I am actually breathing a rare sign of relief this morning. Against what sometimes seems to be insurmountable odds and, frankly, an awful lot of internal and external sturm and drang, today’s musing is yet another milestone. Counting the ones we have under counsel moved to our AisleOfWit domain, this is the 1000th post on Leblanguage.
And they said it wouldn’t last. Well, at times they may have been right. Had we not taken a needed hiatus earlier this year, we would have reached this milestone much sooner. But, as I hope you can allow, life sometimes gets in the way. As it seems to far too often, and if you’ve been paying attention of late, we’re in yet another pretty rough patch.
Several recent opportunities that many more supportive folks have sent my way for something resembling stability have, yet again, gone in other directions, without even the courtesy of a direct explanation. I count the number of rejections I get because of pending legal actions. It’s now 1326 in nearly 51 months, and while I can give you an explanation of virtually every one having some sort of extenuating circumstances that worked against me, I’m certain most of you would rightly close their eyes and ears at this point and put this all on me. And you’d be justified. In the same manner that I try and hold those in positions of authority accountable for their actions and their bottom line results, I have to hold myself up to the same standard if I’m to have a shred of integrity. And it’s not a pretty picture, at least at this writing.
I do know I have a lot to offer in terms of experience, expertise and context, and I get that from those of you who do reach out in some manner besides e-mojis. I’ll even include my trolls who espouse conspiracy theories and salute celebrity deaths in a manner clearly pointing to some sort of autistic character flaw. They’re at least fans, and in a quantitative world we don’t judge. Fortunately, they’re a minority.
But in order for me to provide the kind of context and, yes, credited references to facts, opinions and contentions that hopefully educate you a bit more about what I deem to be pressing matters in media, politics and life (the intersection I’ve attempted to service since this got started), I rely upon sources that require subscriptions. And there’s a few I’d really like to have access to that, bluntly, I can’t afford. Matt Belloni hasn’t returned my requests for a barter arrangement, and I’m not sure either one of them is likely to do in the near future. I can’t imagine why. 🙂
Many I do subscribe to are through their free portals, and not a newsletter goes by where there isn’t a request to upgrade to a paid tier. The requests are respectful and heartfelt and often very understanding; reality check is you may have better things to do with your hard-earned money than throw a few spare bucks at a writer. But that doesn’t stop them from asking, often with reiterations in separate e-mails explaining their financial realities. And if I’m to believe any of them, I know somehow they’re successful in getting at least a few folks to kick in.
There are some of you who already do in some manner, and I’m truly grateful, more than mere words can express. More days than not, they’re the difference between overdraft fees and being fed, let alone managing the cost of information. If you’re one of those folks, then you need not continue to read today (although I’ll somehow hope you might).
But if you’re one of the less frequent readers who may not have yet found a way to offer some sort of support, even as a thank you for what we’ve already provided, in the same manner as other writers and far more politicians, I’m asking for your help. This time, much more respectfully and matter-of-factly than I often have. But for expediciency, directing you to the same place I previously have. I know, some people use Patreon, some ask for your credit card info directly. To me it’s one and the same.
Allow me to cite a specific example of how I’d like to deploy your donation. I’ve been working on a deep dive into one of the rare success stories in streaming media that’s beginning to attract some attention from more mainstream sources. I happen to know some of the folks directly involved with both content creation and strategy so I have a bit more insight that the mainstream sources relying purely on either spin or data dumps do. My deep dive will connect them and potentially leave you more educated on something that IS working, and why, in the hope if you’re employed you could apply their logic to your task or, if not, be that much more armed to address an interviewer asking for how you’d make things better.
I noticed through the tease in front of a paywall for one of those sources that quite a number of data points that explicitly point out why this venture has worked were included in what they were offering up, a tipping point that to me was worth the investment so as to provide you, my reader, with something more worthwhile. And, frankly, will now save you the effort of having to subscribe yourself to that service.
That investment this morning was, to me, worthwhile, yet it triggered yet another alert from my bank on how depleted my funds are. And it’s still a long way to payday.
If you were contemplating a small donation to someone like Jon Tester, or Harris-Walz, or someone else running for office (G-d forbid, Matt Goetz) that’s bombarding your inbox and your text threads. maybe this one time you might consider redirecting that amount my way? Trust me, they won’t miss it, and it’s not going to materially impact their ability to buy enough media to assure that they win and save their version of democracy for you.
Forget the bottom-line goal on that link. At least for today. In the spirit of this milestone, I’m resetting the bar at a grand, or $1 for every post so far. And that’s in total, not just from one person. So even a fraction of that from you would be meaningful. And, proportionately, WAY more significant.
And if you come back tomorrow, devoid of any truly breaking news on a Sunday like the kind we saw roughly a month ago, you’ll be able to see what I’ve been teasing and why to me it was worth the $17 I found a way to cough up. Which after that disturbing alert I’m inclined to ask for your assistance in helping to cover.
And if enough of you do act, it will clear up some of the obstacles outside of this realm that got in the way of reaching this milestone earlier. And diminish the need to post this link.
My eternal thanks for sticking around this long. Here’s to the next thousand. At least.
Until next time…