Archives for July 2011

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how far-flung the audience for this site has been so far. It was just eight weeks ago today when I opened the digital doors to the place, but people have already made thousands of visits from 57 different countries around the world.

There have also been visitors from 48 of the 50 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia. Vermont and South Dakota have been the only two U.S. states missing for weeks. What are you guys waiting for?

Even though I can’t personally identify who comes to visit or exactly where you’re coming from or anything of that nature, the system does give me general information. For instance, I know that the U.S. state sending the most visitors is Alabama, which makes sense considering that I live here and lots of people here known me.

After my home state, the top 10 U.S. states in numbers of visits so far have been Texas, New York, Florida, California, Tennessee, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania. (Massachusetts barely missed the cut.)

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I was in the back yard with my dog, Lucy, this morning when I started reflecting on the effects of a fence between one of my neighbors and me. More importantly, it made me think about the lack of a fence between another neighbor and me.

Ever since I’ve lived here, there’s been a fence separating me from the guy in the back. I’ve met him. I speak if we both happen to be outside. But that’s about it. There’s no fence between a neighbor on the side and me. They’re nice enough folks. We speak if we both happen to be outside, but there’s nothing else between us, good or bad.

But with the neighbors on the side, there have been minor irritations over the years. Someone who lived with them for awhile parked on the grass next to the street, frequently letting much of his car end up way over on my grass. It didn’t really make any difference. I wasn’t using it anyway. But it was my yard, not his, so it bugged me.

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The most cherished myth among pretty much any political group is that there’s media bias against the group. Almost as common, though, is the idea that there’s a conspiracy — that sinister people are plotting together to make your group look bad.

I know it’s hard to believe this, but your conspiracy theories just aren’t true. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your group — and there isn’t some plot to make you look bad. (In fact, every group does a good enough job of looking bad that nobody needs to help.)

Conservatives complain about liberal bias. Liberals complain about conservative bias. Libertarians complain that pretty much everybody hates them. I’m not sure what socialists complain about these days, but it’s probably about the anti-Marxist bias all around them.

(For the language purists among us, let me point out that I’m using “conservative” and “liberal” in their generally accepted mainstream definitions here.)

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