Knowing Our Place

2011 Winter Quarterly Fundraiser, Day Seven

Today is the last day of our winter fundraiser. Tomorrow we’ll do a wrap-up of all the people and places who have pitched in during the past week.

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As I have said many times in the past, Dymphna and I never planned to spend our declining years this way.

We always assumed we would age out like any other married couple, gardening, analyzing the weather report in minute detail, and reading the obituaries. No American geezer in his right mind would plan to run a Counterjihad blog with a focus on Europe.

But here we are anyway. This is our place now, and we’ll stick to it.

Times are tough, and getting tougher. With the possible exception of George Soros — hi, George! — our readers are in the same boat we are. As a result, there are somewhat fewer people willing to donate this time around, and the amounts are more modest. Even so, it’s gratifying to see that people can be so generous in these hard economic times.

If our circumstances remain this lean, we may have to return to the idea of hosting ads here. As most of you know, after Pajamas Media gave us the boot back in 2008, we made a compact with our readers not to take on any more ads as long as we were able to get by on donations and odd jobs. Up until now, we’ve just barely been able to make ends meet, but the current depression may have advanced to the point where that is no longer feasible.

Our traffic is high enough now that we should be able to find a reasonable rate for hosting a banner ad and some skyscrapers on the sidebar. I haven’t done the research yet to discover which outfit offers the best deal while providing not-too-obnoxious ads, but we intend to be choosy. I don’t know if you’ve seen all those badly-drawn animated gifs of women squeezing their belly fat, but we’d like to avoid that sort of thing if we possibly can.

Suggestions and referrals are welcome.

The downside to ads: Having slow-loading annoying flashing brightly-colored crap on our sidebar and header.

The upside to ads: Readers don’t have to contribute as often or as much.

So it’s a tradeoff. But one way or another, Gates of Vienna will stay in business.

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Donations continue to come in from all over the known world, from the Mount of Venus to the far-flung Islets of Langerhans. Yesterday’s crop included:

Stateside:

California, Iowa, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia

Near Abroad:

Canada

Far Abroad:

Australia, British Virgin Islands, Italy, and Norway

Many thanks to everyone who chipped in, both the newcomers and the faithful regulars.

Dymphna is busy writing thank-you notes, but the donations come in faster than she can send out the emails. Rest assured, however, that you will hear from her.


The tip jar in the text above is just for decoration. To donate, click the tin cup on our sidebar, or the donate button. If you prefer a monthly subscription, click the “subscribe” button.