November 8, 2017

Lunchtime Photo

Several months ago I promised to take a picture of a local bumblebee. Sadly, the very next day our association’s gardeners pruned back the hedges around our lake where the bumblebees hung out. That was it for bumblebees.

But patience is a virtue, no? Irvine’s bumblebees may have flown off somewhere else, but Ireland still has plenty of them. When we got back from our trip to the Skellig Islands, Marian noticed this bush swarming with bumblebees, so I snapped off a few dozen shots. It may have taken a while, but thanks to the town of Portmagee you are finally getting your long-promised bumblebee.¹

¹This is assuming that some smart-aleck doesn’t come along to tell us that this isn’t really a bumblebee, just some kind of pseudo-orchid bee that looks like a bumblebee but is actually a member of the Fettucini family native to northern latitudes. I’ll wait.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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