Ten Thousand Hits and All Those Witches
A little less than two
years ago my husband had both knees replaced.
Within a year he was back to hiking, biking, playing tennis and enjoying
the life he deserves, but that is not to say that the four months of pre-hab,
rehab, and surgery weren’t rigorous. In
fact they were demanding and stressful.
The summer of the surgery we were living in a 40 foot motorhome. That meant close quarters during a time of
limited mobility. About the time Tom
started telling me the best way to unpack the groceries I decided I needed a
vehicle in which to vent! The
butlerblaisdellblog was born that very day.
This week I topped 10,000 views of my blog. This is something of a milestone so I started
mining a little data. My most viewed
blog is a surprise. As a rule, I have
received more roses than rotten tomatoes, which is actually pretty good. People who are angry always have the greatest
impetus to write—St. George wasn’t pro damsel, he was anti dragon! I have written columns that make the left
angry (I am convinced that President Obama is a jejune and petulant figure head
of a President). I have written things
that make the right angry (the Tea Party really does not like it when I refer
to them—accurately—as young vampires).
But the column that brought the largest readership and the angriest
responses, was the one that was titled, “Witches in Georgia ;
Nuts in Texas
The article was not about witches, but I used
self-described witches as an analogy to discuss the real issue, which was a
smart electrical meter. Unfortunately,
to heap scorn on pseudo-scientists who objected to the meters, I started by
heaping scorn on pseudo-witches. To
quote from the blog:
Do adults have to be told that there are no such things as
witches? Didn’t we learn that sometime
between the Salem England New Mexico
Well! The word went out in the internet witchy
community that a heretic was on the loose and did I get emails! To their credit, not a single person turned
me into a newt, nor were a flock of winged monkeys sent to bedevil me. My thanks to all concerned!
All of these angry (!!!)
messages did send me off to do a little research on modern day witches. What I found gave me a slightly elevated view
of my electronic interlocutors. Wiccan
has evolved from the stuff of fairy tales to a nature based and rather benign
effort to understand and influence the world. Wiccans are not evil
practitioners of the dark arts. They
have not signed the Devil’s book. They
are pagans, but not the witch’s of Salem’s
Lot, more like the soulful searcher of The
Physik Book of Deliverance Dane. I
should not have been so dismissive of them, and I apologize for that.
I accept none of Wiccan’s
beliefs, but I have found that they are a sincere group with a tough image
problem and poor media relations.
Hey, they’re like
Republicans!
You see, I learn while I
keep the faith!
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