Thank you all for stopping by. Happy New Year! Hope to see you in 2015! The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 32,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Sally Field’s “You like me!” Academy Award Acceptance Speech for “Places in the Heart.”
Tonight is the 84th annual Academy Award (Oscar) show. I’ve only seen one of the main movies up for an award, so I don’t know how interested I’ll be in watching, but the Oscar show brought to mind Sally Field’s acceptance speech when she said, “You like me.” I watched the broadcast when Sally Field made this acceptance speech, and I did see the movie, “Places in the Heart,” which brings me to the point of this post, which is not about the movies but about being acknowledged. Most of us want to be liked or approved of in some way. Strangely, many people also seem to be very stingy with praise, even when it’s warranted. Millions of words have been written about how easily we toss around compliments so much that the praise is almost worthless. I don’t agree. The more praise the better, I say!
Anyway, I like WordPress’ “like” function, because it’s an easy way (Okay, I’m lazy) to give a little deserved praise even if I’m at a loss for words in a comment. Sometimes random strangers click “like” on a post, and I discover someone new to read. And I’m always happy to hear from friends. We bloggers love our friends (and the stats that show “You like me!”)
Filed under Entertainment
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 88,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 4 days for that many people to see it.
In 2010, there were 42 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 200 posts. There were 132 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 128mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was July 1st with 2,049 views. The most popular post that day was Wayside Waifs.
The top referring sites in 2010 were wordpress.com, search.aol.com, facebook.com, WordPress Dashboard, and shoutsfromtheabyss.wordpress.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for hummingbirds, skin cancer, hunter s thompson, robert plant, and robert plant children.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
Wayside Waifs July 2010
95 comments and 27 Likes on WordPress.com
Generation Tattoo September 2008
12 comments
Skin Cancer February 2010
8 comments
Robert Plant receives Commander of the British Empire Honor July 2009
6 comments
A Flock of Hummingbirds August 2008
9 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,
Here’s a photograph I took on a recent visit to South Carolina. Can’t you just imagine yourself relaxing in this hammock with a cool drink and a book? I didn’t try it myself, because I probably would have spilled my drink on my book. But it’s a lovely fantasy.
When bloggers start posting just a photo or two or a YouTube video once or twice a month, you know they are on the downhill slide to quitting. It’s true that I’m blogging less and less often. But I’m not giving up, I swear.
Soon after I started blogging here in the Spring of 2008, I read that the average blogger lasts about two years. I don’t know where those statistics came from, but that seems about right. When I make the rounds of my fellow bloggers, I find they are posting less, too. Sadly, some of my favorite bloggers have stopped posting, apparently forever or so rarely that their infrequent posts are merely the sputters of a dying blog. Blogs take time and commitment. They sure as heck don’t make any money.
I know the world isn’t begging for my thoughts, but I do like to post about interesting subjects I find, usually about nature, travel, music and history topics. Lately, though, I’ve been enjoying a rest in my “mental” hammock. What I really want to write about is politics, but I’ve sworn not to. Wouldn’t be polite.
One fellow blogger, Shouts from the Abyss, has kept up the good fight by blogging EVERY day (sometimes twice) for more than a year!
Planetjan has slowed, too. She has a very full schedule, but she’s also dedicated to posting. She’s hilarious, so I’m always happy to read one of her posts. Her latest is Hands On Learning.
Filed under Communication, Friendship, Internet, Life, Personal, Writing
Sandy and her daughter Hannah are both artists. Here they are at the Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City, Missouri, in September 2009. In the background, you can see a painting of a bird's nest. Coincidentally, Sandy's workshop is called "The Feathered Nest".
My friend Sandy is an artist. I always enjoy her take on her experiences at the art shows and fairs she visits in Kansas City. Click here to read her post “Fall Back” on her blog “Dancing Words”. Be sure to check out the video of one of Sandy’s art classes from ART-felt Learning at the bottom of this post.
Plaza Art Fair 2009.
Filed under Art, Kansas City, Life, Personal
Here is my dear friend Jan (Planetjan on my blogroll) photographing a group of stuffed creatures for an illustration for another one of her hilarious and informative posts about life as an elementary school teacher in Southern California (and other topics). She gave us a walking tour of her favorite neighborhoods in the delightful town where she lives. There'd been quite a few changes since I'd last visited. She couldn't resist an opportunity to produce material for her blog, too. (Which is what I was also doing!) To read the post she was working on, click on this photograph.
Filed under Education, Entertainment, Friendship, Humor, Internet, Life, Travel, Writing
Kiwi Bloke’s father, Turoa Kiniwe Royal, received a doctorate in literature recently at Massey University in New Zealand. The YouTube video showing the ceremony is in Maori, which is beautiful even if I don’t understand it. (The video might be slow to load.) The five men performing the haka in the audience at the ceremony are Kiwi Bloke’s brothers. I watched the Maori language channel a little every day while we were in New Zealand, so it was fun to see it again. Dr. Royal is a pioneer in advancing Maori language and education.
I met Kiwi Bloke online through my post about the hilarious musical duo “Flight of the Conchords”. Kiwi Bloke is an expert on all things Kiwi, and I’ve learned a lot about beautiful New Zealand from reading his blog. I fell in love with the country after my all-too-brief visit there in February.
Here are Kiwi Bloke’s posts about his father’s doctorate, beginning with the post announcing the honor. (We’re switching between spelling “honor” the Kiwi way and the North American way.) The last two links are articles about the award.
Well Deserved Honor, I Might Say.
Pioneer Receives Highest Honour.
Maori Educationalist to Receive Doctorate.
Pioneer to Receive Highest Honour.
Filed under Education, Internet, Language, Life, Literature, New Zealand, Personal, Travel
I was tagged by "Anna's Bee World." In her honor, I'm posting this photo I took of a honey bee at a nearby nursery in October.
Anna’s Bee World tagged me. Anna says it’s time to play the “six random things” meme.
1. Link to the person who tagged you. (Click on Anna’s Bee World above.)
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself. (I’ve written about some of these on my blog.)
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them. (You can use the same ones as other blogging friends.)
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is published.
So here we go…six random things about me:
1.) I take my camera almost everywhere with me. I’m considered a menace. Symphony in the Flint Hills.
2.) I save news clippings, some of which I try to force on people who might be vaguely interested in the topic. I also do the same thing with plants I’ve started from seed. Confessions of a Savoholic.
3.) I love Star Trek, especially the original series. From any thirty in the original series, I probably can tell you which episode it is.
4.) I love road trips, especially if I don’t have to drive and am just in charge of the map. I love maps. I collect maps. I love google maps, too. Awesome Utah.
5.) I love my cat, Malcolm, who’s 16. Malcolm, Old Friend.
Malcolm.
6.) I’m the happiest when both of my adult children are asleep under my roof. It doesn’t happen very often.
Here are the links to the blogs. They touch on a wide range of interests: humor, teaching, organic farming in England, sports, photography, book and movie reviews, poetry and daily life — and much more.
Check them out. Yes, I know there are seven, not six. I’ll focus on some other notable blogs later. Anna introduced me to some great new blogs, including Photographic Haiku.
Filed under Biology, Communication, Education, Entertainment, Entomology, Friendship, Humor, Insects, Internet, Life, Nature, Personal
These rock climbers are linked together in Zion National Park in Utah. It's a metaphor for how we are all interdependent -- and a good excuse to use one of my photographs from my recent trip to the park. These three men are halfway up a half-mile tall canyon wall. They were barely visible. My telephoto lens didn't help much. The craziness of rock climbers is a topic for another post.....
Paula of Locks Park Farm bestowed a “proximation” award on my blog. She explains it very humorously here.
The award is intended to link many people together who have become friends online so that we can all enjoy new friends. It’s sort of like the blogging version of the chain letter, but nothing bad will happen to you if you break the chain. You’ll just miss out on the fun! Okay, so it’s a little trouble. Get over it!
The award seems to be translated from Spanish. I won’t change the wording, because it has its own quaint charm. I’m thinking “bows” means ties, for example.
This blog invests in and believes in the “proximity,” meaning that blogging makes us ‘close’ . They all are charmed with the blogs, where in the majority of its aims are to show the marvels and to do friendship; there are persons who are not interested when we give them a prize, and then they help to cut these bows; do we want that they are cut, or that they propagate? Then let’s try to give more attention to them! So with this prize we must deliver it to 8 bloggers that in turn must make the same thing and put this text.”
I’ve been on the road for a week speeding through southern Utah, gaping and gawking at the magnificent scenery, so I’ve been out of touch. (My husband did the 1,500 miles of driving out of Las Vegas, while I had the hard task of capturing the sights on my camera….ha, ha.) I’ll be posting photographs and my awe-struck thoughts and observations in a future post or posts.
In the meantime, I’m eagerly reading everyone’s blogs again and am thrilled to be able to share these blogs with you. The honorees can bestow their own “proximation” awards, if they want. Many have already earned numerous awards. You’ll enjoy these blogs, I promise.
Filed under Communication, Entertainment, Friendship, Humor, Internet, Life, Personal, Photography, Relationships, Travel, Writing
George Orwell
Since this current United States presidential campaign began, trillions of words have been spoken, written, blogged….
I won’t add to the cacophony with my take on the candidates, their followers, the media, the voters and the onlookers. Instead, I’ll point to the master political wordsmith, George Orwell.
George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Blair, a British novelist, literary critic and essayist who was passionate about the importance of honest and clear language. He warned that misleading and vague language could be used to manipulate thought and politics. He railed against “vagueness and sheer incompetence” and criticized his contemporary political writers for preferring the abstract to the concrete. Doesn’t that ring particularly true today?
The language and ideas of Orwell’s dark, satirical novels, Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) have become part of our culture. Who hasn’t heard of “Big Brother is Watching You” and “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”?
His Down and Out in Paris and London was very moving. He was fiercely anti-totalitarian, anti-Communist and anti-imperialist. He described himself as a democratic socialist.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the main character Winston Smith recognized that he had to live as if the “Thought Police” were tuned into his and everyone else’s every movement and sound. The Ministry of Truth developed “Newspeak,” a very limiting and restrictive language, which included “doublethink,” in which you hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time, passionately believing both. This is epitomized in the party slogans: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength.
I’ll paraphrase Orwell’s six rules for writing:
1.) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech that you commonly see in print.
2.) Never use a long word when a short one will do.
3.) If it is possible to delete a word, always delete it.
4.) Never use the passive voice, where you can use the active.
5.) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6.) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
In typing this list, I thought of my college editing professor, John B. Bremner, who was formidable in pounding the rules of grammar and usage into my head. I can still hear him bellowing the rules whenever I struggle to keep my writing clear and concise. In fact, he would have barked at me for using “formidable.” Couldn’t I find a shorter word? His rule was “never use a Latin-based word, when a nice, short Anglo-Saxon word would work.” As an example, I could have used “suffice,” rather than “work,” but his ghost wouldn’t let me — this time. I do think a little variety is good. (I used “cacophony” above instead of “noise.” I like the way it sounds as if something’s stuck in your craw.) I studied (very inadequately) Latin and French, so it’s too easy to incorporate (more Latin) those languages into my writing — probably badly and inappropriately!
Back to Orwell. He was a prolific writer. Some of Orwell’s everyday observations in his diary are now being made available in blog form at www.orwelldiaries.wordpress.com I’ve added Orwell’s blog to my blogroll, too. Orwell’s blog has a lot of interesting sites on his blogroll, so don’t miss it.
A link to an article in the New York Times about Orwell’s “blog” is What George Orwell Wrote, 70 Years Later to the Day A link to my post about two other essayists about contemporary life, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, is There Will Be Blog. When you jump there, you have to click on the title to get the story. I’m trying to get more use out of that post!
John B. Bremner wrote a great book on writing, “Words on Words,” which is still available. I also like the new “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty tips for Better Writing” by Mignon Fogarty. She helps me with pesky punctuation questions, among other writing problems I face.
UPDATE: George Orwell is in the news again! (Along with Evelyn Waugh.) He’s in a new book, reviewed here Two of a Kind in the New York Times.
Filed under Communication, Entertainment, History, Journalism, Language, Life, Literature, Personal, Politics, Random, Writing
Catherine Sherman 