March 14, 2013

Today Is the 10th Anniversary of Friday Cat Blogging

This is it: Today is the 10th anniversary of Friday Cat Blogging. March 7, 2003, was the inspiration. On March 11 I announced I’d do it. And on March 14 I posted the first ever Friday Cat Blogging. Huzzah!

To celebrate, I’m doing a Reddit Ask Me Anything session at 10 a.m. Pacific time today. I’ll have a link available at 9:30, or you can just go to the main Reddit IAMA page and search for Kevin Drum. If you have any questions about the cats, this is the time to ask them.

While we wait for the Reddit session to start, how about a stroll down memory lane? To start, here are the very first Friday Cat Blogging pictures. Jasmine is on the left and Inkblot is on the right:

The picture on the left, from April 4, 2003, is one of my favorites of Jasmine. The picture on the right, from April 16, 2010, is one of my favorites of Inkblot. The image that I photoshopped onto the TV screen is still the one I use as the desktop image on my computer.

Jasmine died on January 4, 2007. A few days later we headed down to our favorite local shelter, and after we failed to bond with half a dozen cats the volunteers brought out one final possibility. She took one look at me, jumped into my lap, and purred herself to sleep. Sold! We took her home and named her Domino because she was black with a little white spot on her forehead. Here are the first pictures I took of her, on January 14, 2007. The one on the right is especially appropriate on a transcendental day like today:

Hey, how about some movies? The one on the left, from November 12, 2009, shows Domino and her favorite pair of shoes. The one on the right, from February 11, 2010, shows Inkblot in one of his favorite spots. Both feature bonus meowing at the end.

This is one of my favorite series of pictures of Domino, from June 1, 2007. She’s playing under the sheets as we make the bed, having an absolute ball:

I just happen to like these two pictures. They’re from September 10, 2010:

As we all know, Inkblot decided to run for president in 2011. Here’s his campaign poster from July 24, 2011:

Sadly, Inkblot died on July 24, 2012, when he slipped out one night and got attacked by a coyote. Here’s his final picture:

At that point I thought cat blogging was over, but I couldn’t give it up. Today, Domino carries on the tradition by herself, which is as she thinks it should be. She’ll be here tomorrow in her usual spot, of course.

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate