Supplies Are Unlimited, But Order Now Anyway
Supplies
Are Unlimited, but Order Now Anyway
You have just a few more
days--until March 9--to sign up for your Charter Subscription to
Slate
. After that date, only paying subscribers will have full
access to the site, e-mail-delivery services, "The Compost," "The Fray," and so
on. To be perfectly honest, subscriptions will continue to be available after
March 9 (on the Internet, you don't run out). So why subscribe now? Well, we're
giving away a
Slate
umbrella or a Microsoft Encarta Virtual Globe
with each paid sub--and those really might run out. Or suppose it's 3 a.m. and
you can't sleep, so you decide to turn on the old machine and check if there's
a new
Slate
"Chatterbox" item--but you've left your wallet and
credit cards in the bedroom and don't want to wake your wife. You'd be stuck
playing Solitaire. Keep in mind that your sub begins March 9 even if you sign
up early. And only charter subscribers are guaranteed the $19.95 annual rate
for as long as they renew. So click here to
subscribe, and do it now. Our computers are standing by to take your order.
You may also subscribe by phone at (800) 706-3330. Or by fax, camel, blood
transfusion, or any other way we can figure out. Go to our subscription page
(https://www.slate.com/code/reg3/signup.asp), or send e-mail to
[email protected] for
details. Many thanks.
You May
Already Be a Loser
Slate
has
launched two new interactive puzzles in the past week: a weekly Web maze game
called "Six Degrees of Francis Bacon" and a Monday-Thursday
Slate
"News Quiz." They offer fun, intellectual stimulation, and insight
on the Web and the news. What they don't offer is a prize. It's not that we're
cheap (or not just that we're cheap). It's that under the laws of
various states, a prize turns these innocent amusements into a form of
gambling, which creates more legal folderol than we are prepared to handle. But
it just might happen--we're not promising , you understand--that
some winners of these contests get a token of trivial value as a purely
symbolic gesture of thanks for their participation in a contest with no
prize.
Another
Contest You Didn't Win
Posted on
our site at the moment are the results of another contest with no official
prize: the final 1997 tally of the "
Slate
60," our annual rating of
America's most generous givers. Several members of that list are known to
be
Slate
readers, but the law of averages suggests it's a safe
bet that you're not one of them. The prize for giving to charity is, of course,
the knowledge that you're fulfilling a moral obligation and helping to make the
world just a little bit, etc., etc. But the premise of the
Slate
60, actually, is less noble: It is that the spirit of self-aggrandizement,
one-upmanship, and trump-thy-neighbor can be channeled into charity by making
it a race. This notion was first advanced by Ted Turner, who has personally
vindicated it by racing to No. 1 on the list in its second year. The prize, in
other words, is being on the list itself. And it may even be working. Last year
you had to give away $5 million to make the list. This year it took $10
million. Congratulations to this year's winners.
--
Michael Kinsley
