August 8, 2016

Today Is World Cat Day

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Behold Wikipedia: “World Cat Day, August 8th, was created in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. World Cat Day is celebrated on 17 February in much of Europe and on 1 March in Russia.”

Why is it celebrated on February 17th and March 1st in other countries if World Cat Day is August 8th? This is a mystery. But it does prompt the occasional email. Here’s one I got a few minutes ago from a disgruntled reader:

Why are newspapers even mentioning cats instead of hard news? I might blame Mondays but this blog is in every edition. Guess what, cats are not important. They should not be wasting space in a news organization. I understand that you are pandering to the ‘madding crowd’ but for heavens sake, stop it and replace it with ‘REAL’ news.

Cats are not important? Hmmph. I think we all know what I have to say about that:

Isn’t she adorable? Who’s not important now, huh? Not this incredibly cute calico kitten, that’s for sure. She is now officially named Cinnamon, by the way, and she’s either peering into a bathtub or else her tiny size is making a sink look ginormous.1

1It’s a bathtub.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

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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