photo: theloushe via Flickr

Parenthood has a way of changing one’s perspectives and resetting priorities. Where matters might have been blown off or ignored in pre-child years, now they are important. Like clean floors – before kids I was happy to have mine mopped once a week, but once the baby started crawling, I was vacuuming and swabbing the decks every day, worried about little one’s hands running across tracked-in soil and sticking their dirty fingers in their mouth.

And it doesn’t end there; once they can walk and then talk, those little mouths ask increasingly pointed, tough questions. Why is the sky blue? Why is that lady fat? Why is my stepbrother going to war? Why aren’t people who lie going to jail? What’s waterboarding and why would our government do it? Why aren’t they telling us the truth? Can’t we do something to fix this?

Answering those questions with a straight face and an honest heart is one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever had to do. It’s the nature of parenthood, being responsible to family. And it’s why I’ve been a community member at Firedoglake – and why I ask you to help this community by making a donation.

We at Firedoglake need to raise $50,000 $60,000 by Friday night. We’re so close to meeting our goal. Can you please chip in $20, or whatever you can afford, to support our community?

Every day the crew at Firedoglake asks tough questions and digs hard for answers. They are beholden to no one save their family – the crew and its community of readers – just I am beholden to no one but the little persons who’ve asked me for the truth. It seems like a very simple proposition, doesn’t it? Ask a question, get the answer, but I’ve discovered as a parent it’s not, and as a member of the Firedoglake community I’m certain of it. I know it takes many hours of reading research materials and more hours to write and edit cogent summaries based on findings. These people do it on a shoestring and often with little recognition in return, simply because it’s the right thing to do. They know at the end of the day they have done the right thing to protect our democracy and our future – and our children’s future.

But it takes money to make their work appear on line; development and hosting costs along with other operational expenses are far more than the meager amount advertising brings in. Nobody at Firedoglake is getting rich; there’s a lot of time and effort put into this site which are simply labors of love, like plowing through document dumps from the Department of Justice into the wee hours of the morning, or boning up on deepwater drilling technology and sea floor tectonics, capturing and editing video after video of punditry, or reading line by line health care legislation and amendments for months on end. It’s the kind of commitment that we are willing to put into our family because that’s what family does for one another. Yet families still have expenses and this family must ensure that their work is made available to those who need and seek the truth.

I’m asking you to think about the value Firedoglake offers, not just in terms of the solid, hard-hitting questions it asks, or the truths it uncovers and the accountability it demands. I’m asking you to think about your donation to Firedoglake as a way you can personally answer the question, Can’t we do something to fix this? You can make a make a concrete difference through your contribution of $20, $35, $50 or more towards our goal of $50,000 $60,000 before Friday, July 2?

Remember there are some very big questions in the days ahead which will require more resources to answer – we have primary elections and then the mid-term, the outcome of which could be spun by the mainstream media and by partisan politicos. There are commissions stacked with corporatists working against the interests of the people, and investigations into corporations and individuals which when finished could result in indictments or mere findings; somebody must be ready to tackle these to answer the tough questions. Firedoglake will be here to get to the bottom of these, and you can help the Firedoglake family, both crew and readers, with your donation.

Thank you for being a member of this family, and for your continued support.  You’re why I can look my own family in the eye every day and answer their tough questions.