“I Know That Some People Are Not Front-Huggers”

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(Photo: Tim Murphy)(Photo: Tim Murphy)Marfa, Texas—I have some closing thoughts on Texas’ ultra-weird Big Bend country in the pipeline, but while you wait, here’s a really quick sketch I found in my notebook, from the Marfa Lights Festival in (you guessed it!) Marfa:

“We do not preach a religion; we tell people about Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior,” says Betty Scarbrough, of Alpine. She’s wearing a white t-shirt with “Free Hugs” written in blue letters, and, as you may have guessed, giving out free hugs.

“People from all over have forgotten how to hug,” Betty tells me. “We’ll tell people ‘We’ll give you a free hug; we’re not trying to convince you of anything.’ Last year, I hugged a man, he said it was the first time he’d been hugged in 40 years! Can you believe that?”

At the big Christian music festival up in Midland, Rock the Desert, they had a prayer tent about 10 times the size of the one here, but then, Marfa only has 2,100 people, so what would be the point? They’ve been doing this fair for two years; a family in town asked them to come and they said yes, of course, so they come on over from Alpine. “It’s just a way of going out to different places” and making a difference.

So that’s the idea behind “Free Hugs.” But how does it work logistically? As this delightful Times trend story notes, there’s no right way to hug. What happens if someone goes in for a bro-hug*?

“Usually I will reach out, I will embrace them,” Betty says. “I know that some people are not front-huggers, so I get them from the side, like this.”

*Until I sat down to write this post, I, like you, was hopelessly unaware of the fact that the bro-hug has become become the subject of serious academic research. This Denver Post piece gives a pretty good introduction to the debate. Money quote: “At least two professors — Kory Floyd at Arizona State University and Mark Morman at Baylor University in Waco, Texas — have dedicated part of their careers to studying the male hug. The two often collaborate on research.” Collaborate? I believe the term is “scholarly embrace.”

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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.

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