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Well, I now have a big mystery on my hands. For several years I’ve suffered from a chronically sore right shoulder. About six months ago, my left shoulder joined the crowd, and a few months later my neck did too. My entire upper back is now perpetually in pain, especially at night.

But guess what? During my stay in Chicago the pain largely abated. Not completely, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. I figured this was because I wasn’t tapping away at the keyboard all day, but that’s not it. Last night, the pain was back as bad as ever, and after getting home from the airport I hadn’t done anything more than spend a few minutes clearing out email.

Thus the mystery: what was different about Chicago? The mattress at the hotel? It’s the obvious candidate, but it didn’t really feel very different from the one we have at home, which is new and seems pretty nice. The pillow? I didn’t notice anything special there either. Something in the air? The fact that I took a sleeping pill the first couple of nights? What what what? I sure felt better in the morning there than I do here, though. It’s really very annoying to come so close to an answer but still not really have any clue what’s going on.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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