November 7, 2008

Melissa Etheridge Says “You Can Forget My Taxes”

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mojo-photo-melissaetheridge.jpgYou go. Singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge has published a blog entry on Tina Brown’s upstart web site “The Daily Beast” in which she responds to the recent passage of California’s Proposition 8 by promising she won’t pay state taxes any more:

Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.

Hey, can we do that? Well, as much as I’m all about a creative class tax cut, my meager, scattershot, and often-cash income, plus the ability to write off just about everything I do (please don’t audit me!) means the whole “not paying taxes” thing wouldn’t be much of a protest in my house. Here’s my suggestion: let’s make Mormons’ fears real, and try and destroy as many happy heterosexual marriages as we can. I’ll meet you at the Pitt-Jolie mansion, Melissa. Wear something sexy, we’ve got work to do.

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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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