36. The whole world's in a terrible state of chaos

Not really.

That line is from the Irish playwright Sean O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, one of my favorite plays, although it is dark comedy about troubled times, the 1920s, in Ireland. Through it all, "Captain" Jack Boyle known as the Paycock, and his buddy Joxer stay pretty well inebriated, ending the play with the words which today serve as the title of the post.

It may be true that we are in troubled times, given that America is engaged in war (with no apparent end in sight or plan), and while the economy seems to be robust, fewer and fewer folks are making their lives better over time. A few months back, Americans, at least those of us who are not only eligible to vote but also bother to do so, sent a message to ourselves as well as the government that we are mad as Hell and aren't going to take it anymore. But are we really?

Since the advent of the USA Today newspaper, a mockery of journalism, Americans have been fed news by the bite, rather than by the meal. While we've been supersizing everything we buy, from boxes of Corn Flakes to SUVs the size of tanks, we've been downsizing the amount of news most of us actually get from the many sources out there willing to give it to us. This is not news. I'm not the first one to write this. But it still bothers me. One of the good things about the internet, and specifically about "home" pages, such as msn, yahoo, or google is they usually have a news feed which allows people to see and read, at whatever depth they are comfortable, news from around the nation and the world. With a little programming, readers can focus in on their home town news and weather, something you used to get on the hour and sometimes the half-hour on local radio, but most of these feeds are now national and not local in nature. Even WHAS radio, long the herald of Louisville news, no longer has a local evening newscast - although I would never know that. I only listen to WHAS when a tornado is not just possible, but seems to be currently happening. Otherwise, I am mostly tuned, if at all, to one of the three local public radio stations (89.3, 90.5, or 91.9), or to 90.9, the public station in Elizabethtown, or to 88.1, the New Albany High School station, which is my general music outlet.

Before the internet, I tried to read the local self-described "One Great Newspaper" as well as at least part of one national paper most everyday. The most easily accesible national paper in the past was the Wall Street Jounral, which is served in Louisville by the Chicago edition. I always tried to read a Washington Post on Sundays, and would now and then somehow manage to get the Sunday Magazine from the New York Times, usually by dropping in at a coffeehouse, or hanging out at the old Hawley-Cooke in the Gardiner Lane Shopping Center. The internet has changed that, and truthfully, it is for the better. Going online and finding articles of interest is so very easy. Signing up for newsletters from a variety of sources is easiest of all. I get daily or weekly doses of information important to me from the Post, the Book Review at the New York Times, from the ACLU and other civil and human rights organizations, as well as people who want me to save the whales, the watersheds, savannahs, rainforests, and any number of other things. Now and then I "unsubscribe," a word many of us find quite useful now and then.

Most of us in our computer set-up have a list of favorites. Mine is heavily populated by media outlets - newspapers, radio, TV, and notably blogs. Some blogs serve a specific readership with specific news, others serve as sounding boards for political and social (is there a difference?) commentary, others are full of poetry, some are outlets for commercial enterprise, and some, like mine, are still looking for their role in the world. What we are have in common is that we all hope someone else is looking at our work, whether we formally admit to that or not, the fact that we post on the internet, available to most anyone if they are really looking, is an admission that we want to be seen and read.

That brings me to today's update of the state of the blog. The first report was on January 22nd, some nineteen days after our debut, which was also my mother's birthday, not that that fact is related. About nineteen days has since past, so an update is in line.

At that time, the visitor counter read just over 200. It now reads about 700 pages accessed from just over 400 individual visits, which means about 300 people other than me have visited. Back on the 22nd, we spoke of where these folks came from. I know I have some (a few) repeat readers who visit regularly and I am grateful for your readership. We've only added a few Kentucky cities since the first report, the new locations being West Point (which is close enough to Louisville to be a local telehone call), Middlesboro (which I mentioned one day as being built in a hole created when a crater impacted the Earth), Bardstown (which has just endured a tragic loss of life on which I posted a few days ago and where there was yesterday buried the ten victims of Kentucky's worst fire in thirty years), and finally Clearfield. A note on Clearfield. I've travelled all over this state, mostly on back roads, and have read many articles and books on Kentucky's place names, including a comprehensive (though not entirely accurate) one by Robert Rennick. I've never heard of or been to Clearfield, to my knowledge. It turns out to be a little hillside village just south off US 60 (Main Street) in Morehead, stretched out along KY 519, which carries the name Woody May Highway briefly. One of the main roads in Clearfield, if you could call it such, is McBrayer Road. Thus, the little village has at least two roads with prominent political names attached to them, although the McBrayer attachment is probably not "big P" political, but purely "little p" political.

As far as other locales across the Republic, we've only added to out list four more states, being Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ohio. Keep in mind we have regular visitors from Washington, DC. To our list of international visits, previously a boast of four countries, we may add Algeria, Beazil, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Norway, and the United Kingdom. We have regular visits from a number of different places in China, but I do not know why.

Our topic variety is not yet broadening, but I will give it time. There are only so many different subjects that I am interested enough in to write someting worthwhile about, so the array will never be too far-flung. I continue to invite your comments. I've always included among the righthand side bar a note of "Welcome - Beinvenidos" and an invitation to comment. I do not plan to respond to all the comments, or for that matter any of them as a rule. But I am interested if in fact you find what I find of interest of interest to you my readers.

That's today's report. The weather service is calling for a mix of rain, sleet, and snow over the next two days, but I haven't any faith in them at this point. As I said, the whole world's in a terrible state of chaos, and the weather, what with global warming and no snow, is at the top of the list.