April 5, 2017

Lunchtime Photo

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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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WE'LL BE BLUNT

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.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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