May 29, 2009

Friday Cat Blogging – 29 May 2009

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I don’t know how well it shows up in the photo, but when they write the definition of “smug” in the next edition of Webster’s, they’re going to use this picture of Inkblot.  He was so pleased with himself he could hardly stand it.  On the right, we have an action shot of Domino darting out from behind the quilts to protect the house from an invasion of cat toys.

And here’s our latest experiment in feline pyschology.  Last weekend Marian brought home a blue blanket and tossed it down in the entryway.  Inkblot made an immediate beeline for it and claimed it as his new favorite thing.  The next day we put the blanket up on the couch.  He wouldn’t go near it.  We put it on the carpet.  Ditto.  We put it on the carpet right next to the sofa, and he not only wouldn’t go near it, he actually circled way around it as if it were going to bite him.  So then, out of curiosity, I picked it up and put it back on the hardwood floor in the entryway.  He made an immediate beeline for it and curled right up.  Now what the hell is going on with that?

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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.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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