May 30, 2017

America the Beautifull

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Google’s Simon Rogers presents us with a map of the words each state’s residents query most often:

Hmmm. Beautiful is the winner, coming up #1 in five different states. Pneumonia is next. It’s #1 in three cold, northern states—which makes sense—but also in Alabama for some reason. There are also several unique oddities:

  • In Idaho, they want to know how to spell quote. Do they quote people a lot in Idaho? And why do they have trouble spelling it?
  • In Wisconsin, they want to know how to spell Wisconsin. This is a serious failure of their primary school system.
  • In Washington DC, they want to know how to spell nintey, a word that doesn’t exist. That seems appropriate. Perhaps this is a misspelling of ninety by the mapmaker? If so, why does ninety occupy so much attention in DC?
  • Lots of people in Vermont are apparently thinking of fleeing to Europe, but only after they figure out how to spell it. Ditto for South Dakotans who want to go to college.

The headline of this post is a Twitter test. How many people do you think will correct me because they don’t actually click the link?

UPDATE: Yes, Washington DC is fixated on ninety. But why?

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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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