In Greek myth, Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest. Hades fell in love with her from afar and—correctly judging that Demeter would never consent to give her up—eventually kidnapped Persephone to become his wife and queen of the underworld. Demeter was distraught, causing the harvest to fail disastrously. Finally, in order to keep everyone from starving, Zeus persuaded Hades to let Persephone leave, but Hades first offered her six pomegranate seeds to eat. For some reason, Persephone went ahead and ate them even though she knew that if she ate anything she’d have to stay in the underworld. This led to some god-level negotiations, and long story short, those six seeds meant Persephone had to spend half of every year in the underworld and half the year with her mother, which is why we have seasons. Or maybe a third of the year in the underworld. It depends on who you believe.

None of this makes much sense. Why did Hades care if everyone starved? Seems like it would be good for business. Why did eating anything mean Persephone would have to stay in the underworld? And having carefully not eaten anything during her captivity, what caused her to lose her mind right on the brink of her departure and eat the pomegranate seeds? Are they really that irresistible?

Beats me. But I learned this in fourth grade and it’s everything I know about pomegranates. I’ve never eaten one, but I guess the takeaway from the myth is that they must be pretty tasty indeed.

September 26, 2018 — Irvine, California

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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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