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 Witch Trials and the dawning of the nuclear age... You might think you are a witch, you might want to be a witch, but you might just as well tell people you are the Queen of England.  For pity sake, people, grow up!  Magicians do tricks, not feats of magic.  Psychics and astrologers can tell a sucker, but not the future.  The only aliens who have landed in New Mexico are the ones who came across the border.  And, in case you are wondering, the Earth is not flat!

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!