Every once in awhile I check under the old WordPress dashboard to see what I’ve been doing. This here post is number 475, and falls a bit shy of the end of my fifth year of blogging. By the time I get to that particular anniversary (April 18), I hope to have received about 450,000 visits to the blog. I think that’s a lot, but in comparison to others, maybe not so much. Considering that about 425,000 are probably visits from Gideon, maybe I shouldn’t be so proud. 😉
I never really expected that I’d be maintaining this for 5 years when I first started out. I figured, oh, a year, two tops. There was a period when I felt a little burned out, when I thought I had nothing to say, and contemplated shutting it down. Then I got a second wind, and now I think I’ve found my optimal pace. 6 posts a month is what works now. Sometimes more, sometimes less. The pace of visits has slowed down too, but that’s OK. I write about what I want, for me, and I suspect most people don’t find it all that interesting. Personally, I have much more fun reading other blogs written by younger bloggers, or those more energetic and prolific than me, so I have no problem with others who feel the same way.
I truly think there will be a lot of good topics to ruminate about in the upcoming months and years, such as :
- The American elections – Will Obama be able to defeat the forces of evil, i.e Republicans and Bible thumpers and bigots who have a serious problem with a black man in the White House, and successfully get re-elected? There’s a lot of good things to write about there, like the idiocy of the current slate of Presidential contenders, to the use of the free flowing funds of the 1% who, most likely, to a man (no women), are spending out their asses to defeat him.
- The rise and strengthening of atheism in America, as shown by the great turnout at the Reason Rally (officially about 25,000, more than Glenn Beck was able to attract to his little Tea Soiree’ last year). I predict that after the elections, there will be a few more politicians in Congress who will publicly out themselves, as Representative Pete Stark has done.
- More Tim Minchin videos.
- Unfortunately, before the elections I think we’ll see more anti-critical thought, anti-science, anti-intellectualism in the various legislatures and municipalities across America. Stupidity, and its counterpart, religiosity, appears to have become emboldened by the Republican’s outright attack on Obama, as exemplified by the right’s attack on women, via laws involving abortion, contraception, and science, along with many legislature’s attempt to destroy or water down the separation of Church and State. This will take awhile to die down, what with all the litigation engendered by all this, but remember, legislatures are comprised primarily of lawyers (like me) so they are just keeping us in business in a slow economy. I should be thankful…
- The polarization of America. it’s clear that we are slowly, yet inexorably, moving into two different camps in America. There’s some cross-feeding, but for the most part it seems that we are either conservatives or liberals, Republicans or Democrats, whites or blacks, (or, more accurately, whites or everyone else), religious or non-religious, the 1% or the 99%, assholes or free-thinkers (now there’s a dichotomy). I don’t think this is a good thing, and it’s possible we are being manipulated into this to distract us while those who can are picking our pockets (the 1%?), and if it continues, nothing will get done in the country. To a certain extent, I find myself caught up in it, with this blog being a result. We need to find ways to get along with each other, rather than beat each other up over ideological differences. If we don’t things are going to seem worse, not better, even if things really aren’t changing much at all.
So, it’s doubtful I will ever be without fodder for my grist mill of indignation and ridicule. I’m so looking forward to it.
SPANISH INQUISITOR 
So shut up and write, would ya? Sheesh!
😆
For you, more Tim Minchin videos….
Five years, congratulations! I’m just now getting a blog up and running, so five years seems really impressive.
It really felt like more than 25,000 at the Reason Rally. I’m so pleased to have been able to be there, what a great day!
I wish I’d gone. I was only about and hour and a half away. Unfortunately, life has a tendency to intrude.
It’s tough to both find the time and still be inflamed enough to write. I feel trapped in Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence where the same shit keeps happening and the same old arguments and nonsense gets spouted so the rage has largely become merely a “meh”
It reinforces my view of religion as an indulgence, though. As such, you can’t kill it just like how Prohibition, the War on Drugs, China’s attempts to stifle religion or all the “pink slime” and obesity PSAs can’t stop people from becoming diabetic fast food fatties. Unhealthy indulgences are innately human. The best you can do is promote better indulgences or at the very least discourage indulging in certain circumstances like driving drunk or voting based on religion.
Anyway, keep writing. Visiting here is one of my indulgences. 😉
Thanks. I keep checking back at You Made Me Say It, and occasionally I get a pleasant surprise (like today). I can tell when you’re really pissed off about something. 😆
But yea, it is harder to write about something without feeling you’ve already said it ten times before, in different ways. This is my indulgence, too which is actually cheaper than the therapy I’d need without it.
Have a cheese steak… 😀
Bemoaning the polarization is not helped by calling one side “the forces of evil” and “assholes”, especially since both sides have much to be held accountable on (as you hint at).
From my point of view, speaking strictly as a citizen concerned for the future of this country, I see very little difference between the two sides.
Yes, if we get into religious matters, there are differences, but I think you are giving the Obama administration, and Obama himself, a pass on that particular issues.
Out of his own mouth:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-prayer-breakfast-obama-says-christian-faith-guides-his-policies/2012/02/02/gIQAzNyakQ_story.html?hpid=z1
Bush was criticized for much less. Obama has also expanded the faith-based programs, and uses it to drive policy.
Let me be clear; I am not defending Bush. I am asking why Obama is getting a pass.
Yes, the religious right is a blight on the US political system, and they should have their feet held to the fire. But that does not mean we should not challenge the policies and waste of government just because they don’t come from republicans.
All that aside, congratulation on the readership and five year anniversary. It is hard work to maintain a blog and help it grow, and you should be recognized for it.
Oh, ye of little humor. 😆 If I wasn’t clear, that was written with tongue firmly planted in cheek. I even alluded to it in my own parenthetical response to the asshole/freethinker dichotomy.
I’m certainly not an apologist for Obama, and you won’t find anything on this blog that praises him for his Christianity. Frankly, the lip service he pays to his Christian faith smacks of just that – lip service – but even so, it’s highly offensive lip service to me. You don’t know my friend Larry (who may be reading this) but he’d agree with you. He refused to vote for him because he thought he was such a hypocrite, among other things. I voted for him as the clear lessor of two evils, but only because I felt I had no choice, and I’ll probably still feel that way come this November.
You take your victories and suffer your losses where you find them.
The point is that mentioning one group and not the other implies failure (on the subject of religion) is confined to only one side.
I have friends that use the “lip service” arguments as “wink-wink-nudge-nudge-he’s-not-really-like-that”.
One, that would make him a monumental liar (and thus offers no assurance he’s not lying about other things), but worse, they are not looking at his track record in such matter, and it’s mixed at best.
I am not trying to take you to task, but omission might give the casual (uninformed) reader a different view than if both sides are called out. That split you mention is in part the result of over and over reading of the faults of “the other side”, and nothing about “our side”.
We’ve discussed the lesser-of-two-evils viewpoint before, and this will be the first election where I can no longer abide by that logic (such as it is) because it’s always taken as a mandate.
Now, if they had a box marked “less of an asshole than the other guy”, then national elections would be a true measure of the political landscape.
That said, sorry for missing the tone of the comments, but I see many places where that is the serious message, with no tongue-in-cheek. Rather, said tongue is busy fueling the flames of this mythical us-vs-them as opposed to us-versus-political-corruption-by-special-interests.
And now I’ll go back to sulking in my cave-of-gloom-and-despair-for-the-future-of-mankind and ponder how I can get my irony-meter working again.
I’m willing to bet there are religious folks who take the “lesser of two evils” approach as well. The so-called “liberal” or “progressive” religious are turned off by the Santorums and that ilk as well and see Obama’s religiosity as better. The problem is many of those people would choose a Santorum over an atheist candidate.
Sad to say, but what may serve the long term best is having a nutter like Santorum win, otherwise people will not accept or admit that all this religiosity in politics is problematic. We may need someone to fuck everything up royally.