State of the Blog 2

This is my first post of 2010 and my first post of WoW's third year.

Lots of holidays this time of year: Solstice, Advent, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year (here in the West), Tet (later on in the East), chief among them—not to slight Festivus or Zappadan. That means celebrations, disruptions, obligations, joy, surprises, disappointment, family, friends, seasonal affective disorder, loneliness, cold weather and decreased daylight (in the northern hemisphere), reminiscence, hope, despair—lots of things to lots of people.

WoW is also celebrating its two year anniversary (12/22). Wow! Just Wow! Who knew I could sustain this thing this long? I certainly didn't anticipate it.

A few quick facts: my first year I put up about 220 blog posts and had around 25,000 hits. This past year I posted only half as much (~107) but received approximately 38,000 hits. One of my posts was nominated for and selected as a finalist for 3QuarksDaily's Best Political Post of 2009, a true honor. I made a number of on-line blogfriends and commenters, too, which, to me, has been one of the unexpected boons of blogging (thanks, all). I'll go on.

WoW refuses to narrow its scope. It will not limit itself to being strictly a literary or critical blog, or a political blog, or a philosophy or theology blog, or even a personal blog, or, for that matter, an aggregating blog or a humor blog; but at the same time it is all of these—and more. In this, it resembles its author—who, too, refuses to be put into a box. And so, expect WoW to continue to range wide and far: not all things to all people, but not nothing either.

Wishing you the best of whatever holiday (if any) you choose to acknowledge!

Jim H.

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And here's a few links to keep you busy until I come up with something original:

NatGeo's best pics of the year (btw: that cute little old lady pic was taken just down the road from my son's high school!)

Discover Magazine's [developing] top 100 stories of 2009.

Wired Magazine's top scientific breakthroughs of 2009 and its top mobile gadgets of the decade. (WoW is, as usual, agnostic as to whether this is truly the end of the decade.)

Project Censored's Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010.

Media Matters for America has published its Most Outrageous Comments of 2009.

Talking Points Memo has announced its 2009 Golden Dukes Winners given "in recognition of great accomplishments in muckiness including acts of venal corruption, outstanding self-inflicted losses of dignity, crimes against the republic, bribery, exposed hypocrisy and generally malevolent governance." Also, you can find TPM's Top 10 Cable News Moments here.

Michael Orthofer at the Literary Saloon at the complete review was very busy this year, managing "365 uninterrupted days of posts at this Literary Saloon -- as I apparently did in 2009 (there were 1347 posts for the year, an average of some 3.7 per day).) Only 172 books were reviewed at the complete review in 2009." Whew!

Rotten Tomatoes' Best of the Decade movies list. And here's Metacritic's Best (and Worst) Movies of the Decade. (WoW is absolutely thrilled to see Spirited Away so high on that list.)

Take The Pills compiles a 'mixtape' of best songs of the year that you can download. ...Noviembre thinks this is the record of the decade. I've heard it and it's pretty good. (For entertainment and discussion purposes only).

So, was this indeed the worst decade ever? It was certainly the decade of Bush. 'Nuff sed.