Patterico's Pontifications

2/13/2018

Congratulations to Leviticus on His New Daughter

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:50 pm



Longtime commenter Leviticus tells me the following information about his new daughter:

She was born yesterday, by the way, at 1:42 am (Sunday morning). By all indicators, she is a very healthy, very enterprising little baby girl. My wife did an amazing job, and is recovering well.

Our daughter’s name is Shirley Beatrix M. We’re smitten with her.

So her birthday was February 11 — just three days after my own daughter turned 18.

Upon my request, Leviticus supplied the following information as well: “She was 6 lbs 8 oz, and 19 1/2 inches.” People always want to seem to know that.

Several of you have expressed a desire to contribute to Leviticus on behalf of his daughter. I thought about setting up a GoFundMe, but they really do take a huge bite. If you PayPal me at patterico AT gmail DOT com and specify that the money is for Leviticus, I will see to it that the money gets to him. Choose the option for sending money to friends or family, since that’s what you’re doing, and PayPal won’t deduct a cent.

After a week or so, I plan to do a post announcing the total and the donors. If you want your gift completely anonymous, let me know. If you want your gift anonymous for purposes of the post, but known to Leviticus, let me know that too. If you don’t specify, you’re fair game for both.

I feel a weird sort of proprietary interest in Leviticus. I feel like I have watched him grow up on this blog. He can feel free to correct me on any of this, but the oldest comment I can find from him is from September 11, 2006 — more than 11 years ago. I’m not sure how old he was but I want to say he was in college. He seemed precociously smart, principled, and feisty. I like to believe he learned something at this blog about interacting with people, about people with opposite political views, and about maturity. Whether we can take any credit or not, he has certainly matured and has become one of my favorite commenters here. I hope to meet him, his wife, and young Shirley one day. In any event, let’s come together and show the family that we’re a real community here.

Thanks, and once again, congratulations to Leviticus. A little girl will change your life.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

34 Responses to “Congratulations to Leviticus on His New Daughter”

  1. Ding. I plan to get the ball rolling with $100.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  2. Wonderful news! Welcome little baby girl. Congrats to Leviticus and mama. You are entering the best season ever.

    Dana (023079)

  3. Congrats, L. And in the spirit of the modern conservative movement, a reminder:

    “Every child who is born in America is now born owing $43,186.”

    http://www.fortliberty.org/born-into-debt-slavery.html

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  4. Congratulations and God bless, Leviticus!

    nk (dbc370)

  5. Mazel tov!

    Kishnevi (ce6470)

  6. Sugar and spice, and everything nice! Congratulations, Leviticus!

    felipe (023cc9)

  7. Congratulations Leviticus. You will find joy and laughter in ways you never dreamed of. Kids have a way to make almost anything fun.

    Tillman (a95660)

  8. There are already plenty of donations coming in.

    Be sure to remember to say you’re sending it to friends and family, otherwise PayPal takes a 3.2% bite out.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  9. Congratulations, Leviticus! The years will pass by too quickly. Spend as much time with your young ones as you can and then spend some more.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  10. Let’s keep this a positive thread, for a change? The healthy birth of a child is worth at least that much.

    Patterico, I ponied up. Hope you got it!

    Simon Jester (9aad95)

  11. By the way, I never thought I would have children, after my divorce many years ago. It made me sad. I had lots of students I cared about in my classroom and laboratory, but they aren’t *really* my children.

    Then I was lucky enough to have a second chance (happy Valentine’s Day to her!), and two healthy sons. My oldest is getting into colleges and getting scholarships.

    So children are a very, very good thing indeed.

    Simon Jester (9aad95)

  12. Patterico, I ponied up. Hope you got it!

    I did!

    Patterico (115b1f)

  13. We had $400 in the first hour.

    Patterico (115b1f)

  14. Congratulations, Leviticus and Mrs. Leviticus! I would bet that little Shirley Beatrix has you wrapped around her (very) little finger already.

    JVW (42615e)

  15. Congratulations, Leviticus!

    aphrael (3f0569)

  16. Welcome to the planet, little Miss Shirley.

    Don’t worry over what DCSCA said. We have plenty of room.

    papertiger (c8116c)

  17. DCSCA, really? You remind me of my uncle, who insisted that he *had* to corner my brother at my brother’s wedding reception and lecture him about the importance of having a will.

    There’s a time and a place, and this isn’t it.

    aphrael (3f0569)

  18. Baby pix or it never happened.

    Dave (445e97)

  19. Congratulations Leviticus.
    Teach her how to drive by the time she is 14!

    mg (765e6a)

  20. Thank you so much, all of you. While I will have more to say about this in the next few days (once we get settled into a bit of a routine with the baby), for now I will say only that I am truly touched and honored by this gesture, and that I think there are very few online communities left where things like this happen. I really did grow up here, in a number of ways – maybe even more than Patterico realizes – and I count many of you as some of my most effective teachers.

    Special thanks to Patterico for setting this up, and to Simon Jester for either suggesting it or at least having the same idea on another thread. And to DRJ, because I don’t want to pass up a chance to thank her for all the patient teaching she gave me over the years.

    Peace and love to all of you and your families.

    Leviticus (924d70)

  21. Hold her, Leviticus! Hold her all the time! And don’t ever let her fuss or cry for more than the time it takes you to pick her up. Don’t worry, you won’t spoil her.

    nk (dbc370)

  22. I would love to sit down with you over a beer some day, Leviticus, and hear the story of how you grew up here. 🙂

    aphrael (3f0569)

  23. On September 11, 2006, I had just turned 17. I had recently dropped out of high school and started at the local university.

    I found this place by chance, and have been here ever since. I had a lot of growing up to do, and I was forced to do a fair amount of it here.

    Leviticus (924d70)

  24. @17. Don’t worry over what DCSCA said. We have plenty of room.

    That is the party line these days, Don’t worry- be happy.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  25. @18.There’s a time and a place, and this isn’t it.

    ROFLMAOIP. Pass that along to Rand. Except it is– and a true conservative knows it.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  26. @21. You get a tax credit, too, L.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  27. L, great timing; the Trump Tax Reform Act increases the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000. So the whole country’s already ‘given at the office.’

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  28. Trolls gotta troll. Even in a thread about rejoicing for a person’s newborn.

    The good news is that the usual trollish types haven’t here.

    Good luck, Leviticus. Being a parent changes everything. I wish you the very, very best.

    Simon Jester (9aad95)

  29. Congratulations. I wish many year of happiness for you, your wife and little Shirley.

    Rev.Hoagie (6bbda7)

  30. Congratulations, Leviticus!

    Jeff Lebowski (7f648e)

  31. Congratulations, and I love the name Shirley

    ROCHF (877dba)

  32. DCSCA — wtf?

    My point is that there are certain times and places which should not be about politics. A post about a long-time commenter’s new family member is *one of those times*.

    I can’t tell if you don’t understand that, in which case I pity you, or if you *do* understand it and are deliberately flouting it, in which case you’re simply an asshole.

    aphrael (e0cdc9)

  33. Congratulations Leviticus.

    May your child have every opportunity to become her best and achieve her dreams.

    Be content with what you have, they say; don’t expect happiness from material goods. Instead you should seek simplicity, or self-sufficiency, or purity, or closeness to nature.

    There’s a difference between a frugal person, and a poor person. Frugal people live the way they do out of choice. Poor people may or may not be have a worse material standard of living than frugal people, but they are worse off in either case because they are forced to make sacrifices they didn’t choose.

    Philosophers have had different reasons for advocating frugality, not all of them compatible with each other.

    Benjamin Franklin said thrift is necessary to get ahead in life. Henry Thoreau said caring about stuff separates you from nature. Epicurus said that the less you think you need, the happier you can be. The ancient Spartans said needing a lot of stuff makes you weak. Jesus of Nazareth said you should not seek riches, but rather the Kingdom of Heaven. The Buddha said something similar.

    Westacott, with great clarity, examined these arguments, and more, and also the counter-arguments.

    Aristotle, for example, rejected frugality as an ideal. He said that one one of the virtues, or excellences, was “magnificence”—living up to your means. In his philosophy, a rich person should not live like Ebenezer Scrooge. The rich person should sponsor plays, contribute to public buildings and give parties with good food and drink.

    We owe many good things to the ideal of magnificence, Westacott noted. The world could have gotten along all right without a Taj Mahal, a Sistine Chapel or an Apollo space program, but he is glad these things exist, and so do I.

    https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/learning-to-be-happy-while-living-within-limits/#more-79016

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)


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