Pet Peeve Watch: I. Am. Not. A. Guest.

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Yet another store has been hacked, losing data on millions of credit and debit cards. This time the victim was Target, but it could have been anyone. Once again, corporate America has demonstrated that it couldn’t care less about customer security and privacy.

But you already knew that. Instead, I’m curious whether I’m alone in hating, hating, hating this particular euphemism from Target’s CEO:

Target’s first priority is preserving the trust of our guests and we have moved swiftly to address this issue, so guests can shop with confidence. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

I. Am. Not. A. Guest. A guest is someone I invite into my home and ply with free food and drink. Because, you know, they’re my guest. Target doesn’t do that. They sell me stuff. I pay for it. (Probably with cash from now on.) I can complain about poor service. I can return stuff I don’t like. I can choose what I want to buy and what I don’t. That makes me a customer. Not. A. Guest.

So knock it off.

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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