There are some wonderful people who have given gifts to innumerable others this year, without asking anything in return. Indeed, they are often challenged, criticized and attacked for having done so. They are the blawgers, lawyers (and some non-lawyers who missed their calling) who write. There’s no fame or wealth for their efforts. There’s no cost to any reader for enjoying, or hating, what they have to say. They write it. Others read it. It’s as pure a gift as there can be.
Last year, I offered my appreciation to the Wise Men (and women) of the Blawgosphere. Some are gone and new ones have joined. All have become a part of a grassroots offering of thoughts, news, and sometimes even wisdom. To them, I am no more than a reader like any other.
While we all appreciate our readers, that anyone would use their precious time to read what we scribble, I suspect that readers don’t always have much of an appreciation for what blawgers do. Many think there are financial gains to be had from blawging. I assure you, there are none.
Blawgers give of their time, their thoughts, their talents to write. In return, they are told how ignorant and stupid they are by people they don’t know. They are stalked and threatened with physical harm by actual psychotics with keyboards. Why would anyone put up with such abuse? Yet they do, and continue to write.
I appreciate my fellow blawgers. Very much. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for the gifts they give me all year long.
Mark Bennett, Dan Hull, Gideon. Jeff Gamso, Marc John Randazza, Mark Draughn, Joel Rosenberg, Brian Tannebaum, Carolyn Elefant, Eric Turkewitz, Norm Pattis, Eugene Volokh, Orin Kerr, Ken and Patrick, Mike Cernovich, Ken Lammers, Matt Brown, Scott Henson, Walter Olson, Charon, Radley Balko, Geeklawyer, Jamie Spencer, Jon Katz, Jonathon “I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Links” Turley, Tom Goldstrin and Lyle Denniston, Dan Harris, Ron Coleman, Colin Samuels, Douglas Berman, Dave Hoffman, Frank Pasquale, Dan Markel, Dan Solove, David Lat, Kevin O’Keefe, and the Queen of the New York Blawgosphere, Niki Black. I’m sure I’ve left other people off this list, and I sincerely apologize for the limits of this old man’s mind.
Thank you. Each and every one.
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I appreciate the video to the left. Except, I’m actually working today!
Very nice of you to say this, Scott. Thank you.
Thanks for the kind words; they’re very warming, particularly nice, after having come in from shoveling out the Fimblewinter around SWMBO’s car.
Thanks, Scott, to you, too.
Although if you really wanted to thank me, you would grade this stack of exams I have on my desk.
Consider it done. They all get A’s. You’ve done a fine job teaching them.
Thanks for advancing the discussion among the legal profession over the last year. I may not always agree with you and often wonder if your goal on occassion is to push that button on my chest to set me off, but I’ve enjoyed the discussion. And perhaps most importantly, you’ve made me think.
You know that I respect what you’re doing and how you try to accomplish it, even though we often clash around the edges. But I try to keep you (in the generic sense) honest and focused, which isn’t always easy for someone in your business and in this environment where deception has become pervasive and the ethical lines of marketing essentially non-existent.
I appreciate you candor – though being Irish it can piss me off at times. 😉
And if I didn’t think you were smart enough and tough enough to both take it and give it back to me, I would never inflame that Irish temper of yours.
God Bless us everyone!
Thanks for having a site which always has something interesting for all of us to ponder.
Thank you, Tiny Ken.
Thanks, Scott. You set a standard we can all work at meeting.
Much thanks for the kind words, Scott. Hope your holidays have been and will be fabulous;)
Thank you Scott.
Ho, ho, ho!
No thank you doctor.
Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.
Informative post, blah blah.
We have a nice little community, don’t we?
Thanks, Scott, for your blog. Thanks also for your discussions over time about various Underdog blog entries.
A fellow criminal defense lawyer recently said she is not sure she would have enough ideas to blog about. I know your situation is very much the opposite, as is mine.
How far the Internet and blogging have come from the days of samizdat, when dissidents would surreptiously re-type, distribute, and smuggle out writings when they had no access to phtocopiers or printing presses, and would risk life and liberty to do so, as I discuss at http://katzjustice.com/underdog/permalink/Underdog-is-three-years-old-Happy-420.html .
The clarity in your post is simply striking and i can assume you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with future post. Thanks a million and please keep up the ac complished work
Et tu, Brute?
Smooth how you slipped your post in at the end.
As it happens, I posted about your third birthday.
Hi, Scott- The link provides but a small morsel of my decades-long obsession over human rights for dissidents — and even mainstream speakers — and fair access for them to get their words into readers’ hands, including hurdles raised by governments who would deny newsprint to newspapers not seen as faithful enough to the party line and newspapers in some African countries and elsewhere that would focus on sports coverage in the face of censorious governments.
Thanks for your previou Underdog birthday coverage. Jon
No reason to thank me, when I’m trying to thank you for your many contributions.
heh heh heh