December 29, 2015

People Are Freaking Out About Dogs Wearing Pants


In the days between Christmas and the New Year, much of the media world is in a silly state of pretend. A lot of people are nominally on the clock but have, in truth, sort of checked out. Anyway, because of that you get very silly posts like the one you are reading now, which is a write-up of a Business Insider write-up of a Reddit thread.

The internet—or those unlucky ducks on it this rainy December morning—is arguing about how dogs should wear pants.

reddit

 

So, look, the answer is obviously the one on the right.

Have a happy New Year.

(via @mayapologies)

Update 10:40am ET, Tuesday, December 29, 2015: Jared Keller at Maxim ran down the original creator of the image and has a nice post up examining how it came to tear the internet apart.

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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.

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