Friday Cat Blogging – 27 May 2011

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My sister headed off to England for a vacation yesterday, and before she left she insisted that I post some extra special catblogging today so that she’d have something good to look at while staving off jet lag on her first evening in town. We always do our best on that front, but it really all depends on the cats, doesn’t it?

So how’s this? On the left, Inkblot is camped out on our new sofa, which Karen hasn’t yet been over to see. So this is her first look at it. Inkblot’s bright-eyed expression is due to timing: I took this picture last night just as Marian was shuttling food around for dinnertime, and that perked him up. On the right, Domino is basking (as usual) in the sun this morning. However, this picture’s extra specialness was probably dimmed a bit because she kept batting the camera strap around instead of holding still in some kind of extra specially cute pose. Still, I hope this does the job.

Have a good Memorial Day weekend, everyone. There will probably be a light bit of posting this weekend, but normal blogging will resume on Tuesday.

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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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