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This is Radio Shack #3169 at the corner of Harbor and Adams in Costa Mesa, California. I was the manager of this store in 1983-84, and now it’s closing down for good, along with the rest of the Radio Shack chain.

I hated it when people knocked after hours—it was always for some $1.39 kind of item—but I knocked anyway last night. The current manager is a guy named Carlos, and after I told him who I was he let me in and we swapped war stories for a while. I took his picture with his cell phone, then took one with my camera. We finished up, shook hands, and then he got back to replacing the “60% Off” banners with “80% Off” banners. It’s the end of an era.

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December is make or break for us. A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. A strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength. A weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again today—any amount.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

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