Get Out the Vote…With Ringtones?

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As if cell phone ringtones weren’t annoying, ubiquitous and pervasive enough, now ringtones have gone all political on us.

Ringtones08.com says you should, “Let your cell phone do the talking. Exercise your freedom of speech and ring!” Come on, now. Not to sound like a curmudgeon or anything, but if folks need a ringtone to get fired up about an endless war or your First Amendment rights, we’ve got bigger problems to address.

That said, I couldn’t help but notice that “Klaus Flouride” created some of the tones. Is that the same Klaus Flouride that played bass guitar for the 80s punk band the Dead Kennedys? WTF? The “GeorgeAllenMacaca” ring tone mixes a hip hop beat with a quote from Allen ‘s famous “macaca moment” speech. The “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” ring mashes a quote from George Bush about former FEMA director Michael Brown with the Arlo Guthrie song, “The Train They Call the City of New Orleans.”

But the ring tones are pretty janky. For better ring tones and a better laugh, check out Obama ringtones on the Daily Show.

My advice? Switch your phone to vibrate and move on. Also try checking out our latest issue, which just hit newsstands, where we ask a whole mess of politicos and digerati, are we entering a new era of digital democracy complete with Hillary ringtones, or just being conned by a bunch of smooth-talking geeks?

We also spell out the latest on cell-phone activism and the political power of text messaging.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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