We here at Reason's Hit & Run blog–the writers, the editors, the commenters, the lurkers, the concern griefer troll spoofer combatants with a Code (and website!) of their own–have a relationship with one another that borders on the…well, intimate is one way of putting it. For example: As we hurtle toward Miller Time on Day One of Reason's annual Webathon, in which we tug at every available heartstring in order to get 800 small donations to keep our nonprofit journalism machine whirring for another year of Free Minds and Free Markets, this fantastical news from Hit & Run regular Ken Spicer just came in:
As many of you may know, my wife and I met in the comment pages of H&R and met for the first time about a year ago and were married early this year (after a very abbreviated courtship). Well, I wanted you all to know that our first child came into the world two days ago. And since we never would have met without you all, it was only fitting that we name her appropriately. So let me say hello to you all on behalf of our beautiful daughter, Reason Sophia Spicer. May she grow up and be a credit to her namesake and be a fighter for liberty and justice.
Welcome to the world, lil' Reason Spicer! (She's the one at the top right; bottom right just washed up in a basket from the Potomac.)
Hit & Run was one of the first opinion-magazine group weblogs, and certainly the first with any print circulation to speak of to enable a robust, controversial, and occasionally litigatable comments section open to 99.99 percent of the participating public. We don't always get along, let alone make babies, but our daily interaction is part of the special something that keeps the world just a little more tolerable.
So YOU there, refreshing the comments thread: Say hello to the family's newest addition, give the Spicers your best (including your best snot-removers and diaper-smell-cancellation devices), and think about donating a few bucks to the only nonprofit you've heard of that publishes an opinion magazine that has a group weblog whose commenters occasionally meet and procreate and name their beautiful offspring after the magazine in question!
And stay tuned: Tomorrow afternoon, Nick Gillespie, Kennedy, me, and a whole host of Reason staffers and special guests will be tempting fate and defying technological gravity through a special live Webathon Telethon, during which everyone who donates can make us read or do truly undignified things. No babies will be harmed during the broadcast.
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