An Olympic Tribute to the NHS? Really?

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I’m a lifelong liberal. I think it would be great if the United States adopted some kind of genuine national healthcare program. It’s probably my single biggest domestic policy obsession, and I assume many of my readers feel the same way.

Even so, I’ve got to ask: am I the only one who was a bit gobsmacked at the lengthy tribute to the NHS during the opening ceremonies at the Olympics last night? The NHS? Seriously?

Also: I heard a lot of complaining on Twitter about the NBC commentary during the first hour or so of the show. But I have to tell you, if it weren’t for that commentary I wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. That was Glastonbury Tor? Really? And when the tree rose out of the ground and all those grimy folks came marching out, would I have figured out that this marked the transition from agrarian England to the Industrial Age? No siree. (As for the dancing plutocrats, I’m at a loss for words.) Nor would I have figured out that the Frankie and June segment was supposed to represent yet another transition, this time into the digital age. (And was it really supposed to also represent a transition from nightmares of one kind to a “parent’s nightmare” of a different kind? Was that actually Danny Boyle’s intent, or did the NBC guys just make that up?)

I dunno. I wasn’t a fan of the Beijing opening ceremonies, which frankly struck me as a message that the synchronized hordes of the Middle Kingdom would destroy the decadent West before long. So I was happy to see the decadent West strike back with something a bit more chaotic and free form. The opening lines from Shakespeare were a nice, understated rebuttal to Beijing. But I’d still opt for a show that you could mostly understand without it being explained in real time.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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