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From the Wall Street Journal today:

In 2006, when activist investor Nelson Peltz battled Heinz for board seats, he pushed the company to make a number of changes, large and small, including developing easier-to-open ketchup packets.

This is in a story about — hey. Wait a second. Did I read that right? Back in 2006, a shareholder activist was demanding that Heinz develop an easier-to-open ketchup packet? Seriously? I guess shareholder activism isn’t what it used to be.

Anyway, Heinz has finally complied, introducing a ketchup packet that can be opened at one end if you want to squeeze out the ketchup, or the other end if you want to dip your food in ketchup. It’s also bigger than the old packets. I don’t like ketchup, myself, so I’m not blown away by this news. But maybe you will be.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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