Study: One-Fifth of UK Public “Frustrated Musicians”

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mojo-photo-subwaymusicians.jpgDoes that include Oasis? Oh, sorry, I thought they said “frustrating.” A poll commissioned by O2 Undiscovered has found that 20 percent of people questioned consider themselves “frustrated musicians,” i.e., they wish they could toss aside their current job choice for an exciting music industry career. Respondents indicating that music was their true love included 11 percent of construction workers and 10 percent of doctors. Does anyone else feel a bit anxious knowing that the people building your house or slicing open your belly are daydreaming of landing in the Billboard charts? Actually, maybe they just want to be rich: 25 percent of respondents in the survey said The Beatles would be “the ideal band to forge a career in” if they could pick any band in history. What, not The Rutles?

The study did return one serious finding: three quarters of respondents felt they “had not been encouraged” to pursue a career in music at school or at home, and half felt schools should provide more of a musical education. I’ll support that, although as Obama says, some of you might be the next Lil Wayne, but most of you won’t. Now back to taking out my appendix, dammit!

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user NYCArthur.

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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.

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