October 30, 2007

Tuesday Coos, “Music News Day”

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News

  • Dead Elvis knocks dead Kurt Cobain out of the top spot on Forbes‘ list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. Actually Kurt drops out of the Top 12 entirely. Other late musicians on the list include John Lennon (#2), George Harrison (#4), Tupac Shakur (#8), James Brown (#11), and Bob Marley (#12).

  • Rapper Nas defends his decision to call his upcoming album the N-word (which I typed once in the last story and now I just feel too queasy about it to do it again) in a convoluted statement connecting Barack Obama’s presidential run to the recent spate of noose-related hate crimes. “It’s probably going to make people uncomfortable,” he says about the album’s title. You think?

  • Arcade Fire’s Win Butler responds to Sasha Frere-Jones’ New Yorker article pointing out the band’s, er, “whiteness.” Butler begins with a serious discussion of Arcade Fire’s musical heritage, but once he correctly points out that American music is already so racially mixed-up it’s hard to tell what’s what any more, he seems to realize what the rest of us have as well: Sasha Frere-Jones is kind of crazy, and why are we spending any time worrying about this?

  • Blog Brooklyn Vegan collects pictures of this year’s hot Halloween costume (something you’ve already noticed if you went out at all over the weekend): Amy Winehouse. Fine, but jeez, ladies (and gentlemen): at least have someone else draw the tattoos on your arms so it doesn’t look like the scribblings of a 5-year-old.
    •

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    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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    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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