Friday Cat Blogging – 26 December 2008

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BOXING DAY CATBLOGGING….We spent Christmas Eve this year at my mother’s house, which naturally means I acquired many new pictures of her implacably adorable new kittens. I think they went through three complete cycles of manic zeal followed by utter slumberland during the few hours we were visiting.

But there will be riots in the street (punctuated by the occasional snooze) if Inkblot and Domino are booted from their rightful spots as America’s Favorite Cats™ for two weeks in a row. So here they are. Domino is in her normal morning position, draped over Marian’s head and sucking up all her bodily warmth. Inkblot, whose relationship with the new pod is sometimes a fraught one, was in a pod-loving moment a few days ago and spent the morning curled up in the sunshine on the other end of the bed. Usually he disdains the pod and sleeps right by Marian’s feet, which basically makes her into a cat sandwich. On the other hand, my mother now has four cats, and apparently all of them like to sleep on the bed at night, so I guess it could be worse.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists 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 hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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