Love For Sale

And the award for Best Way to Accept an Award from the City Pages goes to:

Dan Lacey at Faithmouse.

He was the winner of this year's Best Right Wing Blogger Award from the scrappy local alternative weekly. And he shows he's a guy who knows how the true value of recognition from that organization:

I hope the editors at City Pages won't view this as a sign of ingratitude. I really do appreciate the honor; it's just that I can't really do anything with it. Very few people are impressed that I won it, and the strangers I've talked to about it don't know what a blog is. A number of fellow conservative blogs are suspicious of me simply for having been awarded the honor, and left-wing blogs won't acknowledge my presence. Therefore I believe a fellow established or would-be blogger may be able to put the award to better use than myself.

Yes, his award is for sale on e-Bay. His opening bid of $666 seems a bit high (if metaphorically correct). But I know there is at least one guy out there who may be interested.

You have to hand it to Dan for pointing out the absurdity of this award. I'm always amazed at the number of restaurants and other legitimate businesses that proudly hang their City Pages "Best Of" Awards in their windows or lobbies. Sure, that paper may be the voice of the local radical socialist, anarchist, and anti-establishment lunatic communities. But they sure know where to get the best car wash in town!

It goes to show you the power of giving awards, or more generally, praise. People love it, crave it really, and are willing to overlook almost anything in receiving it. And the CP has leveraged that human weakness into popularity. This issue gets a lot of readership and I understand it is annually one of their top advertising revenue issues. In life, it pays to praise.

Actually, I must say that the City Pages has improved its tone markedly over the past few months. They've had a management shake up, dumped a lot of the more radical leftists on staff and have changed their focus to a more mature, reasoned, and urbane outlook. Bravo to them. Any blogs lucky enough to receive their recognition next year will certainly be humbled and honored to do so.

BTW, I have it on good authority, they are among the finalists in the upcoming Annual Fraters Libertas "Best Of" blog post, for Best Local Alternative Weekly Funded Primarly by Gay Escort Personal Ads. Good luck to them!