Call to Action: Give Money to These Strangers!

Though he’s generally remembered as a social reformer, Spiritual Giant Ralph Waldo Emerson wasn’t one of these foppish, pasty-faced liberals you’re always seeing everywhere. In fact, he was kinda the opposite of that.

Regard this literary karate chop, from “Self-Reliance”:

[D]o not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; — though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.

Despite this aversion to “miscellaneous popular charities” and “the thousandfold Relief Societies,” I can guarantee you, America — beyond all the shadows of all the doubts — that one cause to which Emerson would’ve given probably his entire fortune is the “Thank You to Carl Crawford” one currently being undertaken by DRaysBay.

Basically, what project leader Steve Slowinski proposes to do is publish a full-page message to free-agent Carl Crawford in the Tampa Bay Times. The content of the message? Well, you can read it at the site, but basically it says “We heart you, Carl. XOXOXO. Have a rad summer!” and stuff like that.

If nothing else, the project represents an instance of fan-player interaction unlike one this particular author has seen. Of course, this particular author is also a bit of a moron — so, that’s something to consider, as well.