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FIGHT ON….Today is for football, not blogging, so how about some football blogging to combine the two? Consider this an open thread.

I’ll be cheering for USC in the Rose Bowl, of course, and for those of you who wonder why I’m a Trojan fan even though I never attended school there, the answer is on the right. A couple of months ago my mother dropped off a few baby pages from one of her scrapbooks, and my USC junior alumni card was right there. So as you can see, I’ve been a fan literally my entire life. As for the game today, Penn State has a decent team but I’ll take Pete Carroll’s crew by three touchdowns, wrapping up a 5-0 bowl record for the Pac-10. Not a bad finish for a conference that otherwise had such a dismal season.

UPDATE: Well, it would have been three touchdowns if USC hadn’t played like a bunch of guys afraid to beat the point spread in the second half. But I’ll take it anyway. Congratulations, Trojans!

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

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