Our Holiday Fundraiser Kicks Off!
[Below, in lieu of my usual daily article, is my weak attempt to convince everyone to dig deep, open your wallet, and send this site lots of your spare money. Truth be told, I hate these pledge drive sorts of things myself, and I fully admit I'm not very good at it, right up front. My plea below tends to meander all over the place before trying to brainwash you into making a fat PayPal donation (before your mental powers recover). But then, I guess, that's what you would be supporting in general, since that's kind of what we do here, isn't it? Well, except for the bit about brainwashing you into sending money, I was referring only to the "meandering all over the place" part of that, really. Plus, as a bonus today, there are kittens.
If you're interested merely in helpful nuts-and-bolts details on how to donate, please click on the fundraising logo (which should now appear both on the main page, and at the top of every article), and you'll get to such practical instructions. I know that both the instructions and the logo need a bit more work, I'll try to improve both this weekend. I should also mention that any donations you make are in no way tax deductible, so don't try to claim me on your 1040, because it won't work. Just to warn you. ]
The ChrisWeigant.com 2010 Holiday Fundraising Drive Kickoff
For your viewing enjoyment this year, we introduce... (drumroll, please...):
Kittens!
OK, I'm trying to make this less annoying for everyone, so just bear with me here, for a brief foray into the scientific and neurological world. The young of every species looks "cute" to us. There is a scientific reason for this. Our brains are hardwired to find newly-borns of any species adorable. And there's a physiological reason for that, as well.
You see, eyeballs just don't grow much. In most species, the eyes you are born with are pretty much the same size as the eyeballs you die with. They just don't expand all that much. The skull does grow, though; which is where the cuteness factor comes in -- in the ratio between these two. In adults, the ratio of "eyeball size to head size" is pretty well known to all, just from looking around every day at others out on the street. But in most species' infants, the eyeball size looks absolutely huge in proportion to the infant's head size. Which brings us to the hardwired parts of our brains which read this disproportionate ratio of eyeball-to-head as "cute" or "adorable." As with most such hardwired things, this is a survival trait -- so that all the adults will protect the young of the species. As well as other species... but this is merely a byproduct of the evolutionary survival trait inbred in us humans, for our own selfish evolutionary purposes. Charles Darwin (undoubtedly) both personally loved kittens, and also understood fully why he was incapable of doing otherwise.
Ahem. Where was I?
Oh, right... kittens!
Because this whole page is dedicated to the rather sticky subject of talking you nice people into parting with your hard-earned cash and sending it along to our humble website, the editorial board of ChrisWeigant.com Enterprises, Inc. (which includes feline representation, I should point out, in the interests of equality...) decided that kittens were definitely the way to go to promote our begging season. What better multiplier for tugging on heartstrings during the already-saccharine end-of-year holiday season than a few gratuitous kitten mugs staring wide-eyed at you from our pages?
OK, enough about kittens. Here's the hard-sell version, instead. ChrisWeigant.com has been up and running for three and a half years now. In all this time, we have run exactly one pledge drive, for the special circumstance of helping to cover the costs of the trip to Washington, D.C. for Barack Obama's Inauguration. So we feel it's not asking too much to run another one, this year.
Especially since it was not our decision. The overwhelming part of the ChrisWeigant.com 2010 Holiday Fundraising Drive is that it was created by our readers. This fact still blows me away, if truth be told. I had halfway considered doing a pledge drive this year, to upgrade our facilities here, but had put exactly zero effort into doing so, and never publicly announced the idea.
But one regular commenter here tipped my hand, so to speak. He pushed the idea of a fundraising drive so hard -- both here and on Huffington Post (when their moderators would let him get away with it) -- that there was nothing for us to do here but go along with the idea. His offer of matching all donations up to $250 was even more overwhelming. Which brought us to the conclusion: when you've got a tiger by the ears, you hold on and enjoy the ride.
And tiger it has turned out to be! Our most prolific commenter here (and, some would say, our most contrarian-for-the-sake-of-being-contrarian) then threw down his own mailed glove, and promised a flat rate of a fifty-cent donation for every comment he made until Christmas. Then the site's unquestioned biggest fan and promoter (and defender, over on HuffPost) decided to toss her own Joan-of-Arc-ish matching feminine-but-still-seriously-iron-mailed gauntlet into the fray.
Truth be told, I am merely catching up with this wave of enthusiasm, and while the ChrisWeigant.com 2010 Holiday Fundraising Drive rollout should have happened weeks ago, I am still kind of catching up on things here. Hey, those cool "gimme money" graphics don't just create themselves, if you know what I mean. Plus, at heart, I am inherently lazy.
But don't let this exuberance from other commenters deter the casual reader from making a more modest donation, I beg of you. Did I mention we have kittens on display?
Heh.
Seriously, anything you care to send our way to support ChrisWeigant.com will be fully appreciated. We added new ads this year, but they have yet to cover the basic costs of hosting the site. Much less foot the bill for trips to Netroots Nation and other extraneous costs. A few bucks will add to the fundraising total, and you'll feel better about visiting the site, because you'll then be a patron instead of some sort of moocher.
Did I say "moocher"? I'm sorry, that just slipped out. Here is a picture of several kittens to erase such unpleasantness from your brain -- because, genetically, you just can't help yourself, can you? Stare deep into these kitty eyes, and while you are busy "Ooh-ing" and "Ahh-ing," might I humbly suggest you click over to our donation page and send along what you can?
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
my allergies make me immune to such cuteness! anyhow, we all know puppies are nicer and actually appreciate what we do for them, which is more than can be said for most humans, much less felines.
http://www.slappytickle.com/images/sniper-kitty-jfk.jpg
Nonetheless, be it known that i'm sponsoring the cw education special. The more commentators you get, the higher the donation. i haven't decided on a method of calculation just yet, but i figure it should somehow be education-based, just for consistency.
and apologies CW if i jumped the gun; i recall you expressed interest in doing a column on education, but technically you didn't indicate that it was on the schedule per sé.
OK, let me say first right up front. I am NOT a cat person.
So such cute, cuddley, adorable (did I say cute??)....
Where was I???
Oh yea, I am not a cat person... :D
Anyways.....
If I may be permitted a small off-tangent anecdote here.. (Blame NYPoet.. His picture reminded me of it.) :D
There is a little known story in Star Trek lore. Back in the late 60s when the Original Series was going strong, Roddenberry (may he rest in peace) wanted to shake things up a little. So he floated a trial balloon on a time-travel story that had Kirk et al going back in time and having a hand in the assassination of JFK in order to keep the timeline stable.
"This isn't the time to talk about time!! We don't have the time!!!...... uh.. Where was I??"
-Deanna Troi, STAR TREK 8, First Contact
Fan response to this was swift ("swift" today means a matter of minutes. "swift" back then meant a couple weeks.. :D) with many fans loudly proclaiming that they would never watch Trek again if it was shown that Kirk and his crew was part of the JFK assassination.
I had always thought, what the hell was Roddenberry (may he rest in peace) thinking?? Even today, such a concept would have to be really looked at and done right. Although Quantum Leap did it pretty well, with Sam Beckett leaping into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald and then into a USSS Agent on the president's detail.
**SPOILER**
But it turns out that Sam was there to prevent the killing of Jackie Kennedy as well.
Anyways, I had always thought that Roddenberry (may he rest in peace) was a little off in that...
OK, sorry to go off like that.. My early morning-just woke up-haven't had my required 4 Diet Cokes posts tend to ramble...
(and, some would say, our most contrarian-for-the-sake-of-being-contrarian)
I know it just SEEMS that way.. :D But if ya'all would just think like I do, then I wouldn't have anything to be contrarian about!! :D hehehehehehe
naaaaawwwww, that would be pretty boring, eh?? :D
Michale.....
97
"our most contrarian-for-the-sake-of-being-contrarian) then threw down his own mailed glove"
I must be slipping.
"the hardwired parts of our brains which read this disproportionate ratio of eyeball-to-head as "cute" or "adorable.""
It's a bunch of characteristics, not just eye-to-head ratio. If you take oversized eyes and paste them onto an otherwise adult face, it just looks creepy from the dissonance as one of our brain circuits says "cute" and others say "not cute".
Can I assume that this is an open thread?? :D
"Ya know what happens when you make an assumption? You make an ass out of U and Umption!"
-Mitch, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT
Michale
100.... ta da........ :D
As an aside, CW.. I accidentally posted this in the OBAMA POLL WATCH thread. Could you delete it from there?? Tanx.. :D
[Editorial comment by CW: Done. And I won't even ask you to change it to 101, due to the extra comment. Heh. ]
It's a bunch of characteristics, not just eye-to-head ratio. If you take oversized eyes and paste them onto an otherwise adult face, it just looks creepy from the dissonance as one of our brain circuits says "cute" and others say "not cute".
You got that right! :D
http://sjfm.us/temp/bigeyes.jpg
Michale.....
101
Chris, my readers just blew me away this week by responding to my fundraiser appeal, so I'll throw some nickels in the hat too. But I have to say that bunnies appear to have at least as much magic power as kittehs...though I didn't post a pic of the bunny in a Santa hat yet, that might make all the difference too.
nypoet22 -
Sniper Kitty is hilarious, I have to say. I wonder if he's related to Commando Kitty? Heh.
Michale -
Didn't this become the episode where a Space Secret Agent Man from the future prevented a 1960s NASA rocket launch? "Gary 7" maybe (did that from memory)? You know, the one with Teri Garr as the secretary, freaked out by the typerwriter which ran itself?
This episode was supposed to launch a spinoff show, but it never actually happened, I do know that.
dsws -
It's hard to keep up with Michale's voluminous output, I'd be the first to agree with you on that... heh.
As for your point, yeah, there were those creepy "big-eyed kid" paintings back in the 1970s, which pushed cuteness to the boundaries of the bizarre. Also, anime and pretty much every animal ever animated by Walt Disney.
It's not just eye size, it can also be pupil size as well -- there have been scientific studies which show that, shown identical photos of babies, people will gravitate towards the ones with dilated eyes.
Also interesting to me is the fact that we have hard-wired into our DNA a trigger response to babies crying. That particular pitch and sound simply CANNOT be ignored the way other annoying sounds can be. Again, a survival trait for the species. What I posit is that a house cat's meows are so close to being exactly the same sound and range as babies crying for a reason. After all, as BashiBazouk once pointed out to me, cats almost never meow at each other -- only to humans. They have other "language" they use with each other (mostly "get out of my yard NOW, meaufeaux!!!" type warning sounds), but other than very young kittens, they never meow to each other. This may be the only example (the only one I'm aware of, at least) of one species developing a language which is solely used to communicate with another species. For, again, survival reasons. Cats and humans have been together ever since we started evolving from the hunter-gatherer stage. When we started growing grain, we started having the problem of vermin in the grain stores. Semi-domesticating cats was the perfect answer. I dunno, could be reading too much into it, but it sure does make you think...
Osborne -
Thanks!! I will concede that bunnies (and puppies, too) also rank extremely high on the cuteness scale. But, as you said, the kittehs!! I can has cheezburger now? Heh heh.
:-)
-CW
Bonus pic:
The feline member of the ChrisWeigant.com Enterprises, Inc. board, contemplating Christmas mischief. Not exactly "cute" eyes, those. Heh.
Wisely, she decided not to make the leap and tear Santa a new one....
:-)
-CW
Didn't this become the episode where a Space Secret Agent Man from the future prevented a 1960s NASA rocket launch? "Gary 7" maybe (did that from memory)? You know, the one with Teri Garr as the secretary, freaked out by the typerwriter which ran itself?
This episode was supposed to launch a spinoff show, but it never actually happened, I do know that.
I am not sure if the Kennedy episode morphed into the ASSIGNMENT:EARTH episode with Gary Seven.
But you are correct. That episode was supposed to be a pilot for a new series that never materialized..
However, a "sequel" of sorts was done in novel form, ASSIGNMENT:ETERNITY which was very well done. It even wove in elements of STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY quite nicely...
Love those time-travel tricks.. :D
Michale.....
102
"Semi-domesticating cats was the perfect answer."
I gotta say, though, that snakes are pretty cool too.
Chris,
This is FANTASTIC! I’m sure I don’t know how anyone worth their own salt will be able to resist those adorable little kittens and, therefore, the urge to contribute to the First Annual CW.com Holiday Fund Drive. Now, we have a really fun page to link to when we’re telling everyone about it and urging them to do their part to support excellence in journalism.
In this post-press era in which we so precariously live, it isn’t difficult to persuade readers to put their money where their mouth is and make a generous donation in exchange and appreciation for a quality product and an essential service ... to protect our own sanity and democracy itself! And, that is no hyperbole.
I wouldn’t spend too much time on making this page better - it’s pretty excellent right now. Besides, there’s too much else going on that needs your attention and, the busy holidays are upon us, too. So, don’t forget to take time to stop and stand under the mistle toe for a while and enjoy the holiday season!
By the way, the Christmas tree at ChrisWeigant.com Enterprises, Inc headquarters needs some work ... a few ornaments and tinsel would be nice. :-)
Finally, a big THANK-YOU goes out to David for lighting the fire under your feet, so to speak! :)
As for Michale ... you’re a contrarian just for the sake of being a contrarian? WHAT!? Say it ain’t so, Michale! And, keep those comments coming, fast and furiously ... :)
Michale -
"Assignment:Eternity"? Really? Is this another Heinlein ripoff? He published a book (collection of short stories) called "Assignment In Eternity" in 1953.
One other question springs to mind: Was Gary Seven part of the "time cops" which made appearances throughout the later ST series? I know they had at least a few episodes in Enterprise and Voyager, but not so sure about the other series. It might have been developed in TNG series, but I didn't watch that, so not so sure...
dsws -
Well, I base a lot of my supposition on the Rudyard Kipling story (from "Just So Stories") "The Cat that Walked by Himself," so my research is admittedly kinda flimsy on this one. Snakes would work, you're right, but cats are much more cuddly.
From Kipling:
"The Cat... said, 'I will catch mice when I am in the Cave for always and always and always; but still I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.' "
Heh.
Liz -
That photo was taken in the midst of the CW.com holiday tree-trimming session (which is, of course, Druidic in nature, as all holiday trees are), so it should really be seen as a transitional shot. The lights were strung, and Santa had just made his appearance, at the forefront of other ornaments and tinsel. Our esteemed CW.com board member jumped up to a vantage point to check things out, as she was quite obviously not satisfied with the arrangements. She considered leaping over there and teaching the fat man in the red suit a lesson, for a good many minutes, before she decided he was too far to bother with. Good thing, too, as it probably saved us a steep vet bill....
:-)
-CW
Liz -
I'm disappointed. I thought that "her own Joan-of-Arc-ish matching feminine-but-still-seriously-iron-mailed gauntlet" would provoke some sort of reaction from you...
Heh.
:-)
-CW
Liz,
As for Michale ... you’re a contrarian just for the sake of being a contrarian? WHAT!? Say it ain’t so, Michale!
It ain't so, Michale.
Baaaa ding ding.... :D
CW,
"Assignment:Eternity"? Really? Is this another Heinlein ripoff? He published a book (collection of short stories) called "Assignment In Eternity" in 1953.
Not sure. I'll leave the Heinlein analysis to you as you are much more the Heinlein expert than I am. Yea, I know.. What kind of SciFi geek am I!? :D
One other question springs to mind: Was Gary Seven part of the "time cops" which made appearances throughout the later ST series? I know they had at least a few episodes in Enterprise and Voyager, but not so sure about the other series. It might have been developed in TNG series, but I didn't watch that, so not so sure...
The Federation Time Ship Relativity. :D One of my favorite Voyager episodes. And yes, there were "time cops" in Star Trek: ENTERPRISE as well...
While it's possible that Gary Seven might have been a "time cop", I don't think enough foundation for that was laid in the initial ASSIGNMENT EARTH episode. Seven did claim that he was an Earther abducted by aliens, trained and then sent back to Earth to help the poor old earthlings along. While it was intimated that these aliens had knowledge of the future, it really wasn't made clear that they were time travelers themselves.
But that would be a helluva tie-in, eh!!! :D
The lights were strung, and Santa had just made his appearance, at the forefront of other ornaments and tinsel.
Speaking of the ornament atop the tree, most people put angels on their trees.. My dad once told me why.
He told me that Santa had a real bad xmas a long time ago. Everything was going wrong. The reindeer crapped on Santa's boots, the sleigh broke a runner and, to top everything off, Mrs Claus was being a real nag, telling Santa not to drive so fast, etc etc etc..
The last straw came when Santa went to get into the fixed sleigh. His pants ripped.
At this precise moment, an Angel came up to Santa, holding a Christmas Tree and asked, "Santa?? What should I do with this Christmas Tree???"
That's why, to this day, Angels adorn the top of Christmas Trees..
:D
Michale.....
103
Chris,
>>>I'm disappointed. I thought that "her own Joan-of-Arc-ish matching feminine-but-still-seriously-iron-mailed gauntlet" would provoke some sort of reaction from you...
Oh, it did - I wish you could have been here!!!
:-)
I though my "Lone Ranger" remark very late on Thursday would have provoked some sort of reaction from you ... I have to say that I laughed myself to sleep that night. :)
"This may be the only example (the only one I'm aware of, at least) of one species developing a language which is solely used to communicate with another species."
I have in mind there was something on HuffPo a while back ... .
"When two dolphin species come together, they attempt to find a common language, preliminary research suggests."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/30/dolphins-attempt-common-l_n_745014.html
Kittens!!!!
Sorry to not have responded earlier, CW, but we were, coincidentally enough, transporting 2 cats via airplane from the East Coast to Portland.
And yes, now I can answer the question, what happens if the cat poops on the plane?
The answer is that you blame the smell on the baby in the seat in front of you.
Loved the shot of giant surly kitty plotting against treetop Santa!
-David
Holiday Fundraiser Update
You may need to "reload" the page in your browser to see it, but our holiday fundraising total has been inching upwards on the "thermometer" graph at the top of the page.
A hearty "thanks" to everyone who has donated so far, as we've passed the milestone of 1/3 of our fundraising goal! Woo hoo!
All donations, from the very small to the generous "matching funds" pledges, are extremely welcome.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled comments...
-CW
Holiday Fundraiser Update
Due to a surge in donations over the past day, the Holiday Fundraiser has exceeded its expectations, and quite early in the month of December has reached the milestone of passing halfway towards our ultimate goal. With over two weeks left to go to Christmas, we're on track to meet our fundraising goal, thanks to all of you!
:-)
-CW
@cw,
not that we'll need it to meet the fund-raising goal, but my offer still stands, apply the full weight of your political skills to waxing on the education debate, i'll still donate for each person, old or new, who we can get to post at least one comment about it here. People need to educate themselves about education, and i daresay it wouldn't be a bad idea to incentivize bringing some new blood to the web-site. even if i disagree with you, i trust that you'll be fair, which is more than i can say for the makers of "waiting for superman."
here's the scale i came up with:
2.50 each for the first 20 (up to $50) - i figure with all our regulars and a couple friends posting we'll easily meet this goal.
2.00 each for the next 100 (up to $250) - If we can meet this goal that means we've gotten a 120 people to expose themselves to some reality-based commentary on education, an outcome which i consider well worth the price of taking one of my civics classes to the movies.