In less than a year when I began keeping track, visitors to Secondhand Smoke have increased from 10,000 to the just hit 15,000-plus visitors each month. I am most pleased. Granted, it isn’t a Little Green Footballs or a Daily Kos, but I am happy.
The issues with which we grapple here are among the most important the world faces. I deeply appreciative everyone who takes the time to stop by here and who ponder the issues of human exceptionalism, intrinsic human worth, bioethics, assisted suicide, animal liberation, slavery, and the other matters covered here. And I wish to reeiterate a point I have made before about how impressed I almost always am by the thoughtfulness of the commenters here—and the courtesy with which people debate—an attribute too often lacking in the cybersphere. I will keep striving to find stories of interest and to find ways to make the site fresh and worthy of your important time. Thanks again to all.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
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