Back oh, fifteen years ago, I subscribed to Mother Jones. I also subscribed to an unvaried assortment of political mags: The Nation, The Progressive, and In These Times. But as I grew less politically motivated, I slacked off on the subscriptions. I just didn’t have time to read all of that.
Recently, I added Mother Jones to my Google Home page. I started seeing some good headlines, so I thought I’d look into resubscribing. And for $10, I got a year.
At first I was a bit disappointed in it. The first issue I received had the cover story: Who Ran Away With Your 401K? And frankly, it’s gone, I don’t really need to see the trail of footprints leading to a culprit that will never be punished. And that is the general focus of MoJo: Follow stories that no one is covering; muckrake, if you will. And they’re very good at it. And yet, most of the time I feel like nothing really comes of it. Knowing that someone is at fault doesn’t make them pay for it (most of the time).
The other problem I had was with what we can call liberal guilt. I’ve got better things to worry about, frankly. So, when I get an article like this in the current issue: What’s Your Water Footprint? And the subtitle is If you thought calculating your carbon impact made you feel guilty, just wait…. Well, I’m not going to read that.
So the magazine starts like most magazines: the Out Front section is full of short articles that are usually depressing.
I do enjoy Conspiracy Watch, a small box that delves into a current conspiracy (by any side of the political spectrum) and sees if there’s any merit to it (with a rating in tinfoil hats).
There’s usually a look at someone in the administration and then some heavy-hitting articles. This particular issue is all about the Drug War. So there’s an article about drug violence in Mexico. But then a more light-hearted, I suppose, article about drugs in the U.S., including a timeline for drug issues, was more interesting. This particular one was a first-person account of the war on drugs.
The muckraking article was about the car dealers who steal from military families. (more…)