April 2, 2009

Coolest G-20 Leaders Forming a Band?

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Anybody else notice the similarity between the arrangement of four of our world leaders at the G-20 conference in this picture, and a famous shot of one of the world’s greatest bands? Because we did. I’m trying to think of a joke about “Obama met the queen and now he wants to be in Queen,” but it’s not happening. So, what instrument do you think each of them plays? Hu Jintao’s got the Freddy Mercury position, but he just doesn’t seem like he’s got lead singer charisma. Sorry, but it’s true. Belusconi, on the other hand, thinks he’s in the Monkees. You’re supposed to try and look cool, dude! Medvedev is so the drummer. By the way, how pissed is Sarkozy he didn’t get in this shot? That’ll teach him to be late to dinner. Although five members does make your musical combo much more likely to be a “boy band,” so maybe he got a “non, merci” from the clearly-intent-on-musical-integrity Medvedev?

Our own Dave Gilson didn’t see “rock band” in this picture, he saw Japanese Photo Booth. He has a point. Check out his enhanced version of the shot after the jump.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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