December 18, 2007

Tuesday Cures Your Flus with Music News Day

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Music News

  • BBC Radio 1 has edited the Pogues’ Christmas standard “Fairytale in New York,” reports the NME. The song, originally a hit in 1987, now has the word “faggot” dubbed out, as well as the phrase “an old slut on junk.” Who knew Kristi MacColl and Shane MacGowan were actually singing real words? MacColl’s mother defended the songs in an interview, saying the singers are playing “characters.”

  • 50 Cent has become the first high-profile artist to perform in the Kosovan capital Pristina since the war. The rapper gave a concert at a soccer stadium Monday night for which over 25,000 tickets had been sold.

  • The Breeders have announced a tour of the UK and Ireland in April of 2008. The band has been inactive for five years, but never officially broke up, and Kim Deal has of course been busy with a reunited Pixies. Word “on the street” is the Breeders will headline Coachella as well.

  • M.I.A. has posted a rambling message on her blog decrying the “censorship” she’s experienced in the U.S., referring to the removal of gunshot sounds from her track “Paper Planes” during a performance on the Letterman show and by MTV. She also said she “felt soooooo bad for what they did to my sound” on the Letterman performance, something I mentioned here previously. Anyway, M.I.A. wants us all to watch the uncensored version of the video because “putting meanings in your videos in my opinion is a dying art.” Fine, fine:
    •

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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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