There are lots of people asking for money this time of year; as a matter of fact I believe there are lots of people asking for money all through the year, but this is the time of year we don’t necessarily give them the back of our hand … right off the bat, anyway.
Today I come to you with a message of concern for certain members of this worldwide community of ours who often are not the first ones we think of when we think of giving: your devoted, oft-taken for granted, bloggers. I don’t send money to a lot of bloggers, to be sure. If I tried to send a dollar to each of the 65 million of them here in the U.S. it would put a dent in the old Budzinski savings account big time. But that’s not a hurdle we need to address because of the 65 million probably no more than 23 merit compensation, and the two I have sent money to – The Other McCain and Ace of Spades – are worth far more than I could afford to contribute to.
Stacy McCain is Hunter S. Thompson with better political sensibilities and a slightly healthier lifestyle. Ace of Spades is the smartest and funniest guy you’ve ever met in your life. You should read their blogs several times a day, and you should send them money. Thus endeth the sermon portion of this blog post.
(If you want to contribute to either of them, on Stacy McCain’s site click on his “hit the tip jar” link which appears in approximately every other sentence, and on Ace’s site use the PayPal button in the left sidebar.)
The reason I send money to these two is I know they both are pretty much full time, committed, with no “day job” per se, and they provide, for me, an extremely valuable service (more on this later). Another one in this boat who does extraordinary work is Blog Fu, who I’ve never actually sent money to but did award him with some ammo after he won a contest here so we’ll count that as support. He also has a tip jar link in the right sidebar.
You probably know of others who for whatever reason you believe devote enough of themselves to the blog to deserve some cash as reward or just a token of recognition for jobs well done. Like I said besides these three there are probably 20 others worth paying and chances are they are some of the ones you read – so be a sport and show some love for all that uncompensated work.
This is not to diminish any other causes worthy of support at this time. Our family gives a lot to non-profits of all kinds and churches and such, the more typical charities you think of when giving to those in need, and we give exponentially more to those than I have given to any bloggers. So I strongly urge you to not walk past the Salvation Army ringer, to put some cans of food in the basket, give some toys for tots, surprise a charity or three with a $75 check or more. Just for the hell of it take the money you would have used on ammo or bon bons or another AK-47 for your collection in December and January and instead give it to a good charity or someone you know who is seriously in need. (We happen to have a reader here who is seriously in need but he/she has not relented on their anonymity and is perhaps not comfortable with handouts so I have been unable to send a contribution; if I find out more I may post about it). It is Christmas! Help relieve someone’s suffering and make this time of year happy for them.
But when I talk of supporting a blogger I am not at all talking about charity. What I am talking about is like paying the guy who towed your car back to Virginia after you broke down on the Beltway in some godforsaken part of Maryland in the middle of the night. That guy did you a big favor, saving you a lot of time and trouble, and by paying him you merely transmit the portion of your earnings to which he is entitled by virtue of him doing what you did not wish to do yourself.
I’ve been reading and writing and commenting on blogs for a really long time, dating to years before this blog was a gleam in anyone’s eye. Been through the argumentative phase, the substitute for yelling at the TV. Been through the recreational phase, which supplants video games and comic books. Now the major use I have is for blogs that save me time by aggregating and prioritizing information. If I trust the blogger’s judgment, I can reliably hit their blog when I’ve been away from the news and quickly find out what has happened that is significant. Since in my current phase I have almost zero time to meander the news sites I rely heavily on blogs to stay abreast of current events.
The Other McCain and Ace save me huge amounts of time, allowing me to focus on my job and earn money, so the least I can do is once in a while transmit some small portion of that money to them – because by flying without a financial net in order to do a seriously good job blogging, they do me an invaluable service when I hit their sites several times a day for all the new information they provide.
Other aggregating blogs that are of great use to me, and should also be on your must-visit list several times a day, are Hot Air and Instapundit. Although I’ve met both Michelle Malkin (and some of her bloggers at Hot Air), and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, I don’t know what either of their financial situations is but I sense that they are not exactly dire. They are both outstanding Web sites and probably deserving of much more money than they get – if there were any justice in the world we would just take all the money going into NBC News and redirect it to Hot Air and Instapundit. But they are both very ad-driven and saying “support those sites for Christmas” would be like saying, “Get in the Christmas spirit and buy a Toyota!” Not exactly what I am referring to with this post.
And while we are digressing interminably, I will also share that my other multiple-visits-per-day Web sites are three more aggregators. (In fact, my typical Web behavior throughout the day is to visit about six or eight blogs and these three additional sites several times, occasionally clicking through to other sites they link. That’s about all I ever do on the Web, when I’m not watching AK-47 videos. I find it a very efficient way to stay informed.)
News aggregators can be evaluated, or categorized, by the measures of timeliness and prioritization: to what extent they tell you every single thing that is happening just as it’s happening, and to what extent what is happening that’s important.
Drudge Report is king of prioritization. Whatever is the biggest news of the day, it will be highlighted on Drudge, along with a plethora of other interesting and significant stories, so you have to visit there all the time just to check – although some big things may have happened that don’t show up there because it’s only a couple guys combing the news so their bandwidth is finite.
Free Republic is at the other end of the spectrum – unparalleled timeliness with almost zero prioritization. There is a community of hundreds of people all over the world constantly submitting news links, so if a bus runs off the highway in Peoria you will know about it right after it happens. By the same token, if during a press conference Tiger Woods’ head splits open and from the husk of his body emerges an alien being named Zastchur from the Planet Intercourse who announces that the Earth will be destroyed in 24 hours, that news story might be buried under 30 posts about crashed hard drives and Barack Obama’s financial dealings and such, so you have to scroll a lot.
Sort of a middle ground is Lucianne.com which combines the hundreds or thousands of contributors of Free Republic with a decent prioritizing mechanism at the top of the first page. They have someone tasked with watching all the incoming news, so if there has been a major news story or a really great column it is likely to appear at the top of Lucianne.com before you see it anywhere else.
With those three Web sites you can stay pretty darned well-informed in a very short amount of time. They also each have times they ask for money, and ways that you can send them money if you find them valuable, which I think would be a good thing to do and also helps bring this extensive rambling digression back in line with the original concept of the blog post.
So to tie this all back together: Let me say once again, it is Christmas so for the love of God, man, support a blogger. They save you time and, if they are not saving you time, then shame on you because they should be saving you time. You have a life to live. They are out analyzing and interpreting the world. Take a small portion of the money you are making while you are not having to analyze and interpret the world and send it to them as a token of appreciation for their doing so while you are at work. It is only fair and you are getting the better part of this bargain, I assure you.
And please don’t for a minute think this post is self-serving because this blog is and apparently always will be a mechanism for transmitting money AWAY from me rather than toward me. I learned rather early in life there are people in the world who have money streaming in to them, and people who have money streaming out from them, and I was in the latter group. That is my lot and I accept it. Those various ads you have seen in our sidebars over the years? I put them there for free because I like them and in fact I created almost all of them myself without consulting the subjects. They’ve all been causes I just believe in. This blog is a sidelight for all of us who post here, and consequently this is not among the 23 of 65 million I think you should consider giving money to.
Merry Christmas, everyone. If you are lucky enough to still be employed despite all the Democrats have tried to do, please break out your credit card and be generous during this holiday season!
