I Just Read About That…

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.

And then there’s a more fun one that looks into Landmark Education as the inheritors of est.  I enjoyed that one very much as it wasn’t so serious.  And, of course, I enjoy bashing corporate “improvemen” seminars.  It was very critical but very funny.  Another article trashes the “Galt movement” that the “scary Obama administration” has spawned.

Then we get book reviews.  They’re all political in some fashion.  This one had an interview with William Vollman, an author I’ve never read but who I know of as having written Rising Up and Rising Down a 3,300 page book series about the morality of violence.  (He also gave a positive quote on the back of the hard cover copy of Infinite Jest).  There’s also music reviews of a few interesting people I’d never heard of.

Every magazine loves the back page and this one is no exception.  They have a funny/critical look at sunscreen and how, basically, anything over 45 SPF is really just ripping you off.

So basically, I like MoJo, I just hate when they take themselves too seriously.