April 2, 2009

Coolest G-20 Leaders Forming a Band?

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Anybody else notice the similarity between the arrangement of four of our world leaders at the G-20 conference in this picture, and a famous shot of one of the world’s greatest bands? Because we did. I’m trying to think of a joke about “Obama met the queen and now he wants to be in Queen,” but it’s not happening. So, what instrument do you think each of them plays? Hu Jintao’s got the Freddy Mercury position, but he just doesn’t seem like he’s got lead singer charisma. Sorry, but it’s true. Belusconi, on the other hand, thinks he’s in the Monkees. You’re supposed to try and look cool, dude! Medvedev is so the drummer. By the way, how pissed is Sarkozy he didn’t get in this shot? That’ll teach him to be late to dinner. Although five members does make your musical combo much more likely to be a “boy band,” so maybe he got a “non, merci” from the clearly-intent-on-musical-integrity Medvedev?

Our own Dave Gilson didn’t see “rock band” in this picture, he saw Japanese Photo Booth. He has a point. Check out his enhanced version of the shot after the jump.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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