October 16, 2015

Angela Lansbury Is 90 Years Old Today. She Is Why You Are Named Jessica.

Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher on "Murder, She Wrote"CBS

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Come with me down a rabbit hole, won’t you?

The most popular name for baby girls in the United States from 1970 until 1984 was Jennifer. In 1985, Jessica surpassed Jennifer and stayed the top name until 1990.

Most common baby name for girls Jezebel/Reuben Fischer-Baum

What could have caused the change? Murder, She Wrote, in which Angela Lansbury played Jessica Fletcher, premiered on September 30, 1984, on CBS.

Did the one cause the other? Maybe! Maybe not! I think it did.

Today is Angela Lansbury’s 90th birthday. If your name is Jessica and you are between the ages of 25 and 30, you should thank her.

Unless you hate your name, in which case you should blame her. But it’s her birthday, so keep it to yourself.

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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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