Quote of the Day: The Rich Even Get Better Air Than the Rest of Us

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From Harold Meyerson, writing about the Piketty-ization of air travel:

Even the air within the plane is apportioned by class. In its first-class cabins, Lufthansa has installed humidifiers that increase the humidity to 25 percent, while in coach, it ranges from 5 to 10 percent.

Read the rest. The combination of TSA and lost luggage and missed schedules and—above all—the relentless downsizing of both service and seating is why I increasingly have little interest in traveling. For anyone over six feet tall, flying has become such a dismal and cramped experience that it’s just not worth it.

But I’m in the minority. Only 10 percent of the population is over six feet, and anyway, people have long since demonstrated that they’re willing to put up with almost anything if it saves a few dollars in airfare. I guess I should just suck it up too.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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