This week’s news from Iran and the original reporting and scoops you read here about it hopefully will persuade you of the importance of supporting my work. The Ford Foundation doesn’t give me grants. The EU doesn’t know I exist. I haven’t written a book and there are no royalties pouring in. It’s just you, my readers, who enable me to do this work (and a very supportive wife!).
There’s a Paypal button in the right sidebar which I encourage you to click and make as generous a donation as you can to support my work. Peace and justice doesn’t come cheap. And exposing the moral and political turpitude of the miscreants of the world is something that demands a commitment from those like you who believe in this mission. Step up and help. Now. Please.
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who’s responded and contributed. Your support is appreciated!
Is there any particular special privilege associated with donating?
It might be good to offer some kind of incentive rather than just depending on people’s altruism.
Give the guy a break,for those of us who read this blog daily a token of appreciation is in order.
I am just trying to suggest that some kind of incentive could help boost donations.
Maybe a members only section or some kind of advanced commenting privileges.
Certainly all of the readers of this blog (myself included) appreciate all the work that goes into the product.
Given the current economic climate, however, I think since money is tight some kind of nominal incentive could go a long way towards getting folks to open the purse strings.
This is so you: First be nasty, and then when you are called out, pretend you are just asking some ‘sincere’ questions. I have to hand it to you: You are really an uber-troll.
What was nasty?
I am mystified by your comment.
In any case, I wish nothing but the best of luck on the fund raising efforts – this is an excellent site and I am grateful to be a part of the (mostly) friendly discussions.
What was nasty? Well, Daniel F. caught it, and so did I. Quit pretending to be ‘mystified’. There is a pattern to your comments. You are not fooling me.
Just donated.
Keep up the good job. We need people like you more than ever.
Would prefer sending a check if possible.
P.
I haven’t donated yet, but I will do so in the next day or two.
I think Richard does extremely important work, we need more voices like his.
Shalom.
ditto
Excuse me for what may seem a naive question, but why do you need financial assistance to write a blog? There are many free blog hosts such as Blogspot, WordPress and so on.
First, there are expenses for hosting this blog. It is not free as you assume. Second, there are expenses for phone calls and other research to produce the posts I write. Third, I do this as a full time job. Most people are paid for the jobs they do. I’m not paid very much for what I do here, but I think it’s important to ask people to do so to show that it’s not a gift offered, but a job. It’s one I’m devoted to wholeheartedly. But still one that deserves support.
Now that you know this I expect you’ll go to Paypal and make your own contribution, right?
Surely your research is done (or could be done) mostly on-line and for free. Likewise, you could contact your sources by e-mail (or at least by Skype), thus saving on telephone expenses.
Just trying to be helpful:-)
Unless you support my work you’re not being helpful. Since you’ve chosen not to, pls don’t waste our time.
That is the kind of hostile response which is hardly likely to induce me to support you.
I never expected your support. Nor were ever intending to offer it. Financially of course. You were wonderfully full of tips & advice that were not helpful, which is how I knew you never planned to offer any real help.
I never said I was offering financial help. I don’t suppose it occurred to you that not everyone has the money to make contributions to everyone who asks for help. If I think that it would be better to donate the little I can spare to, say, Cancer Research, or something like that, that doesn’t mean I can’t try to be helpful in other ways. But if you are going to be so rude and unpleasant about it and, in effect, tell the world that you are only interested in money, then you can hardly expect people like me, when we do have a little bit of cash to spare, to donate it to you.
You offered me something I never asked for, yr opinion that I shouldn’t need support because there should be no expenses associated with maintaining this blog. Your advice or comment was insensitive though you appear not to have realized that.
No, I didn’t. I asked a perfectly innocuous question, because I didn’t understand what expenses you could have for writing a blog and when you explained how I had misunderstood the realities of your work, I came up with some (IMHO) helpful suggestions.
I can’t understand why you are so defensive. Nor can I understand why you react in such a hostile and insulting manner.
I wrote a post asking for financial support. Instead of offering any, which was the topic of the post, you asked why I should need to ask for funds since I shouldn’t have any financial needs in running the blog. And yes, after running this blog for 8 yrs & doing fairly well at it, for someone to come along & try to tell me that I don’t or shouldn’t have expenses & that I shouldn’t need financial support is galling. Next time you want to comment, I’d suggest you try to respond in a way that is directly related to the topic of the post. What you did was offer questions & advice that I neither solicited nor needed.
Richard,
This reminds me of the joke about the miser who went to the central bus station in Tel Aviv and asked a taxi driver how much it would cost to be driven to Jerusalem.
“One hundred Shequels said the taxi driver”
“O.K.” said the miser.
Upon arrival in Jerusalem the miser pulls out his wallet and gave the taxi driver fifty Shequels.
The puzzled taxi driver says “I told you one hundred Shequels for the trip”
“True” said the miser”…but you came too,so you also need to pay”
Sometimes ya just can’t win!
You could always ask the Milken Family Foundation.
Indeed. I love the idea of taken ill-gotten gains from the Drexel Burnham Lambert combine…a joke.
Go for it. Redistributing wealth is a noble ideal. I would suggest asking Bernie Madoff, but I think he’s a bit tied up at the moment – literally!