April 23, 2009

Putting Torture Memos to Music

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I know we’re not supposed to be advocates around here, but I can’t help it. I think I love Jonathan Mann. He’s like our own hometown Flight of the Conchords. The SF Bay Area musician and self-videographer set out in January to compose a song and music video a day, something a once-a-quarter songwriter like yours truly can barely comprehend. And Mann has delivered, too, producing 113 ditties so far this year about culture and current events (posted at his website, RockCookieBottom.com) thus catching the attention of our good friend Rachel Maddow, who invited him on her show last Friday to perform a song that calls on Paul Krugman to step up and help America with its fiscal policy and I think this is a run-on sentence isn’t it? Mann told Maddow he was awaiting the release of the torture memos so that he could set ’em to music. And here’s what he came up with: Mann channeling John Yoo on waterboarding. If it’s a hit, Yoo, being a lawyer, will probably demand a cut of the royalties. Indeed, he may well need it for his legal defense fund.

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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.

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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.

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