Friday Cat Blogging – 4 October 2013

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Domino’s favorite activity, by far, is to demand a belly rub. Here’s how it works: she comes barreling down the stairs (because I’m usually downstairs) and starts squawking loudly. Then she tries to lure me into the living room, squawking the whole time, and waits for me to get down on the floor because she prefers that I be at her level. Then she walks back and forth in front of me while I pet her, with her squawks slowly turning into a sort of low rumble that’s halfway between a meow and a purr. Then, after circling back and forth five or six times (never less), she plops down on the floor and turns over for a belly rub.

It’s an extremely choreographed maneuver, with very specific sounds and dance moves. This morning I brought my camera with me for the 9 am showing and took a few selfies. This one is toward the end of the performance, with Domino already plonked on the floor and, as you can see, my hand rubbing her belly. In the picture she looks suspicious, but that’s just a trick of the light. In real life, she was rolling around and completely blissed out.

This happens about a dozen times a day. It’s lucky for her that I work at home.

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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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