Saturday, March 28, 2015

Conversations with The Archdruid for the fourth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News


It's time to be a good environmentalist and recycle.
In the previous retrospective for the fourth year of this blog, I noticed a pattern recurring among my most popular entries.
Now that I've taken care of the top post of the past year, I look at the rest of the 20 most read entries and see themes that group the top posts, much as I did in previous years.  In fact, I see some of the same themes as in previous years.  Not only do I repeat myself, but it seems that my readers enjoy it.
So far, the recurring themes have been Game of Thrones/A> and student worksheets.  Today's installment in perennial blogging topics features conversations with The Archdruid, in which I reformat and repost my comments to The Archdruid Report along with any replies they elicit.  This year, there are four such entries.  As I wrote last year, Greer is good for my blogging.

Just like last year, the fifth most read entry of the year just past was a discussion about politics, The Archdruid on Fascism, part 2 posted June 16, 2014.  It earned 694 page views according to the raw counter, but never got into the default counter's all-time top ten despite beating last year's top Archdruid post, A conversation with The Archdruid about Objectivism, Satanism, and the GOP, by one page view according to the same counter.  That post managed to make it into the all-time top ten at number five.  It's still there at ninth place with 715 page views according to the default counter.

The entry took off on a tangent from Greer's observation that Fascism wasn't really a movement of the Right, although that's where it tends to find its allies, but instead an authoritarian movement of a disenfranchised center.  That's not how I advertised it at Kunstler's blog that day.
Kunstler: So, my question would be: when do the political recriminations kick in? Pretty soon, I reckon, and when they do, expect them to be fiercely perverse. The theme of who lost Iraq? may cost more than who lost Vietnam?

Me: We’re likely to have both at the same time the next two years, as the last Boomer who could likely win the presidency, H. R. Clinton, will probably be running. Her husband was the focus of a lot of “who lost Vietnam” sentiment, and I’m sure what’s left of it will follow her around, along with a whole lot of “who lost Iraq” from her time as Secretary of State.

But that’s normal politics. Worse things can happen. We ended up with McCarthyism in the wake of “who lost China?” Germany ended up with losing the democracy, such as it was, of the Weimar Republic and ended up with [gaining] the Third Reich over the question of who lost the war. The myth of the internal enemy giving Germany the knife in the back resulting in surrender took hold as the answer. We all saw how that turned out, but people may forget the lessons of history.

As you have been saying for more than a decade and repeated just last week, Americans will elect maniacs to keep their standard of living. A lot of those maniacs will be carrying a cross and wrapped in the American flag. You aren’t the only one warning us about Fascism in our future. Greer the Archdruid did as well. I have some observations on his warnings just in time for his return to blogging this week.
That got a "Here here Crazy Eddie...Well Said" from And So it Goes at Kunstler's blog, along with an Islamophobic thread that spilled over into the comments for this entry on my blog, one that I'll convert into an entry of its own later.  In fact, the comments to my post look to be a very rich source for future entries, including the next retrospective.  Stay tuned.

That's not all.  Follow over the jump for the three other entries that originated in the comments section of The Archdruid Report and ended up in the year's top twenty.

The rest of last year's conversations with Greer and his readers filled out the bottom of the top twenty.  The most read of those was The Archdruid and I talk real estate posted on April 13, 2014, Apophis Day, which ended up in 18th place with 359 page views according to the raw counter.  It earned those page views in large part because I shared the link at Kunstler's blog.
Speaking of John Greer, he and I had a conversation about real estate two weeks ago, which I put up on my blog. He’s optimistic about getting good land cheap in the Motor City. Like the offscreen fiancee in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” he likes that Detroit has “huge…tracts of land” for cheap. I’m looking forward to buying some of it.
That paragraph demonstrates what happens when I type on the fly; I foul up the order of my phrases.  It should have read "he likes that Detroit, like the offscreen fiancee in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” has "huge...tracts of land" for cheap.  Oh well, that's why I repost these comments, so I can correct them.

The 19th most read of last year's Archdruid entries was 'No Impact Man': Student sustainability video festival 22 and a conversation with The Archdruid posted August 14, 2014.  This post about good and bad examples among environmental activists took off on its own, earning more than 100 page views within 24 hours.  Looks like web search alone propelled it into the top 20; I didn't need to promote it beyond my normal sharing on social media.  As a result, it ended the year with 329 page views.

In addition to being a conversation with The Archdruid, this entry fits into another category of repeated themes, stories I tell my students.  As best as I can recall, it's the first installment of my continuing series about student videos that has made any year's top 20.  A three-for-one!

Rounding out the top 20 was What The Archdruid ignored in 'Mentats wanted' posted on April 17, 2014, which landed in 20th place with 320 page views.  This entry came from the part of the comment I used as the basis for The Archdruid and I talk real estate to which Greer didn't respond.  Like the previous entry, it seems to have gotten its views through web search.  I don't recall promoting it at Kunstler's or Greer's blogs.  I centainly didn't the week I posted it.  That honor goes instead to the death of Michael Ruppert, which will make an appearance in a future retrospective.

Speaking of the future, tomorrow is entertainment Sunday.  Watch for a special entry about the season finale of "The Walking Dead."

Previous entries in this series.

Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)