November 5, 2007

Brodner’s Person of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt

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TR. Happy to have him back for his useful POV on “waterboarding,” which, in his day, was called Chinese Water Torture among other things. During our cruel invasion of the Philippines, torture was too much for him. A general was using this simulated drowning business and TR first ordered a full briefing then a court martial. When the court martial ended in an acquittal Roosevelt just fired him. To quote one of my students at SVA, “I can almost remember what a president used to be like.” Go to politico.com for the very interesting piece by Daniel Rezneck.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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