Friday Cat Blogging – 2 September 2016

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Our new set of sticks with strings and feathers attached is a huge, monster hit. I’m not sure how we didn’t know this before. Marian thinks maybe we’ve never had any around the house with our current cats, and I guess that’s possible.

Anyway, this is now their absolute favorite thing in the world, especially for Hopper. We keep them in the laundry room (where we keep everything that needs to be kept away from the cats), and Hopper figured this out very quickly. She now spends much of her time lounging in front of the laundry room door, hoping that someone will come by and bring out the toy. If either of us walks in the general direction of the laundry room, she immediately trots over with a hopeful expression on her face. A couple of days ago the cleaners left the door open, and Hopper jumped up on the dryer, fished out the toy, and dragged it into the living room, where she promptly shredded it. It’s since been replaced by a somewhat sturdier model.

Hopper still hasn’t figured out where we hide the upstairs stick, but I suppose she will eventually. In the meantime, here she is outside the laundry room hoping that I’ll put down the camera and come play with her. I did.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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