September 28, 2007

Friday? Don’t Cry For Me Music News Day

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Beyonce

  • Beyonce‘s November 1 concert in Kuala Lumpur has been cancelled after the singer refused to conform to the country’s dress code for performers. Muslim groups had protested the concert, which would have been Beyonce’s first Malaysian show. The nation’s Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage instituted performance rules in 2005 including the dress code, which mandates that female performers show no skin between the tops of their chests and their knees. Insert “Bootylicious” joke here.

  • Radiohead have announced that a website containing a cryptic countdown and purporting to be related to the band is a hoax. Radiohead’s actual site features coded messages that many have interpreted to be announcements about the band’s upcoming album, including a message that it could be released in March, 2008. Why make us work so hard, Radiohead?!

  • The latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees include Madonna, Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, Donna Summer, Chic, Afrika Bambaataa, The Dave Clark Five, and The Ventures. Five acts will receive the honor. What’s the point of this again?

  • The “Who Killed Biggie Smalls” mystery gets more mysterious: an inmate who had previously implicated the LAPD in the crime has now renounced his testimony, saying it was a “scam” to get money from the city. Waymond Anderson, serving time for murder, says he “did what he had to to survive,” and that a lawyer for Biggie’s family was in on the scheme. Confused? Me too.

    • WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

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    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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    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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