Month: November 2012

Tyler Falk has the answer:

It’s much more efficient to produce fewer, larger turkeys. And that’s exactly what the industry is doing. Last year, 45 million fewer turkeys were produced than in 1995. But in the past decade the size of the turkey is getting bigger, meaning larger turkeys at meals and more opportunity for waste.

Brad Plumer adds:

Of course, there are also a few not-so-savory downsides to hyper-efficient industrial turkey farming. As Lynne Peeples reported last year, tens of millions of turkeys in dense factory farms are fed a diet that includes low doses of antibiotics, which help animals grow faster for still-mysterious reasons. And public-health experts worry that these crowded farms could, in turn, help spread new strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Chart from (pdf) the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Michelle Cottle gives advice to politically mixed families on Thanksgiving:

On some level, such frictions have always been a part of getting together with family. (If you didn’t argue about politics, you argued about religion or sports or the proper way to cook brisket.) Some experts, however, see things growing actively more tense of late, for many of the same reasons that the broader political landscape has become so polarized.  

In terms of our substantive beliefs, the nation has not become radically more divided, clarifies relationship specialist Richard E. Hall, author of the book This Land of Strangers. The big shift, he says, is that “we have exaggerated our differences and joined tribes that celebrate and exaggerate those differences and do battle over them.” As the battle intensifies, notes Hull, so do people’s sense of being wounded.

When you have these crafty alternatives:

Marc Herman flags a UN report (pdf) from August on Gaza's water troubles:

If the U.N. estimate is accurate, that gives leaders in Gaza and Israel three years to hammer out the details of their coexistence before it becomes impossible for the strip, which is smaller than Los Angeles, to provide potable water to its 1.6 million people. Last summer, the British charity Oxfam claimed that Gaza residents were spending as much as a third of their monthly family income buying water on a fierce private market, and reports including this useful one from the Jerusalem Post noted that Gaza’s water authority had faced price increases from the territory’s chief provider of clean water — Israel.

A reader sends the above image:

I know I'm late to this party, but I thought I'd share a personal experience with the debate over medals.  In the Army in 1999, we had the same debate during operations in Kosovo.  On March 31, 1999, three GIs were captured by Serb forces and held for a month. Upon their release, they were awarded Purple Hearts and Prisoner-of-War Medals, sparking a heated debate in the pages of the Army Times over the leniency of the Army award policy.

Then a First Lieutenant, I added my two cents' worth by suggesting the answer was obvious to anyone who watched television. It wasn't just the medals; it was the staff assignment badges, special skill badges, coats-of-arms for regimental affiliations – the American uniform is, if you will, highly accessorized.  I pointed out that in televised NATO press conferences, the British and German officers appeared in uniforms adorned by a half-dozen or so ribbons, making General Wesley Clark, the NATO Commander, "look like the proverbial Admiral in the Mongolian Navy."  

This caught Clark's attention, because several days later a rather sternly worded – and personal – response from the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, arrived in my mailbox.  The irony is that, looking at it now, Clark's uniform was nearly naked compared to Petraeus's.

Another:

I noticed your image highlighting the glaring disparity between Eisenhower's and Patraeus' uniforms.  And then I realised something; I've seen this officer before, but in a much more satirical format:

Another reader:

I find that the full-chest mode of some of our generals to be so "Soviet", as others have said. Speaking as a Vietnam-era vet, I think the most I ever saw on a general during my time (four years), was two, perhaps three rows. Many of the readers commented on the fact that many medals are awarded for "doing their job". Well, the ONLY one I ever got was for MY contribution to a war effort.  Here's my story:

I was in the Army signal intelligence branch in Vietnam. I was assigned to a particularly hot area, but we were on a base and there had to be over 200 other men in my unit. Now this wasn't combat, and I know that, but our unit was attacked several times. We overlooked jungle at one edge of our compound.

In early 1968, the enemy radio units that I was monitoring started to be very active. Large volume of messages were being passed up and down the chain of command. This was an unusual event to be sure. It started on my shift and I was responsible for making some sense out of it. Clearly something was up. I stayed with this for several days. I can't recall all the details of my work, but it was an intense period and I put in very long hours over several days.  My reports were sent to a central command and it turns out they were one of many that were a predictor for the Tet Offensive. This lead to command doing a wide spread warning of impending attack just hours before Tet began. This early warning might have saved lives.

When I got back from Vietnam, I was assigned to a base in California. One day, I was told to show up in dress uniform at HQ. I wasn't sure what this was all about. Turns out I was being awarded the Army Commendation Medal. No, it was not  a Bronze Star, which is a fairly low level medal they usually reserve for combat infantry, but it was an acknowledgment  of my contribution to a major combat event. It was the only medal I ever got for my work and even though its been 40 years, I still feel proud that I got it. No one else in my unit, as far as I know, got one for that time period. To this day, I am not sure why I was singled out, many others worked hard during that time and I always thought it was a unit contribution.

In my branch of the Army, there weren't many who were awarded medals, so the ones we got, we wore with pride. In today's military, there might be a tendency to over reward effort. I guess part of that has to do with the fact that we have a volunteer army and the too many tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I can understand that many would disparage those awards, but for us who did serve in another time, and able to get rewarded was something special.

To this day, I still have that medal and the commendation that went with it. It reminds me of that time and the men I served with and what we were able to contribute to the war effort.

On that note:

When I was in the Army we became increasingly bemedalled, with rows of what we derisively termed "liquoice allsorts". Then one parade an old soldier appeared. The old soldier wore only one small ribbon. But it was for conspicuous gallantry in WWII. We all felt deeply embarrassed, and removed these ridiculous ribbons from our chests very quickly. Decorations for anything other than gallantry in action is insulting.

On the other hand:

I spent nine years in the Navy, and I knew a Mess Specialist (otherwise known as a cook) who was awarded a Navy Achievement Medal for his quick thinking in putting out a fire in a deep-fat fryer by tripping the grease hood's fire suppression system.  The kicker?  He had started the fire himself, by being an idiot and turning the fryer up too high.  Yeah.  He got a medal for putting out a fire he himself started through dumbassery.

Another reader:

I have to say it is beyond annoying to read someone compare the "participation" trophies in children's soccer to the ribbons on soldiers' uniforms.  First of all, if one has a problem with the proliferation of ribbons, blame the various congresses and presidents for creating many of them, particularly the time-in-service and campaign ribbons.  The regulations requiring the wearing of those particular ribbons are an occasional annoyance to soldiers, since they have to keep up with all of those ribbons in the correct order of merit every time they wear them.  Every time a similar ribbon is added, the others don't go away.  The proliferation of military actions has created a proliferation of ribbons.

The number of ribbons that can be used for non-combat recognition, however, has not increased in years.  Among them, the Commendation Medal (which can also recognize valorous actions) has been around since 1941, the Achievement Medal since 1961, and the Meritorious Service Medals in some capacity since the 1960's.  Most of hemedals for heroism in combat or gallantry from the Bronze Star up have existed since WW2, and some from well before (the Medal of Honor being established in the Civil War).

Since this present controversy begins with Petraeus, keep in mind that as a general the rules are literally different.  By DOD and service regulations, generals can pretty much wear what they want.  For enlisted soldiers, there are greater limits on the ribbons worn and medals earned.  I am personally against the wearing of foreign awards of any kind, as many others are, but it will take an actual act of congress to change that.

Still, I have to say, so what?  When I was an NCO, the ability to put in good soldiers for meritorious awards was a great leadership and motivational tool.  Awards are not handed out easily, and there is a paperwork trail a mile long for many of them.  Soldiers also depend on those ribbons for the points they add toward being eligible for promotion.  Why should soldiers give up any of their salad just to make cantankerous, judgmental civilians who never served, don't know anyone who served, and certainly wouldn't ask their own children to do their duty, feel better about some pictures they occasionally see in the media?

To read the entire "The Medals They Carried" thread, go here.

Now that there is a ceasefire, Beinart draws "initial lessons from the second Gaza War, for both sides." Among them:

Remember all the warnings from the Israeli and American Jewish right about how we’d see the “real” Obama after he was reelected. It was nonsense then, and it’s been proven to be nonsense now. Obama’s general orientation in this crisis–support Israel’s right to attack, protect it from United Nations reprimand and then negotiate a ceasefire—was essentially the same one Mitt Romney would have pursued. The difference is that Obama did it carefully and skillfully, with maximum effect and minimum bluster. Throughout the presidential campaign, Republicans discounted Obama’s material support for Israel—as embodied by the American funding for Iron Dome—and focused on what he supposedly didn’t feel in his kishkes. Now in a war in which vast numbers of missiles were fired from Gaza, many Israelis are alive because of Iron Dome.

A vacation destination we can all relate to:

Larison expects the next GOP nominee to be more moderate:

Nothing renders complaints about ideological flaws moot like the ability to prevail in a presidential election. In fact, rallying behind a more “centrist” candidate is often a much quicker, less demanding adjustment to make than revisiting basic assumptions or correcting for past failures. While it may not seem so now, trying to solve the GOP’s electoral weaknesses by finding a more popular standard-bearer is the path of least resistance.

My thoughts here.

In a video produced by The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), Jonathan Rauch argues that cracking down on offensive speech retards social progress:

Greg Scoblete imagines what would happen if Israel took Mead's advice:

I wonder whether Mead is right that Americans would be indifferent to — or even encouraged by — a "time-limited war of unlimited ferocity" against Gaza. Since Mead evokes World War II as the template, let's consider what that would entail: at a minimum it would mean the destruction of most of Gaza's civilian infrastructure and the deaths of tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands, of civilians. It would take a year's worth of awful images from Syria's civil war and compress them (and magnify them) over the space of several weeks. In a fairly short period of time, Hamas would lose its ability to fight back at all and the "war" would become even more one-sided than it already is. At a certain point, unrestrained military action against a civilian population that has no capacity to fight back ceases to be a "war" and becomes something much worse.

That "something much worse" increasingly seems to me to be the logical end-point of the trajectory Netanyahu has put Israel on. As with all fanaticism – and it is passing strange to read an American yearn for a foreign country to engage in a war of "unlimited ferocity" – it has no means for self-correction or restraint.