You know, this isn’t a big blog. I don’t know how we’re measuring our e-penis in blogtopia lately because I don’t care about that shit, but by any standard you choose, this isn’t a big blog. We can’t change the course of history with just one post, or even with a whole bunch of posts, and the way I know that is that David Brooks is still employed.

However, what we do have is a bunch of people who put their time and money and voices and backs into stuff they care about. You’re not content just to complain about something. You want to fix it. You hear a tale of woe — about journalism, about soldiers, about the Gulf — and instead of spending three hours coming up with a way to shield your fragile sensibilities from giving a shit, you look around for something to DO.

People, in seven days we raised $1,200 for the International Bird Rescue Center. We raised enough money through the blog to adopt six pelicans, and readers told us they sent in enough money for another three. That’s money going to identify and rescue and clean pelicans and gannets and herons and whatever else that ends up stuck in the waste.

The need in the Gulf right now is enormous and what’s more, it’s going to be worse in the months to come. People who fished for a living are going to be out of work. People who ran hotels and restaurants are going to be out of work. The evidence of BP’s colossal disaster is going to be washing up on shore for a long damn time, and the fallout will last longer than that. I seriously doubt this is the only action we’ll be asking people to take.

But for this, for everything you’ve given over the last week for no other reason than that you needed to do something to help and this presented itself, for this thing right now, thank you all.

And now we have some pelicans to name! 

Since we have six, the top six names will be considered as of Sunday night to be our pelicans, and I will send the donations in then. And when those adoption certificates come back, you’d better believe I’m scanning those suckers and posting them up here so we can all share the ownership of these fine birds.

Way to go, everybody.

A.