May 4, 2017

Lunchtime Photo

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Today’s photo has been personally curated for you by my sister. It’s a cactus at sunrise over in Upper Newport Bay. UPDATE: According to a Twitter reader, this is Opuntia ficus-indica, “Brought by Columbus back to the Mediterranean, where it can now be found in large quantities.” According to Wikipedia, “Some of the common English names for the plant and its fruit are Indian fig opuntia, Barbary fig, cactus pear, spineless cactus, and prickly pear.”

Be sure to tune in tomorrow at noon1 for a very special episode of Friday Catblogging. Everyone is saying it’s the best catblogging ever, believe me.

1That’s noon God’s Time, known to you humans as Pacific Time.

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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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