Our house in Caherdaniel was at the top of a hill near two cemeteries. The newer graveyard was, as you might expect, boring. I passed it twice a day as I drove out each morning and in at night, but I never bothered looking around. The old graveyard, however, was great. It was thickly overgrown, foggy at times, and full of ruined old church buildings. I was pretty careful when I walked around in it, but not careful enough: I tumbled completely into a hole covered by brambles and vines one time. I sustained no damage other than a few scratches, but for a while I wondered how I was going to get back up. I was suspended entirely by plants, and there was no obvious way to lift myself into a sitting position, let alone a standing one. But eventually I did, and after that I was even more careful.

Anyway, here’s a Celtic cross at sunset over one of the graves.

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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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