Fiji Water Makes McSteamy’s Threesome Sex Tape!

Via Gawker.com

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Okay, so I watched the McSteamy sex tape.

For work.

Since I got a tip that Fiji Water made an appearance. You see, our next issue’s cover story is on the ubiquity of the fashionable water that may be the epitome of cool, but is also imported from a military dictatorship and is far from eco anything.

From what I can tell, and I’m not really a sex-tape connoisseur, this particular three-minutes-I’ll-never-get-back offers up naked C- and D-list actors (Grey’s Anatomy‘s Eric Dane and his wife of Noxema fame, Rebecca Gayheart) hanging out with a whiny lady (and apparently former Miss USA, how those pageants embolden) who makes phone calls half-naked for the camera and complains about the staying power of lighted rubber duckies. (Since this is a family channel I am not embedding the video here, but you can head over to Gawker at your own risk for the link.)

They just talk about getting it on; there is no real action. And we only care, apparently, because there are lots of boob shots. And talk about how sexy and cool they are. (“You’re the prettiest girls this side of Mulholland;” not a great boast when your competition stops at the ocean.) And would it be the talk of the entertainment news shows proclaiming the glory of “Dane’s Anatomy” if it were two dudes and a girl? Maybe, but Dane’s career might head in a different direction. Not to mention, the last sex tape that was actually a “tape” was probably something George Michael was involved in in the early 90s. Enter the sex MP3!

But back to my work mission.

We’ve been seeing a LOT of Fiji Water. Celebs love the stuff: Mary J. Blige won’t sing without it, Tom Cruise, Ben Kingsley, Justin Timberlake, Diddy, the list of Fiji Water fans goes on. Famous people dig it, and apparently so do those making desperate pleas for celebrity (the product shot comes at 2:29). Incidentally, other sex-tapers who’ve been seen sipping Fiji Water here and there include Paris Hilton, Spencer Pratt, and Megan Fox.

Mostly this just bolsters writer Anna Lenzer’s point, that celebs and those striving for status and fame use Fiji Water as a status upper. You don’t see a word processor on that bed, you see a sleek Apple laptop (thereabouts 2:45). And if former Miss USA were sipping on Poland Springs, now tell me, is that sexy?

The problem here is that all this publicity means that more and more regular folk like us want to be cool like them so we buy Fiji Water (or other fancy waters). Fiji Water is now America’s leading imported water and all this free publicity certainly helps. Which is too bad since the company, while involved in a bunch of charity on the island, is not as “Fiji Green” as it purports to be: They hide in tax havens, leave the locals to drink dirty water, and offer up twice the plastic as a bunch of other bottled waters. Love it, hate it, defend it (the water, not the tape); join our conversation, here. Personally, I’ll stick with tap, though it’s probably a safe bet that the popularity of Fiji Water, and sex tapes, will continue to rise.

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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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