March 15, 2007

State of Texas: A Plague of Warts on You

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After years of living in Texas, I developed a handy rule of thumb: If the State of Texas does something reasonable, it’s not going to stick. And so it is with Governor Rick Perry’s order to mandate HPV vaccinations for public schoolgirls.

(I should clarify that the strains of the HPV virus linked to cervical cancer are not the same ones that cause warts. Yet another reason why vaccinations will not encourage kids to have sex.)

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DECEMBER IS MAKE OR BREAK

A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again—any amount today.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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