The D Word

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The D Word

Well, it's that time again. Donation time.

October is a traditional month where we call for donations.

And believe me, every cent is appreciated. Talk about helping to keep the lights on...

OL is now blessed with a few people who have chipped in much more than others: Peter, Brant and Ellen. In a couple of bad times, Marc helped out. So times are not as bad as in previous years. I hope they don't mind me mentioning their names. To each of them I am grateful in a most humongous way and, if you love OL like I do, you should be grateful to them, too.

Never, ever let us forget about Kat. She carried this site during the times of greatest participation by the luminaries of O-Land and, over the years, in pinches. Much love and gratitude to her from me.

Also, I am grateful to those who have sporadically sent in small sums. As I said, every cent is appreciated, so never think a small sum doesn't make a difference. It does.

On a more technical issue, I want to get to the point where we move OL to a different platform, but that is still in the future. The current software makes any changeover hellishly difficult without loss of data (or better, misplacement of data), so I will only do that when I can fund kickass coders and technicians myself. Hopefully, that day is not too far off.

Why is this important? Because, OL's place in the world, and by extension, your participation, is to be made permanent. Our most precious material is our archive of posts by luminaries in the non-Ortho Objectivist world going back to 2005 or so. 

More later as this becomes reality.

In the last three years, we have drifted in a more political direction, but I don't see how this will change until a new president comes in.

The Objectivist world is split strongly about the current president. I mean, what would O-Land be without hostile divisions?  

Those who hate the current president are quite passionate about their position. They tend to go the route of distancing themselves from those who support him. I can't control what they do, nor do I want to. But they don't control me, nor do they control anyone on OL. People know where I fall. I do so heartily and I do not anticipate changing unless the president embraces ruling class crony elitist values. Others disagree with me and that's cool.

As things settle down after the 2020 election, I anticipate OL will get back into a more philosophical direction. 

But since we are where we are right now, like all good things and those who stand their ground with integrity, when the history books are written, I believe OL will be on the side of the angels who helped make this world a better place. We will be a small voice, granted, but we will be there.

We run outside these monster social media sites in today's world and the good news is that they cannot censor us. Also, we toe no party lines with people and organizations that self-identify as an Objectivist movement. Frankly, the Randian world is too fractured to be a movement. But the no censorship condition is the same on OL. People on OL use their independent thinking as individuals. I am quite proud of that.

So even though our audience is not huge and it fluctuates, after all, even on bad months, we still pull in over 2,500 unique people, many of those are the cream of our subcommunity. They may not participate much by posting, but they read. And they keep coming back. So I know we are getting through to them.

If you like being on this journey, if you like making a difference in this world in concrete terms, not just in words on a forum or a social media site, if you like helping to make history for as modest as it is with OL, then please consider making a donation. You will help us keep going.

Just click the yellow-orange "Donate" button at the top of the page and it will take you to Paypal. There you can contribute in several manners. If you do not see a Donate button, go to another page on the forum and it should appear.

And if you can't or don't want to donate, we love you just the same. Your presence, even if only as a reader, is precious to us.

Thanks and much love,

Michael