Searching for Sharia

Flickr user <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sidehike/164088356/sizes/l/in/photostream/">sidehike</a> via Creative Commons

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In early October, Sharron Angle stoked fears that sharia law was overtaking American cities, notably Dearborn, Michigan and Frankford, Texas. The mayor of Dearborn refuted these claims, telling CNN “There is no sharia law in Dearborn… it isn’t even talked about in Dearborn.” Frankford, Texas, will have a harder time denying Angle’s claims, as it doesn’t technically exist anymore, having been incorporated into Dallas in the 1970s. But two brave men, Joe and Mike, drove to former Frankford to see for themselves what it’s like to live under sharia law. What they found was a notable lack of rocks (for stonings, obviously), a grave marked Sheriff (or as they pronounce it, sha-REEF’), and minarets cunningly disguised as Episcopalian bell towers. Video is worth watching if you have the time. If you don’t, some of my favorite quotes, below.

0:47 “Very insidious of these Muslims to bring sharia to a town that doesn’t exist”

3:50 “We thought we’d go to the cemetery to see if they’ve buried any terrorists..” “Or nuclear weapons..” “Oh, I didn’t think of that.”

6:15 “This is the absolute worst sharia law-led municipality in the United States.”

6:54 “Perhaps Ms. Angle has done us a great favor, here in Texas, by scaring away the sharia people. So they went back to where they belong and where they come from: Dearborn, Michigan.”

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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.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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