Gypsy Scholar Hits the Bigtime!
I crawled out of bed at my usual, bleary-eyed hour of 3:00 a.m., turned on my computer, checked my blog's site meter, and rubbed my eyes. Twice.
"Already 353 visitors today?" I muttered. "That's a record."
My blog has only occasionally topped 300, so I was definitely surprised. I looked at the details and saw that most of the visits were quite brief, lasting no more than "0" seconds.
"No big deal," I thought.
On exiting from the site meter some minutes later, I paused to refresh the page and see how many visitors had now stopped by:
1,543
I stared in disbelief. The numbers had clicked up with a startling briskness, a briskness that left me astounded. I again refreshed the page:
1,639
Again:
1,701
And just now:
1,752
Uh-oh, the stream of visitors clicking in appears to be slowing down. What am I suddenly doing wrong? Is my 15 minutes of fame nearly up? ... with me sleeping through most of it. More seriously, why did this happen? Investigating more closely, I discovered the cause:
The National Review Online
"The Corner"
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Parsing Benedict [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Did he really say what we think he said? (Via Mirror of Justice)
If I understand this correctly, Ramesh Ponnuru found a link at Mirror of Justice to one of my blog entries on the Pope's speech and linked to me directly (and indirectly). That explains the phenomenal number of hits so early this fine Korean morning.
But who is Ramesh Ponnuru? According to his author's bio at NRO, he's the senior editor. Also, he has published in various big-name newspapers and journals and even seems to be quite the talking head appearing on:
CNN's Inside Politics, NBC's The McLaughlin Group, MSNBC's Buchanan & Press and Donahue, CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer, PBS's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CSPAN's Washington Journal, Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect, Fox News, and NPR's Morning Edition
Wow! This guy's bigger than the Pope! No wonder my blog is getting so many hits.
Thank you, Mr. Ponnuru, sir. I tip my hat to your hat tip.
Labels: Pope Benedict XVI, Regensburg
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 5:28 AM
20 comments
20 Comments:
Your entries were excellent and highly deserving of that link. They were pretty much all I read to understand the latest from the Muslim Incitement Industry.
When I was blogging at OFK, I got a link from TKS to a post I'd done months before, with a picture of a pretty girl at a Lebanese protest. After all of things I'd deluded myself into believing were thoughtful, that's the post that gets noticed.
So pat yourself on the back. You earned this.
Congratulations, HJH!
I just received an e-mail from my father telling me that Ramesh Ponnuru had linked to you, and I wanted to check in and see whether you'd noticed yet.
I'm counting on you not to forget us friends in low places who knew you when you when . . .
Ooops. Please disregard the extra "you when" in there.
You deserve it, Jeffery. I truly mean it!
Congrats! Keep up the good work!
Thanks, everybody. I appreciate the thoughts -- especially since you were all readers before this deluge of hits (which has just surpassed 2000, by the way).
And all this because of my German skills!
Odd ... to recall now that I was the worst student in my German class way back then when I was a sophomore at Baylor...
Anyway ... yes, KM, I promise to remember friends in 'low' places who knew me when ... and knew me even when I when.
Your interesting linguistic construction reminds me of an e. e. cummings poem, for I suspect that I've just sung my didn't and danced my did...
Now, I'm back in those 'low' places with the rest of you. This morning's experience will never happen again.
Jeffery Hodges
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Sooner or later, those peculiar skills pay off. Maybe the Pope will say something about Beowulf, that famous crusader. Then you'll be off the charts. I guess you could point out that Grendel was really symbolic of Mohammed, who was well known to the original author.
Actually, the net seems to aggregate expertise in powerful ways. So your job is to have the expertise.
Actually, judging from the timestamp at National Review, I think they got that link off Wikipedia's "Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy" talkpage. (Where I put it, I may add, because I did a Google search to find out if anybody in the mainstream media had noticed what people at that talkpage, and you, had noticed, too: That the translation is lousy)
JJ, I reckon that I'd better start posting a lot more on Beowulf as Christ in a crusade against Grendel, who represents the voluntarist deity of Medieval Nominalism who can willfully contradict himself ... just like the God of you-know-who...
Jeffery Hodges
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Azate, I seem to owe you a debt of gratitude. Thank you for the link that you set up. I didn't know about that.
By the way, who was responsible for the initial, bad translation that was (oddly) even an offical one on the Vatican website?
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Thanks, Randy, but I really think that it was simply the luck of the draw.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Does one write snigger or snicker? Your audience is too polite for LOL.
As to your site counter, I recommend you turn it off. If you have something to contribute, and I believe you do, it is due to your own judgment and taste and creative spirit. Follow your bliss. Your connection to the web is secure. Don't worry about it.
By the way, I found your site from Mallory. Did you experience a Mal-alanche?
JJ, if I turned my site meter off, I'd be blissfully unaware, but with it on yesterday, I was blissfully aware.
But I don't worry about popularity, and the vast majority of yesterday's hits racked up "0" staying time. Apparently, my blog looks less like a barrel of monkeys and more like a burrow of monks.
As for "snigger" and "snicker," I've seen both but advise the latter to avoid trouble from the politically correct but linguistically obtuse crowd.
I recall getting some visitors when Mallory linked here, but no deluge.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Enjoy the avalanche while it lasts! I received my one and only Instalanche when I was blogging about Korean government censorship, and it was pretty cool to watch the numbers rise and skew my normal average. People are fickle, alas, and no amount of Marmot-style "don't be a stranger" can keep the majority of the people who visit. Take heart in having gained a few new readers, though.
Then again, your blog is exceptionally well written and, in terms of substantive commentary, it more than lives up to the "scholar" in the banner's title. Luck might be a factor in your current fame, but there's no reason this blog can't remain in the big time. I agree with those who expect big things for your future.
Kevin
Thanks, Kevin, for the kind words, but my numbers are falling back to normal. I don't expect any long-term rise, not from this.
But it was fun.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
*grumps jealously*
Huh. The only person who ever reads my blog is David Horowitz, and even then only posts about him.
Congratulations, Jeffery!
May I bask in your glory?
Scott, I'd never heard of Ramesh Ponnuru, but a reader such as David Horowitz -- now, that's impressive.
I mean, I've actually heard of him.
I've been gone and living abroad since 1989 -- and only half in America from 1986 to 1989 -- so I seem to be unaware of personalities that everyone else would immediately know.
Horowitz, on the other hand, I've long known of, even from his late leftist days. I was in Berkeley already by 1980 and became acquainted with his views while they were still in flux. I think that I even read something that he wrote about his connection to the Black Panthers in a local, free daily.
But as for Ramesh Ponnuru, his name is still a bit abstract for me.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Thanks for the congratulations, Stephen.
Unfortunately, the time for basking in glory around this site was two days ago. Yesterday's site-meter hits -- the best approximation that I have to a glory meter -- were about back down to normal.
So ... there's not much glory left to bask in, but sure, go ahead and bask.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
Jeffery, you must remember that I blogged about your blogging excellence long before Mr. Ponnuru discovered you! Remember me, now that you've come into your kingdom!
On another note, the "zero seconds" feature of your statcounter, like mine, can be misleading. If someone visits your website, and only loads one page, and never hits any other page, then that person's visit will be recorded as "zero seconds," even if they actually stayed for an hour on that same page.
Nathan, thanks for the information about the "0" seconds phenomenon.
Now, I realize that all those folks were actually such slow readers that they had to remain for an entire hour on a single blog entry!
Or maybe my writing is so obscure that they have to labor over every word...
Jeffery Hodges
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