This Week in Frog (Take That Domino and Inkblot)

Mark Murrmann

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It all started at happy hour. Most wise decisions do. With a bunch of us gathered around a twelve pack of Red Stripe and bag of stale Tostitos, Kevin Drum’s cat blogging became the topic of conversation. Earlier in the day, I’d bragged that we, the latest crop of MoJo interns, could overtake Kevin’s traffic, and after consuming a single screwdriver the brilliance hit me for real. What’s the only thing better than a cat blog? The only thing better than the Obama dog blog? A frog blog.
 
Within an hour, we found ourselves at the 6th Avenue Aquarium in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond district. When we asked the clerk if there were any frogs available, he nonchalantly pointed to an empty, unmarked tank and said, “Sold out.” Despair. We’d come all this way for a frog and didn’t want to wait a week for another shipment to arrive. As my colleagues pondered purchasing an amphibian of a less-rhymophile friendly genus, I took one final look at the “empty” frog tank. Inside, I noticed a pair of eyes slightly protruding from below the water’s surface. It was no mistake; one frog remained who’d been left for dead. When I explained the situation to the employee, he said, “Grab a net.” After first removing some bettas (Siamese fighting fish) from their perch atop the frog tank, we successfully extracted the frisky little fellow from his lonely home and immediately treated him to a feast of three crickets.
 
After spending the night in my apartment and enjoying amenities such as my roommate’s singing, man’s new best friend found his way into MoJo‘s offices this morning after a 40 minute bus ride. (You know how guys who walk their dogs get tons of attention from women? It doesn’t apply to guys with frogs.)

So welcome to our inaugural post of Friday frog blogging. We hope that readers will pitch in to choose a name for our new friend. Balloting will close in one week, on Friday at 6am Pacific Time.  Thereafter, look for This Week In Frog.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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