "establish a clear timeline for the globalisation of ICANN." <a href="" target="_blank">A week later,</a> rumors surfaced that ICANN might try to move its headquarters to Geneva.</p> <p>Now, this kind of squabbling has gone on forever, and the politics behind these statements is usually pretty murky. There's no telling if it will ever amount to anything, and in any case it certainly has nothing to do with UN control over the internet. Nonetheless, other countries have long chafed under effective American control of the internet's plumbing, and the Snowden leaks have given new momentum to calls for that control to end. It's possible that this is what Rubio is thinking of.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum International Tech Thu, 13 Mar 2014 01:42:10 +0000 Kevin Drum 247416 at Sorry, the Dog Ate My Homework <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/images/Blog_Scream.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 8px 20px 15px 30px;">Apologies for the radio silence. I had an adventure-filled afternoon. My first adventure prompted me to call for help, and I discovered that my iPhone's contact list had mysteriously disappeared. No calling for help for me! Eventually everything got sorted out, and when I finally got home I restored my contacts via iCloud. So no permanent harm done. Still, when my car strands me, I always figure my phone will bail me out. That's what a phone is for. Right? But what do you do when your phone mysteriously decides to strand you at the same time?</p> <p>And what did I do to deserve all this, anyway?</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Climate Change Thu, 13 Mar 2014 00:15:51 +0000 Kevin Drum 247411 at Sen. Feinstein: The CIA Scandal Began Because the Agency Misled Congress About Torture <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, kicked off a Washington </span>kerfuffle<span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"> with </span><a href="" style="line-height: 24px;" target="_blank">significant constitutional implications</a><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;"> w</span>hen she <a href="" target="_blank">took to the Senate floor</a> on Tuesday to accuse the CIA of spying on her committee's investigation into its controversial interrogation and detention program. As pro-CIA partisans and the agency's overseers on Capitol Hill squared off for a DC turf battle—with finger-pointing in both directions—lost in the hubbub was a basic and troubling fact: Feinstein had contended that this all began because, years ago, the spies of Langley had severely misled the legislators responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies.</p> <p>At the start of her speech, Feinstein laid out the back story, and her account is a tale of a major CIA abuse. The CIA's detention and interrogation (a.k.a. torture) program began in 2002. For its first four years, the CIA only told the chairman and vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee about the program, keeping the rest of the panel in the dark. In September 2006, hours before President George W. Bush was to disclose the program to the public, then CIA Director Michael Hayden informed the rest of the committee. This piece of history shows the limits of congressional oversight. If only two members of the committee were informed, it meant that the panel could not provide full oversight of this program. But keeping secrets from legislators—even members of the intelligence committee—is not that unusual, and the story gets worse.</p> <p>In December 2007, the <em>New York Times </em><a href="" target="_blank">reported</a> that the CIA had destroyed two videotapes of the CIA's interrogation (or torture) sessions. After this disclosure, Hayden told the Senate intelligence committee that eradicating the videos was not as worrisome as it seemed. According to Feinstein, he noted that CIA cables had detailed the interrogations and detention conditions and were "a more than adequate representation" of what had happened. He offered Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who was then chairing the committee, the opportunity to review these thousands of cables. Rockefeller dispatched two staffers to peruse these records.</p> <p>It took the pair about a year to sift through all the material and produce a report for the intelligence committee. That report, Feinstein noted, was "chilling." The review, she said, showed that the "interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detention sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us."</p> <p>That is, the CIA had misled the Capitol Hill watchdogs.</p> <p>After reading the staff report, Feinstein, now chairing the committee, and Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), then the senior Republican on the committee, decided a far more expansive investigation was called for. On March 5, 2009, the committee voted 14 to 1 to initiate a full-fledged review of the CIA's detention and interrogation program.</p> <p>It is that inquiry that has caused the recent fuss, with Feinstein claiming that the CIA (possibly illegally) penetrated computers used by committee investigators and removed documents indicating a CIA internal review of this program had concluded it was poorly managed, went too far, and did not produce decent intelligence. The committee's more comprehensive review eventually produced a 6,300-page report slamming CIA that has yet to be made public, despite Feinstein pushing the CIA to declassify it.</p> <p>So while this week's focus is on whether the CIA improperly—or illegally—spied on the folks who have the constitutional obligation to monitor CIA actions in order to ensure the agency acts appropriately and within US law, Feinstein's big reveal also presented a highly troubling charge: The CIA lied to Congress about what might be its most controversial program in decades. This in and of itself should be big news.</p> <p>At the conclusion of her speech, Feinstein, referring to the present controversy, said, "How this will be resolved will show whether the intelligence committee can be effective in monitoring and investigating our nation's intelligence activities or whether our work can be thwarted by those we oversee." That is true. And if there cannot be effective oversight of intelligence operations, then the foundation of the national security state is in question. Yet Feinstein's remarks provide evidence that oversight was not working prior to the current face-off. If the CIA did not tell the Senate intelligence committee the truth about its interrogation and detention program, much more needs to be resolved than whether the spies hacked the gumshoes of Capitol Hill.</p> </body></html> MoJo Civil Liberties Congress Top Stories Wed, 12 Mar 2014 21:13:13 +0000 David Corn 247391 at An Endorsement From Barack Obama Might Be the Kiss of Death This Year <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>A friend just emailed me with a gloomy outlook for Democrats in this year's midterm elections. I don't really have an outlook myself yet, though obviously Democrats suffer from a difficult electoral map, the traditional 6-year blues, and their usual problem turning out voters in off-year elections. But as long as we're being gloomy, here's something else to add to the bonfire. It's an extract from a <a href="" target="_blank"><em>Washington Post</em> poll graphic</a> showing how voters react to congressional candidates being associated with the Obama administration. It's not a pretty picture.</p> <p>Now, if you want some good news, all you have to do is take a look at some of the other numbers in the poll, which makes it clear that most people have no idea what really makes them more or less likely to vote for someone. At the very bottom, for example, you'll see that virtually no one is willing to fess up that they're more likely to vote for an incumbent, despite mountains of research showing that incumbency is the single most powerful predictor of electoral success there is. So maybe this is all just a bunch of hooey. But I wouldn't bet on it.</p> <p><img align="middle" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_obama_endorse.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 15px 0px 5px 15px;"></p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Elections Obama Wed, 12 Mar 2014 17:31:50 +0000 Kevin Drum 247376 at The British Economy Is Not a Poster Child for Austerity <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Keith Humphreys notes that economic growth over the past year has been similar in Britain and the United States even though the two countries adopted <a href="" target="_blank">very different responses to the Great Recession:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>But don’t expect the similar levels of growth in the two countries to shake many people’s faith in their economic views. Most of the “slim government” crowd will argue that Britain didn’t cut enough (or that the U.S. growth isn’t real) and that’s why the U.K. hasn’t left the U.S. in the dust. Most increased government spending supporters will see proof that the stimulus wasn’t big enough (or that the U.K. growth isn’t real) because if it had been U.S. growth would be dwarfing that of the sceptred isle.</p> <p>Many people seem to have stable preferences about whether they want government bigger or smaller. They will point to current economic conditions as the reason for why their preferences should prevail, but their preferences do not change when those putatively justifying economic conditions fade away. Neither are most people fazed when the government spending policies they support (as well as those that they oppose) deliver different results than they expected. Motivated reason is such a force in this particular policy area that rather than arguing over what current economic conditions particularly require, debaters are probably <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_gdp_usa_britain_1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">better off cutting to the chase and arguing directly about the real issue: Disagreement about how big or small we want the government to be.</p> </blockquote> <p>I don't think this is fair. If you want to compare Britain and the US, you have to look at their entire growth trajectory since the start of the recession. The chart on the right is taken from <a href="" target="_blank">OECD numbers,</a> so it's an apples-to-apples comparison. And really, there is no comparison. As of 2012 (the most recent figures available from the OECD) Britain's GDP was still 3 percent below its 2007 level. By contrast, US GDP was 4 percent above its 2007 level.</p> <p>We can argue all day long about what caused this divergence, but I think the raw data is fairly unequivocal. Whatever the reason, the US economy really did suffer less and recover more robustly than the British economy.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Economy Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:59:03 +0000 Kevin Drum 247371 at Are Russia and Ukraine on the Verge of an All-Out Cyberwar? <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>For the past week, reports of physical violence have been rolling out of Ukraine: Russian troops <a href="" target="_blank">storming a base</a> in Crimea, officers <a href="" target="_blank">beating journalists</a>, and <a href=";rref=world" target="_blank">violent brawls</a> <a href="" target="_blank">at rallies</a>. But as tensions escalate, another part of the conflict appears to be playing out in a cloudier realm: cyberspace.</p> <p><a href="">On Saturday</a>, Ukraine's top security agency—the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine—announced at a briefing that it had been hit by severe denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, "apparently aimed at hindering a response to the challenges faced by our state." This comes on the heels of a number of alleged hacks involving Russian and Ukrainian targets, including attacks on news outlets and blocking reception to<strong> </strong>the cellphones of Ukrainian parliament members.</p> <p><a href=";_type=blogs&ref=technology&_r=0">Security experts say</a> the region is currently seeing an unusually high number of DDoS attacks, which aim to shut down networks, usually by overwhelming them with traffic. But many of those seem to be coming from third parties, rather than government entities. In terms of state-sponsored cyberwarfare, "we haven't seen that much," says Dmitri Alperovitch, CTO of CrowdStrike, a California-based cybersecurity firm.<strong> </strong>Alperovitch adds, though, that his firm has seen a significant amount of cyber-espionage on the part of the Russian intelligence services—including tracking the activities of Putin opponents in both Russia and Ukraine—but he would not disclose names of those being monitored.</p> <p>Ukraine is situated in a region of the world known for breeding some of the most talented cyber criminals. Several Russian <a href="" target="_blank">universities offer </a>top-notch hacking training, and a Ukrainian hacker <a href="" target="_blank">is suspected</a> in December's theft of 40 million credit card numbers from Target. But Ukraine and Russia aren't on equal footing when it comes to their cyberwarfare capabilities. "Russia is a Tier 1 cyber power," says Alperovitch. "Ukraine isn't even in Tier 3." So Russia has a leg up in this arena—and, during past conflicts with former Soviet bloc countries, it has flexed its cyberwarfare muscles. In April 2007, hackers unleashed a wave of cyberattacks on Estonian government agencies, banks, businesses, newspapers, and political parties, following a spat over the removal of a Soviet war memorial in Tallin, the country's capital. (The Kremlin <a href="">took only partial credit</a> for the crippling three-week attack.) Georgia was targeted with similar attacks in 2008 in the days leading up to its invasion of the secessionist republic of South Ossetia. (Russian involvement <a href="">was widely</a> <a href="">suspected</a>.)</p> <p>Ukraine has yet be targeted with these type of widespread cyberassaults on key infrastructure—but it may not be long. "I anticipate continued escalation," says Jason Healey, director of the Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative and the former White House director of cyber infrastructure protection during the Bush administration. So far, the cyberskirmish is playing out differently than past attacks, Healey says. While the Estonia and Georgia attacks were strictly digital, in Ukraine's case, pro-Moscow forces have also deployed more hands-on attacks on information: "This old-school, Cold War style physical manipulation of equipment. Getting in and physically messing with the switches so Ukrainian civic leaders don't have phone service," Healey says. In Ukraine, these sorts of attacks ​are likely to be a bigger threat, because much of the telecommunications infrastructure was installed by Russians during the Soviet era. "Cyberattacks the way we tend to look at them—denial-of-service attacks, and so forth—you don't have to do those when you've got physical access to the guy's switch!" says Healey.</p> <p><span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 2em;">Here's a run-down of what has transpired so far: </span></p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/cyber-war-ukraine-russia"><strong><em>Continue Reading »</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Foreign Policy International Tech Top Stories Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:16:07 +0000 Hannah Levintova 247156 at Florida Special Election Turns Out Not to Be Very Special After All <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Dave Weigel describes the dispiriting nature of yesterday's <a href="" target="_blank">special election in Florida's 13th district:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The Pinellas County race pit Alex Sink, an uninspiring corporate Democrat, against David Jolly, a say-anything lobbyist who spent half a week of the stretch sleazily and baselessly calling his opponent a "bigot." Both of them came off like people desperately trying to sell you a time share.</p> </blockquote> <p>And then he explains <a href="" target="_blank">why Republican David Jolly won:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Having now spent 6,000-odd words on the Florida special election, I should admit that smart analysts predicted the result with one number. Two-hundred thousand. If that many ballots showed up in FL-13, Democrats were hitting their turnout models and winning the race. If fewer, they were losing. There were about 180,000 votes cast in the race, and the Democrats lost.</p> </blockquote> <p>Yep. Basically, it was a tight race in a district previously held by a Republican but won by Obama in 2012. And Jolly ended up winning by two percentage points. There's really not much of a lesson to be learned here aside from the fact that (a) it was truly a tossup district, and (b) Democrats have a really tough time with turnout in non-presidential elections. Eventually they're going to have to figure out what to do about that.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Congress Elections Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:06:27 +0000 Kevin Drum 247361 at VIDEO: David Corn on Why the CIA's Fight with Senators Is "All-out War" <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><em>Mother Jones</em> DC bureau chief David Corn spoke with <a href="" target="_blank">MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell</a> and Julian Epstein this week about the "unprecedented" allegations of CIA snooping on congressional investigators. Watch here:</p> <p><iframe border="no" height="497" scrolling="no" src="" width="630"></iframe></p> </body></html> MoJo Video Civil Liberties Congress Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:43:31 +0000 David Corn 247351 at We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for March 12, 2014 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/0312-630.jpg"></div> <div id="meta"> <div class="photo-desc" id="description_div"> <p class="rtecenter"><em>CAMP HUNTER LIGGETT, Calif. -- As crew chief Spc. Scott Pauley, Company B, 1-140 Aviation Battalion provides direction, a Soldier with 1st Battalion, 184th Infantry clears out of a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, Feb. 8. Soldiers of the 1-184 were sharpening their air assault skills in preparation for annual training 2014. (<a href="" target="_blank">Photo</a> by Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin M.M. Cossel)</em></p> </div> </div> </body></html> MoJo Wed, 12 Mar 2014 14:10:14 +0000 247346 at WATCH: Front-Runner in GOP Senate Primary Says Planned Parenthood Wants to Kill Newborns <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <object height="354" width="630"><param name="movie" value="//;version=3"> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> <embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="354" src="//;version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="630"></embed></object> <p>According to North Carolina GOP Senate candidate Greg Brannon, Planned Parenthood has a secret plan to legalize the killing of newborn babies as old as three months. Brannon, a Rand Paul-backed obstetrician who is a front-runner for the GOP nomination, made the allegations at a November fundraiser for Hand of Hope, a chain of crisis pregnancy centers he operates in North Carolina.</p> <blockquote> <p>Well how far will [it] go? Last year, February 29, 2012, the <em>Journal of Ethics</em> in Australia, they debated that. They said we already know abortion is fine, why stop in the womb? Why not three months after. Why should we end the responsibility at that point? It could happen in America. Florida's trying to do it right now and so is Georgia. Planned Parenthood. Because we allowed that slippery slope. Every human being deserves life, liberty, and property.</p> </blockquote> <p>Brannon's statement appears to be based on testimony given last year by a lobbyist for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates. Asked how the organization's physicians would respond if a baby were born alive during an abortion, the lobbyist appeared confused and said she'd have to check. But in a follow-up statement, Barbara Zdravecky, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, unambiguously rejected the notion: "In the extremely unlikely event that the scenario presented by the legislators ever happened, of course Planned Parenthood would provide appropriate care to both the woman and the infant."</p> <p>"These absurd and patently false claims by Greg Brannon demonstrate just how extreme and out of touch he is when it comes to women's health issues—and the rest of the Republican Senate candidates in North Carolina are just as dangerous," Planned Parenthood Action Fund Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens said in a statement. Brannon's campaign did not respond to request for clarification.</p> <p>In the same speech, Brannon said women get abortions because of the same nihilistic worldview that causes them to believe in evolution. "We have people who believe they evolve from nothing, they came from nothing, they'll go to nothing, and today doesn't matter, so when they have a mistake, why not move on?" he said.</p> <p>The most recent survey of the race, from Public Policy Polling, showed Brannon tied with Thom Tillis, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, for the Republican nomination—and running even with Sen. Kay Hagan (R-N.C.) in a hypothetical November matchup.</p> </body></html> MoJo Elections Reproductive Rights Top Stories Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:00:09 +0000 Tim Murphy 247311 at President Obama Takes on Overtime Rules <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">From the <em>New York Times</em>:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>President Obama this week will seek to force American businesses to pay more overtime to millions of workers, the latest move by his administration to confront corporations that have had soaring profits even as wages have stagnated....Mr. Obama’s decision to use his executive authority to change the nation’s overtime rules is likely to be seen as a challenge to Republicans in Congress, who have already blocked most of the president’s economic agenda and have said they intend to fight his proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour from $7.25.</p> </blockquote> <p>This is obviously just the latest in Obama's long series of Constitution-crushing moves that flout the law and turn the president into a despot-in-chief, gleefully kneecapping Congress and — wait. What's this?</p> <blockquote> <p>In 2004, business groups persuaded President George W. Bush’s administration to allow them greater latitude on exempting salaried white-collar workers from overtime pay, even as organized labor objected....Mr. Obama’s authority to act comes from his ability as president to revise the rules that carry out the Fair Labor Standards Act, which Congress originally passed in 1938. Mr. Bush and previous <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/images/Blog_Constitution_0.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">presidents used similar tactics at times to work around opponents in Congress.</p> </blockquote> <p>Oh. So he's just doing the same stuff that every other president has done. Sorry about that. You may go about your business.</p> <p>For what it's worth, this gets to the heart of my impatience with all the right-wing hysteria about how Obama is shredding the Constitution and turning himself into a modern-day Napoleon. I'm not unpersuadable on the general point that Obama's executive orders sometimes go too far. But so far no one has provided any evidence that Obama has done anything more than any other modern president. They all issue executive orders, and Obama has actually issued fewer than most. They all urge the federal bureaucracy to reinterpret regulations in liberal or conservative directions. They all appoint agency heads with mandates to push the rulemaking process in agreeable directions. And they all get taken to court over this stuff and sometimes get their hats handed to them.</p> <p>Is Obama opening up whole new vistas in executive overreach? I don't see it, and I don't even see anyone making the case seriously. You can't just run down a laundry list of executive actions you happen to dislike. You need to take a genuinely evenhanded look at the past 30 or 40 years of this stuff and make an argument that Obama is doing something unique. Until you do that, you're just playing dumb partisan games.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Congress Labor Obama Wed, 12 Mar 2014 05:58:35 +0000 Kevin Drum 247341 at What Have the Democrats Ever Done For Us? <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Yesterday</a> I wrote a post griping about the supposed mystery of why so many working and middle class voters (WMC for short) have drifted into the Republican Party over the past few decades. It's hardly a mystery, I said, and it's not an example of people voting against their own economic interest. The problem is simple: Democrats haven't really done much for the WMC lately, so fewer and fewer of them view Democrats as their champions. That being the case, they might as well vote for the party that promises to cut their taxes and supports traditional values.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Scott Lemieux agrees with many of the specific points I made,</a> but nonetheless thinks I went too far with my "general framing." His post is worth a read, and it also gives me a handy excuse to write a follow-up. This is partly to expand on some things, partly to defend myself, and partly to concede an issue or two. So in no special order, here goes:</p> <p><strong>First off, you're really talking about the <em>white</em> WMC, right?</strong></p> <p>Yeah, that's usually how this stuff is framed. As it happens, I'd argue that although the black and Hispanic WMC still firmly supports Democrats, they largely do it for noneconomic reasons these days. But that's a subject for a different day. What we're talking about here is mostly about the white WMC.</p> <p><strong>But has this drift toward the Republican Party even happened? Haven't you written before that it's a myth?</strong></p> <p>Yes I have, based on the work of Larry Bartels, who says this is solely a Southern phenomenon. However, I've been persuaded by <a href="" target="_blank">Lane Kenworthy's work</a> that the drift is both real and national. It's not a myth.</p> <p><strong>Lemieux says that relative to Republicans, Democrats are better than I give them credit for. What about that?</strong></p> <p>No argument there. I don't think anyone could read this site for more than five minutes and not know what I think of the modern Republican Party.</p> <p><iframe align="right" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="" style="margin: 8px 0px 15px 30px;" width="450"></iframe></p> <p><strong>Plus he says that Obamacare has been a big plus for the WMC. And a bunch of folks on Twitter said the same thing.</strong></p> <p>That's a point I'll concede. I was thinking of a few things here. First, most WMC voters already get health coverage at work, so Obamacare's impact on them is limited. Beyond that, the Medicaid expansion was targeted at the poor, and the exchange subsidies get pretty small by the time you reach a middle-class income. But my memory was faulty on that score. A middle-class family with an income of, say, $50-60,000 still gets a pretty hefty subsidy. And of course there are other features of Obamacare that help the middle class too. I was a little too dismissive of this.</p> <p>On the other hand, this is also a pretty good example of Democrats snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They stuck together unanimously to pass the bill, which was great. But ideological ambivalence had already watered it down significantly by then, and ever since Obama signed it, it seems like half the party has been running for cover lest anyone know they voted for it. If Democrats themselves can't loudly sell their own bill as a middle class boon, it's hardly any surprise that lots of middle-class voters don't see it that way either.</p> <p><strong>But Democrats have done a lot of things beyond just Obamacare.</strong></p> <p>Sure, <a href="" target="_blank">and I've listed them myself from time to time.</a> But here's the thing: folks like Lemieux and me can look at this stuff and make a case that Democrats are helping the middle class. Unfortunately, it's mostly too abstract to register with average voters. Did the stimulus bill help the WMC? Probably, but it's not concrete enough for anyone to feel like it helped them personally. How about the CFPB, which Lemieux mentions? I think it's great. But if you stopped a dozen average folks on the street, not one would have the slightest inkling of what it is or whether they benefited from it. These things are just too small, too watered-down, and too sporadic to have much impact. What's more, whatever small impact they do have gets wiped out whenever Democrats support things like the 2005 bankruptcy bill or get cold feet about repealing something like the carried interest loophole.</p> <p><strong>OK, but why did you "yadda yadda" all the genuinely big things Democrats have done for the poor?</strong></p> <p>I didn't. I explicitly mentioned them. And this isn't some kind of shell game over definitions of "poor" and "working class." After all, no one ever asks why the poor have drifted away from the Democratic Party, even though they presumably have social views that are similar to the WMC. You know why? Because they haven't drifted away. And why is that? <em>Because Democrats have done stuff for them</em>.</p> <p>That's the whole point here. The WMC feels like Democrats do stuff for the poor, but not for them. And there's a lot of truth to that.</p> <p><strong>But what can Democrats do? Republicans block every proposal they ever make.</strong></p> <p>I'm not blaming them for that. Politics is politics. And I'm not ignoring the fact that Dems stand up against Republicans all the time. They do. Nor is this an exercise in "both sides do it." Obviously Republicans are far more slavishly devoted to the interests of corporations and the rich than Democrats.</p> <p>Hell, I don't even personally oppose every manifestation of the neoliberal policy evolution of the post-70s Democratic Party. Some of it I support. I'm a fairly moderate, neoliberalish squish myself most of the time. If you care about evidence in the policymaking process, the evidence is pretty strong that some lefty dreams just don't make sense.</p> <p>Nonetheless, the corporate drift of the Democratic Party since the 80s is simply a matter of record. Lemieux and I can toss out lists of small-ball Democratic accomplishments all day long, but the vast majority of low-information voters have never heard of them or don't think they really do them any good. Maybe they're mistaken or misguided, but that's the way it is.</p> <p>If Democrats want to regain the support of the WMC, they have to consistently unite behind stuff that benefits the WMC in very simple, concrete ways. Democrats do that on abortion, for example, and everyone knows where they stand even if they don't win all their battles. It's the same way with economic policy. Even if they don't win all or most of their battles, they need to unite behind real programs for the middle class; they need to talk about them loudly; they need to stop diluting their message by taking the side of the plutocrats whenever it's convenient; and they have to keep it up for decades.</p> <p>Maybe the reality of modern politics prevents this. But if that's the case, then it's time to stop navel-gazing about why the WMC has drifted away from the Democrats. The answer is staring us all in the face.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Economy Labor Wed, 12 Mar 2014 03:21:37 +0000 Kevin Drum 247336 at The Mystery of the Disappearing Malaysian Plane Deepens Even Further <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Here's the latest strangeness surrounding the <a href="" target="_blank">disappearance of that Malaysian airliner:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>As a search continued Tuesday for a Malaysian airliner that mysteriously disappeared, <strong>Malaysian military officials said radar data showed it inexplicably turned around and headed toward the Malacca Strait,</strong> hundreds of miles off its scheduled flight path, news agencies and Malaysian media reported.</p> <p>....<strong>Search teams from 10 nations had initially focused their efforts mainly east of the peninsula</strong>....A high-ranking military official involved in the investigation confirmed that the plane changed course and said it was believed to <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_malaysia_flight_370_2.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 0px 15px 30px;">be flying low, the Associated Press reported.</p> </blockquote> <p>It is, of course, mysterious that the plane veered off course and turned west an hour after takeoff. But that's not the real puzzle. The plane disappeared on Saturday. If the Malaysian military tracked it turning west into the Malacca Strait in real time, how is it that it took them three days to bother telling anyone about this? That seems damn peculiar even if things were just generally fubared at the time. <a href=";_r=0" target="_blank">Here's another account:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The [Malaysian] air force chief did not say what kind of signals the military had tracked. But his remarks raised questions about whether the military had noticed the plane as it flew across the country and about when it informed civilian authorities.</p> <p>According to the general’s account, the last sign of the plane was recorded at 2:40 a.m., and the aircraft was then near Pulau Perak, an island more than 100 miles off the western shore of the Malaysian peninsula. <strong>That assertion stunned aviation experts as well as officials in China,</strong> who had been told again and again that the authorities lost contact with the plane more than an hour earlier, when it was on course over the Gulf of Thailand, east of the peninsula. But the new account seemed to fit with the decision on Monday, previously unexplained, to expand the search area to include waters west of the peninsula.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="" target="_blank">And yet another:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>It is unclear why the west coast contact, if correct, was not made public until now. Asked on Monday why crews were searching the strait, the country's civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman told reporters: <strong>"There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Military Tue, 11 Mar 2014 22:14:10 +0000 Kevin Drum 247316 at Infamous George Zimmerman Prosecutor Puts Disproportionate Number of Black Men on Death Row <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Florida is working hard these days to make itself a case study argument in favor of abolishing the death penalty. In a state that has seen <a href="" target="_blank">more innocent people exonerated from death row</a> than any other in the country, lawmakers last year passed legislation to try to speed up the pace of executions. Last month, <span style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 24px;">Gov. Rick Scott (R)</span> set a dubious record for presiding over more <a href="" target="_blank">executions in his first term</a> than any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the state <a href="" target="_blank">continues to ignore US Supreme Court</a> rulings banning the execution of the mentally ill and intellectually disabled. Just last week, the state argued before the Supreme Court that it <a href="" target="_blank">didn’t want to use accepted scientific principles </a>to comply with the court's ban on executing mentally disabled people because that would spare too many death row residents, a move that would be "inconsistent with Florida’s purposes." And now comes the news the state's most notorious prosecutor has not only sent a disproportionate number of felons to death row, but a disproportionate number of African-Americans, once again raising the troubling issue of racial disparities in the state's capital punishment system.</p> </body></html> <p style="font-size: 1.083em;"><a href="/mojo/2014/03/angela-corey-florida-death-row"><strong><em>Continue Reading »</em></strong></a></p> MoJo Civil Liberties Courts Tue, 11 Mar 2014 18:35:52 +0000 Stephanie Mencimer 247226 at Opposition to Obamacare Remains Under 40 Percent, the Same as Always <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Greg Sargent</a> points us to the <a href="" target="_blank">latest CNN poll on Obamacare</a> today, one of the few polls that accurately judges public attitudes on the subject. Instead of just asking whether people support or oppose the law, CNN asks if their opposition is because the law is too liberal or <em>not liberal enough</em>. The latter aren't tea partiers <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_cnn_obamacare_support_february_2014.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 5px 15px 30px;">who hate Obamacare, they're lefties and Democrats who mostly support the concept of Obamacare but want it to go further. Counting them as opponents of Obamacare has always been seriously misleading.</p> <p>I went ahead and charted CNN's poll results over time, and they've been remarkably stable. Ever since the law passed, about 40 percent of the country has opposed it, while more than 50 percent have either supported it or said they want it to go even further. This goes a long way toward explaining the supposedly mysterious result that lots of people oppose Obamacare but few want to repeal it. The truth is that actual opposition has always been a minority view. Polls routinely show that only about <a href="" target="_blank">40 percent of Americans want to repeal Obamacare,</a> and there's nothing mysterious about that once you understand that this is also the level of actual opposition to the law.</p> <p><a href="" target="_blank">Sargent has more here,</a> including some interesting internals and crosstabs.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Care Tue, 11 Mar 2014 18:15:59 +0000 Kevin Drum 247296 at President Obama Reaches Out to the Kids <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><iframe align="right" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="290" src="" style="margin: 8px 0px 15px 30px;" width="450"></iframe></p> <p>Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that President Obama has taped a <em>Between Two Ferns</em> segment with comedian Zach Galifianakis to promote Obamacare. <a href="" target="_blank"><em>Time's</em> James Poniewozik comments:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>It’s a specific, unusually edgy kind of comedy for any politician, much less a sitting President–a cringe-humor show whose whole idea is playing off staged discomfort with the guest. Obama trades insults, he stews at the clueless slights (will he build his Presidential library “in Hawaii or your home country of Kenya”?), he needles Galiafinakis about his handsome Hangover co-star Bradley Cooper. (“He kind of carried that movie, didn’t he?”)</p> <p>It’s the tone of the comedy as much as the online medium that really targets the young audience Obama is pitching to here. There’s a cringe-humor generation gap; <strong>if you’re over a certain age, or simply haven’t watched much of a certain kind of contemporary comedy, you’ll probably watch it thinking that the segment is bombing and Obama is getting legitimately angry.</strong> But it’s a good fit for Obama’s sense of humor, which is a little dry and a little cutting–in ways that don’t always play in rooms when there are no ferns present.</p> </blockquote> <p>This doesn't seem quite right to me. I'm in my fifties, and I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe you have to be even older not to get it? Post-SNL, perhaps? I'm not sure. Go ahead and <a href="" target="_blank">watch it here</a> and let's do a reader poll. Rate it from 1 to 5 stars and be sure to include your age.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Care Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:33:44 +0000 Kevin Drum 247286 at Taking Advantage of Cancer Patients for Fun and Profit <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>When we last met cancer patient Julie Boonstra, she was the centerpiece of a TV ad claiming that her new insurance plan under Obamacare was far more expensive than her old plan and didn't cover all her medications. On examination, it turned out to cost about the same. Today, however, <img align="right" alt="" class="image image-_original" src="/files/blog_boonstra.jpg" style="border: 1px solid black; margin: 20px 20px 15px 30px;">the <em>Detroit News</em> reports that, in fact, Obamacare will <em>save</em> Boonstra <a href="" target="_blank">more than a thousand dollars per year:</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Boonstra said Monday her new plan she dislikes is the Blue Cross Premier Gold health care plan, which caps patient responsibility for out-of-pocket costs at $5,100 a year, lower than the federal law’s maximum of $6,350 a year. It means the new plan will save her at least $1,200 compared with her former insurance plan she preferred that was ended under Obamacare’s coverage requirements.</p> <p><strong>....When advised of the details of her Blues’ plan, Boonstra said the idea that it would be cheaper “can’t be true.”</strong></p> <p><strong>“I personally do not believe that,” Boonstra said.</strong></p> <p>....She also said her out-of-pocket maximum could be higher than advertised because there’s one prescription that was previously covered by her old plan that isn’t and she now buys with a separate prescription discount card....<strong>Boonstra’s health plan covers all prescriptions, [Blue Cross spokesman Andy] Hetzel said,</strong> who advises she use the coverage instead of a prescription discount card so co-pays would go toward meeting the out-of-pocket maximum.</p> </blockquote> <p>If you think I'm posting about this just because it's a big, fat poke in the face to the Koch-funded ambulance chasers at AFP who originally ran the Boonstra ad—well, you're right. But there's a real point to be made about this too. I don't know anything about Julie Boonstra, but it sure seems as if she's been bamboozled by a bunch of fanatic Obamacare haters who have caused her a ton of pain and misery. Boonstra had some genuine problems with the rollout of the exchanges, just as many people did, but once that finally got straightened out, she ended up with coverage that was both better and less expensive than her previous plan. There's no reason for her to be so anxious about her continued care.</p> <p>But she never really learned that. For purely venal political reasons, AFP found itself a woman fighting cancer and proceeded to stoke her fears of her new health coverage in order to get a TV ad made. <em>A TV ad</em>. These are people who, if there's any justice, should not be sleeping easily at night. They are swine.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Health Care Tue, 11 Mar 2014 15:43:47 +0000 Kevin Drum 247281 at Dianne Feinstein Upset that CIA Is Spying on Dianne Feinstein <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p><a href="" target="_blank">If the CIA has lost Dianne Feinstein....</a></p> <blockquote> <p>The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday sharply accused the CIA of violating federal law and undermining the constitutional principle of congressional oversight as she detailed publicly for the first time how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by her panel to investigate a controversial interrogation program.</p> <p>Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that the situation amounted to attempted intimidation of congressional investigators, adding: <strong>“I am not taking it lightly.”</strong></p> </blockquote> <p>In the end, I suspect that she will indeed take it lightly. Still, if there's one thing an intelligence agency shouldn't do, it's get caught monitoring the Senate committee that oversees it. The intelligence community can spy on millions of Americans and Dianne Feinstein yawns. But spy on Dianne Feinstein and you're in trouble.</p> </body></html> Kevin Drum Civil Liberties Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:52:13 +0000 Kevin Drum 247271 at We're Still at War: Photo of the Day for March 11, 2014 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"><img alt="" class="image" src="/files/0311-630x354.jpg"></div> <div id="meta"> <div class="photo-desc" id="description_div"> <p class="rtecenter"><em>Sgt. Scott Hulsizer (left), a team leader with second platoon, Bravo Company, 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, based in Okinawa, Japan, fires an M136 AT-4 rocket launcher after breaking away from the firing line as part of a weapons training package on the Kaneohe Bay Range Training Facility, March 4, 2014. 3rd Recon Bn. fired multiple weapon systems, such as the .50 caliber M2 Browning heavy machine gun, MK-19 automatic grenade launcher and M136 AT-4 rocket launchers, as part of a two day weapons package for Exercise Sandfisher. The weapons package focused on increasing the platoon’s proficiency with each system on the battlefield. (<a href="" target="_blank">U.S. Marine Corps photo</a> by Lance Cpl. Matthew Bragg/Released)</em></p> </div> </div> </body></html> MoJo Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:09:58 +0000 247266 at Here Is President Obama's "Between Two Ferns" Interview With Zach Galifianakis <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>Tuesday morning, comedy website <a href="" target="_blank">Funny or Die</a> released an episode of Zach Galifianakis' satirical interview show <em><a href="http://" target="_blank">Between Two Ferns</a></em> featuring Barack Obama. The 44th president came on to promote the Affordable Care Act. (At the end of the six-and-a-half-minute video, there is <a href="" target="_blank">a link to</a></p> <p>The whole thing is pretty funny. To be clear, it isn't going to set the world on fire or anything, but there are definitely some amusing bits. ("What is it like to be the last black president?" "<em>Seriously</em>?") Funny or Die has a very good relationship with the Obama administration, which includes creating a recent batch of <a href="" target="_blank">pro-Obamacare</a> <a href="" target="_blank">videos</a>, and even <a href="" target="_blank">pitching the president</a> a sketch idea directly. <a href="" target="_blank">Galifianakis</a> is himself an <a href="" target="_blank">Obama supporter</a>.</p> <p>Here is the whole bit for your viewing pleasure:</p> <p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="400" mozallowfullscreen="" src="" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="630"></iframe></p> <div style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:640px;"> </div> <p>Or as the White House describes it:</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"> <p>• President Obama • Zach Galifianakis • Spider bites All things you can find here → <a href=""></a> <a href=";src=hash">#BetweenTwoFerns</a> <a href=";src=hash">#GetCoveredNow</a></p> — The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="">March 11, 2014</a> </blockquote> <script async src="//" charset="utf-8"></script> </body></html> MoJo Film and TV Top Stories Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:02:06 +0000 Ben Dreyfuss and Asawin Suebsaeng 247261 at You Don't Have to Be a Foul-Mouthed White Guy to Be a World-Class Chef <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" ""> <html><body> <p>What does it take to break the mould in a prestigious, white-male-dominated industry? I tackled that question in a recent <a href="" target="_blank">piece</a> on how women chefs, who, despite impressive advances in recent years, get short shrift when it comes to big-name awards and invitations to high-minded culinary confabs. But restaurants' diversity problem is bigger than just a gender imbalance. More then two centuries after the invention of the fine-dining restaurant in the wake of the French Revolution, chefly prestige remains largely—but not completely—the domain of not just males, but <em>white</em> males. What gives?</p> <p>On a frigid evening in Harlem last week, I got the opportunity to put the question directly to four mould-breakers in a public conversation at Ginny's Supper Club, the cozy, red-tinted, speakeasy-like saloon in the cellar of <a href="" target="_blank">Red Rooster</a>, chef Marcus Samuelsson's neo-soul-food establishment on Lenox just north of 125th Street. The evening started with wine and snacks, which included house-made charcuterie, cheese, and cornbread madeleines—the latter, I thought, a clever mashup of French and US traditions, a Proustian nod to our most memory-drenched and historically fraught region, the South. My own melancholic musings aside, the room buzzed and glowed in the hour or so leading up to the panel—a diverse crowd of 150 or so chatted and circulated, young, old, and in between, culinary students, chefs, writers, and food lovers of all stripes, from the neighborhood and other parts of Manhattan, from Brooklyn, and even, I hear, from <a href="" target="_blank">Chicago</a>.</p> <p>Eventually, we took to the stage: to my right Marcus himself; then Gabrielle Hamilton, chef/proprietor of the highly influential East Village spot <a href="" target="_blank">Prune</a>; then Charlene Johnson-Hadley, a daughter of Brooklyn's West Indian diaspora who worked her way up through Samuelsson's Red Rooster kitchen and is now executive chef at his Lincoln Center outpost <a href="" target="_blank">American Table Bar and Cafe</a>; and finally Floyd Cardoz, chef at <a href="" target="_blank">North End Grill</a> in Battery Park City, who brought the cooking of his native India into the glamor of a buzzy Manhattan restaurant with the late and much-lamented Tabla.</p> <p>Unfortunately, our conversation wasn't recorded. But<em> Eater </em>delivered a <a href="" target="_blank">"10 Best Quotes" piece</a>, <em>Serious Eats</em>' Jacqueline Raposo has a very thoughtful <a href="" target="_blank">post</a> on the event, also with several quotes, and the blogger Ronda Lee offered <a href="" target="_blank">worthy commentary</a> on the event.</p> <p>My favorite parts of the discussion were:</p> <div class="inline inline-left" style="display: table; width: 1%"> <img alt="" class="image" src="/files/marcus-gab.jpg"><div class="caption">Two New York icons: Samuelsson and Hamiton</div> </div> <p>1) Marcus—who was born in Ethiopia and raised in Sweden—talking about coming up as an ambitious young cook in France, where the message he got was<em> "ce n'est pas possible,"</em> i.e., it's not possible for a black man to command his own kitchen. His outsider status served as a spur, he said: With the conventional path to chefdom blocked to him, he had to forge his own, which included moving to the melting pot of New York and grabbing the reins of the Swedish restaurant Aquavit.</p> <p>2) Gabrielle talking about how she found herself in the restaurant world not out of a passion for cooking, but rather out of the need to support herself at a very young age—and about how being a woman in restaurant kitchens, when she came up in the 1980s, meant having to forge an identity, a way to fit in, since there was no preexisting identity to fall into. Here's her money quote, which I'm cribbing from <em>Eater</em> because I didn't take notes:</p> <blockquote> <p>Yes, there were horrible white men in the kitchens and the hardest part of that is the contortions you'd put yourself through to figure out your place in that kitchen. Should I be a chain-smoking dirt-talking motherfucker who can crank it fucking out? Or should I be kind of a dainty female with lipstick and be like, 'Can you help me with this stock pot because I just can't?' Frankly it's a freaking second job on top of what you're already doing. One of the hardest parts is trying to make a viable self that you can live with and and go home and respect at the end of the day.</p> </blockquote> <p>3) Charlene talking about how she was drawn to cooking as a child through her grandmother's Jamaican-inflected kitchen, and how, while in college in the 1990s, she realized she wanted to make a career of cooking, which sent her to culinary school and her current path. It struck me that unlike Marcus and Gabrielle, who came up in the 1980s, Charlene could envision for herself a conventional path to success: go to chef's school, get a job. Here's Charlene's take on being a woman of color in the professional kitchen (quote from Raposo's piece): "I just think you need to get past yourself and not think of yourself as 'the different one.' That shouldn't be your focus. Your focus should be following your ambition, making sure you are doing what it is you want to do, and making yourself an asset to wherever you are."</p> <p>4) Floyd on aspiring to cook professionally while growing up middle class in India—and the culture shock it gave his parents, who hoped he would be a doctor. Until pretty recently, the professional kitchen was a place middle class people aspired to flee. Now, with the rise of the celebrity chef, it has emerged as a site of aspiration. Hamilton touched on that topic, too, when she mentioned that suddenly, "40-year-old white males" are applying to work in her kitchen. She went on (quote from Raposo):</p> <blockquote> <p>Now we have the whole new problem of, "I used to be an architect" and "I have a trust fund" and "I have so much more money and power than you're ever going to have in this world." And you have to go up to that guy and say, "You know, your sauce is a little salty."</p> </blockquote> <p>As Ronda Lee put it in her blog post, "gender and race [in the professional kitchen] is a lot to cover in a two-hour discussion." And our panel in Harlem last week barely scratched the surface. I learned again what I learned when writing my piece on gender: This is a fascinating and complex conversation, one that people working to make the restaurant world more inclusive are eager to have. There's so much we didn't get to—for example, what about the role of Mexican immigrants, who are the lifeblood of kitchen lines from Los Angeles to New York? We at <em>Mother Jones</em> plan to continue exploring it. Stay tuned.</p> </body></html> Tom Philpott Food and Ag Race and Ethnicity Sex and Gender Top Stories Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:00:06 +0000 Tom Philpott 247236 at
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