LongTom

Bo, that is a princely gesture, worthy of the gallant Captain. I am humbled before you. Yes, I will take that on, as you wish. However, that brings up another point. Figures like Bo quotes are getting big enough that structuring donations as a charitable contribution for tax purposes would be helpful. No reason not to extract as much "silver lining" out of these clouds as possible, and if Uncle Sam is ready to assist, he's welcome to join in, too. Does anyone have any information on whether it's possible to set up such a beast for this sort of situation?

I've gotten some good advice in the last hour or so. Red-Handed Jill astutely points out that the nature of the problem changed with the magnitude of the debt. This isn't going to be the sort of thing that can be dashed off in a month of ad-hoc passing the hat. (Though I'm under the impression there may be a serious cash flow crunch right around the time of the surgery. That may be the time for a quick donation drive, to cover immediate living expenses. ) We'll get this figured out eventually.

Wild blackberries. Not saying where, either.

Wow. Syren, I'm staggered. A hundred thou... Whoa. I'm really sorry that you feel embarassed. Also, I'm perplexed and angry at a society that could drop you into such a predicament and then leave you embarassed about being there. This is not your fault. I live in earthquake country. If we had The Big One, and your house fell down and mine didn't, I would take you and your family in, in a heartbeat. It's not only the right thing to do, it's the obvious thing to do, and I would hope that neither of us would think twice about it. I dearly wish I could write a check for the whole amount right now. I can't do that by myself. Looks like we are going to need a lot more pirates! A burden shared is a burden halved; a blessing shared is a blessing doubled. It makes me happy to share my blessings with you.

Warped sense of humor. Uh-huh. Patrick, you're on to something there. Last night my car got broken into. I hope they get good use out of my supply of parking meter money. What a lousy way to try to make a living.

Bless you, Lily, and thank you for stepping up to the challenge! As I mentioned above, I will match the amount of your donation. Pooling our resources is how we make them big enough to make a difference. Thank you for your well wishes, Bo. I understand where you are at; I've been there. Best of luck with your studies, and may you find prosperity in the very near future. By the way, something just occurred to me regarding the issue of trustworthiness. Everyone who pledges any amount will get my home address, in order to mail it to me for collection. Were I to abscond with one red cent, you all know where I live. You can even see my roof on Google maps. Very bad idea to cross a bunch of pirates, I'd say...

I would have assumed you had to beat them back with a stick, but congrats on the match!

You can also get the little LED votives around halloween, for 2-3 dollars apiece. Maybe a nice thing to put into a lantern at a site that allows no flame.

^ is a kind and generous spirit!

Yah, now you know why I keep it hidden. It's sort of a combination of these two techniques: this one for the harness and most of the armatures: click here this one for the ribcage: click here, too Here's a front view, for the effect from the kiddies' POV: Ya like the "orb" floating around its head? oooOOOOoooOOOooohhh...

Good luck on that, too.

Secretly pines for a certain goofy Spaniard.

Rock (gym) climbing again last night. Also, regular weight workout once my hands and lower arms were too exhausted to cling to the wall. Spiderman, I'm not. I'm finally figuring out how important being properly fed before exercise is. "Bonk" is a technical term, apparently.

Okay, let's get the ball rolling. LongTom pledges: ++ 100 dollars to Black Syren's medical fund, as a straight contribution. ++ 100 additional dollars as 1:1 matching funds for the next contributors. (i.e., ya got 5 dollars to donate, I'll turn it into 10.)

Lacking a better model, here is what I propose for now: 1) Either post the amount of your pledge here in this thread, or PM me with it if you prefer to remain anonymous for whatever reason. I will respond with a PM of my snail-mail address so you can mail your contribution to me to collect. I will also PM you when it arrives. 2) After a reasonable interval, (say one month), I will tally the total and send it to Black Syren to apply it to her hospital bill. Sounds reasonable?

I'm thinking more in the media. Married women have good sense. Especially when some of them have been burned. But commercials, movies, etc., I see very few positive depictions. On the other hand... Yeah, and once you're ready, you can get the good guy's attention by dusting the cobwebs off his dessicated skeleton.

There are logistics to consider. I have never done anything like this before, and I don't know what bumps we might run into. Here are a few things that occur to me: -- Privacy: People probably don't want their personal info flying around the net. -- Coordination: I'm thinking that a single big contribution is less likely to dissipate into the general fund of the recipient than a bunch of little ones that arrive sporadically. PayPal would simplify matters greatly, but in the case where for whatever reason it isn't feasible? Do we have someone collect so we can send a lump sum? (Yes, consider this an offer of that service.) -- Trust: However, if one person is doing the collecting how do you, the donor, feel comfortable that nothing gets skimmed? I happen to know that I'm trustworthy, but you have no reason to believe that. Maybe a system where pledges are published and receipts acknowledged? Then everything should add up, come presentation time? Any suggestions?

Yep. Somehow, "tight slops" seems a contradiction in terms, but I managed it. ^ is sweet tempered, even under provocation.

You may remember this thread from a few weeks ago, that one of our members has suffered a severe illness. It also has kept her from being eligible thus far for insurance coverage, so she has incurred a medical bill that is as financially devastating as the illness is physically debilitating. Since that happened, I've been thinking about what we can do as a community to step in when our institutions fail us. I for one would like to do something about it. A huge debt is insurmountable for one person, but it is manageable when shared by many hands. I know that there are many folks here on the Pub with hearts of gold, as we all saw when the Royaliste suffered a misfortune earlier this year. With that in mind, I'd like to propose... The Pirates Mutual Aid Society! Donations don't have to be big. The point is that a little bit from a lot of people adds up. Even five dollars means something, when you add it to all the other five dollars from all the other givers. For bigger contributions, when you think of it in terms of cost per day over a year, you won't even miss it. A hundred dollars sounds like a lot, but would you even think twice about pitching a quarter to a friend of yours once a day, if it meant that at the end of the year she'd be free and clear of a huge debt? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to say that your Starbucks allowance went somewhere more noble than your waistline? Also, remember that we are friends here. What kind of friend would stand by during a disaster and not offer up what aid he had to hand? What say ye all?

^ just proved that she is mischievous. Is so!

Never said otherwise. A good relationship is not a boring one. I just don't think we should be particularly shocked at the divorce rate, when we hold up the model of the faithful family man as an object of not very subtle contempt. I have a friend whose husband left her and the kids a few years ago, and has been putting her through emotional hell. And you know what? It's EXACTLY what Jack Sparrow would have done. BTW, it's 16 years for me and the missus.

My back yard becomes a graveyard (partly because of two streetlights out front, and partly not to scare the littlest ones). I don't think I'm up for addin g anything this year, but it's still the biggest effort in the neighborhood. Gravestones, lights, fog, music, ghosts in the windows, flying in midair, and one that's basically a giant stick puppet: Entirely too much fun. The neighbors make comments in May.

Good luck with that.

^ Has a good head on her shoulders regarding relationships.

Being that I'm only one guy out of billions (and a fairly atypical specimen, I'm led to understand), and being that my personal experience of guys in relationships is a highly representative sample of zero, I will have to take your word for it on "what guys generally do." As long as that doesn't describe me, when you are talking about the irritations, I'm happy. I will, however, take the liberty of reiterating my frustration with the popularity of the Jack Sparrow archetype. Would you really want Jack Sparrow raising your kids? Seriously. Culturally, we venerate James Bond, while Joe Sixpack gets a broad wink and a sly nod as a chump. Then we wonder why everybody's long term relationships (especially families with kids) are falling apart, because guys would prefer to be James Bond over Joe "Chump" Sixpack. Our idea of what constitutes a hero is seriously screwed up.