July 7, 2010

Beck U. Courses: Your Ideas

Courtesy photo / <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677//vp/38069824#38069824">Countdown with Keith Olbermann</a>

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My, oh my. From Keith Olbermann’s Countdown sendup to your comments and tweets, it seems plenty of folks have gone abuzz over Glenn Beck’s foray into academe. When he announced—just before the 4th of July holiday—that he’d offer “Beck University” classes online for his angry horde faithful viewers, MoJo drew up a short list of course offerings we hoped to see. And since then, you’ve added ever more.

Based upon our cullings from the MJ comment section and tweets with the hashtag #BeckUCourses, we’ve compiled just a few of your crowdsourced course descriptions, with links to the creative readers wherever possible. Below that, check out a live tweet feed of the ideas that just…keep…coming…

Keep an eye out for our next hashtag fandango—what will it be? Post-election job titles for Michael Steele? New policy suggestions from Sharron Angle? The possibilities are—well, if not limitless, a lot of fun, anyway!

  • HITLR 101: Intro to Modern American Politics—@LeahLibresco
  • Art Appreciation with Thomas Kinkade—@S_Shapiro
  • Art 200: Drawing Devil Horns on Obama—@CPUihlein
  • Philosophy 303: Transcending Jus Ad Bellum & Jus In Bello and Just Waging War—@mgdemocracy
  • The Social and Cultural Roots of Founding Fathers Fetishism—@krwilmott
  • Gender Studies 201: Male Tears for Money and Power—@WilliamHarryman
  • Foreign Language Requirement: Tongues (Conversation Class)—@onomatomaniac
  • The Teleology of 911 as Political Weapon: Harnessing the Ineluctable Truthiness—@JoshHarkinson
  • Semiotics 101: Decoding the Hidden Socialist Messages in Household Objects—@sflorini (also known as “Reds Under Beds”—@RedScareBot)
  • Pinko Floyd: Neo-Communist Utopias and Progressive Rock—@thatdanstewart
  • Holocaustic: Appropriating World-Historical Tragedy for Public Speaking Points—@adamweinsteinmj
  • Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Panels:The Semiotics of Sarah Palin—@joshharkinson
  • From Benedict Arnold to Barack Obama: Hitler’s influence on US History—@whatscottreads
  • EDU 551 Rewriting Curriculum and Textbooks Using the Texas Model—Joe Pribyl
  • Keynes 101: The Problem with Bisexual Economists—Anonymous
  • OB/GYN Seminar: Miscarriage Management: Mocking Women on Air—bg
  • Latin 1: How to Give Your Fake University a Real Latin Motto—Anonymous

 

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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.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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