Random Thoughts On Having 100 Followers!

 

 

Sometime early this morning, April 12, 2020, this blog had its 100th person sign up to follow the blog and it only took nine years, almost to the day, from April 15, 2011, when I wrote and posted the initial blog post entitled "A Brief Introduction To My Appalachian Life".  I realize that neither nine years to achieve the milestone of 100 followers, or that number of followers themselves approaches anything like a record.  But I have been writing and posting more frequently and steadily for about three and a half years since I have retired from my full time occupation as a mental health and substance abuse therapist and my part time occupation over the last ten years as a self-employed auctioneer.  But I will say that 100 followers on any blog is above average and most bloggers and blogs never achieve that level.  It can be assumed that at some time over the last nine years that number of people have read something at least once on this blog which left them interested enough in my writing to try to come back and read more of it.  In the spirit of total honesty, I will also say that having 100 followers listed on any blog does not mean that all of those 100 people are actively reading the blog which they are reputed to be following.  Some of them might have died, decided they are no longer interested in that blog but are too lazy to delete it from their list of followed blogs, or they might have simply stopped reading anyone's blog. 

Roger D. Hicks & Loyal Jones, Photo by Candice M. Hicks

But I remember how long it took for this blog to achieve even fifty followers and that was most of these first nine years.  Over the last four years as I have written more steadily on the blog, I have seen a surge in followers which is also linked to the fact that I have also begun to more frequently post links to my posts on Facebook both on my own Facebook page and on several group pages devoted to some aspect of Appalachian Studies.  As the title clearly implies, the main focus of the blog is Appalachia and Appalachian Studies.  But over the last four years, I have also written more and more frequently about American politics.  I suspect that most of my followers are interested primarily in Appalachia and Appalachian Studies.  But I also believe that my political writing has attracted a few of the people over the last four years.  I also realize that some of both groups of followers are not particularly interested in the other aspect of the blog.  I know that some of my followers who are interested in Appalachian Studies might dislike my politics and my political writing.  Tough shit if you are one of those!  With the fate of the country I love lying in the hands of a Russian Owned TRAITOR, you can bet your ass I will continue to write about American politics, and I will continue to push for the indictment, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of that TRAITOR until the day one of us dies and I sincerely hope it is him because I would love to piss on his grave so long as he dies, as he should, in a federal prison cell after having been held legally responsible for his many crimes against this country, the remainder of the civilized world, and the entire human race.  I also know that an equal percentage of the followers who have joined this blog over the last four years because of my political writing wish I would stop wasting their time with more articles about Appalachia, the place of my birth, my education, my culture, and my life.  Tough shit if you are one of those!  I will never stop writing about Appalachia as long as my mind and my typing fingers work.  And since I follow at least one blog written by a woman who is a quadriplegic who must write with adaptive software using eye blinks, you can bet that I would not quit writing about Appalachia so long as I live.  I do sincerely hope that I can someday devote far less of my writing time to American politics. But that will not happen until we are blessed with an actual legally and duly elected president which I look forward to on January 20, 2021.  I hope all of you join me in supporting that effort to elect a president who has not committed TREASON in order to illegally occupy the White House.  If that happens, I will probably write very little about politics and most of you politically interested followers can smile and go home with peace in your heart which I am certain has been absent every day since January 20, 2017.  I realize that no matter who occupies the White House for the remainder of all our lives that there will be other crises which will crop up.  But you can bet your ass those crises will be much less stressful on us, less dangerous to the country, and far more quickly, ethically, morally, and legally dealt with when we have removed, via a legally conducted election, the current scourge from his TREASONOUS occupation of the White House.  

But I would like to thank each one of you who is actively following this blog for your interest in my work.  I know a few of you personally, some of whom I knew before I started this blog, and several I have come to know because of this blog.  I actually got to come to know one of my literary and Appalachian Studies heroes because of this blog.  I will always treasure the day the great Appalachian scholar Loyal Jones, the founder of the Appalachian Studies Program at Berea College left a message on my phone inviting me to lunch because he had read some of my work based on some of his work.  I also treasure the day Bill Best, another professor emeritus at Berea College and I became friends because we both write about and love Appalachia and despise the current illegal occupant of the White House.  Because of this blog, I have also come to know Frank Barnett and his sister, Mary Marguerite Barnett-Price, who along with me, grew up on the waters of Beaver Creek.  Frank is a noted expert, along with Bill Best, in the field of saving, preserving, and propagating heritage food crops in Appalachia.  They have taught me a lot about the crops my ancestors grew and I am appreciative of them both.  John D. Shelton and I connected because his wife is a descendant of a few of my common ancestors and John also agrees with most of my politics.  Jay Shuck was known to me for several years before I began this blog.  He and I have completed a graduate school program together and worked for the same institution for a few years.  Marie Manilla, a noted Appalachian author whose work I appreciate, decided to join this blog sometime after we were introduced by our friends Edwina Pendarvis and P. J. Laska, both of whom are noted Appalachian poets.  I do not know all of you followers but can rest assured that I appreciate your interest in my work.  If you are remotely interested in Appalachian Fiction, you might consider going to the section at the bottom of the front page of this blog which is labeled "Links To Other Sites About Appalachia" and read one or two of my fiction pieces on various websites around the country.  If you do that, always feel free to send me an e-mail with your honest opinions of that aspect of my writing.  Be honest!  I can take it.  My work has been rejected by experts and yet a few of them have enjoyed it.  

If you choose to continue to read this blog, know that I will always tell you the truth.  I will not lie to you either in print or to your face.  If you want to know my unvarnished opinion of anything or anybody, just ask me.  I will not wait to determine what you believe before I tell you.  I will answer you immediately based on my honest opinion and to the best of my knowledge.  You can take me at my word.  If you ever desire to contact me, feel free either on the comments section of the blog or on one of my listed e-mail addresses.  My telephone has never been unlisted and it will never be.  Call me if you feel the need.  Maybe we can have lunch together some day and actually learn if we like each other.  Once again, Thanks To All Of You who follow this blog.  

Photo of Freeway Carpets Marquee, El Paso, TX, photo by Roger D. Hicks

Thanksgiving 2016 So Little To Be Thankful For

As we come to this Thanksgiving season, the country is beginning what I am firmly convinced will prove to be one of the darkest, bleakest, most dangerous periods in the history of the country and the world.  Without even a plurality, the country has elected, via the electoral college system, literally the most dangerous human on the planet to become president.  Hillary Clinton has, as the counting proceeds, more than two million vote lead in the popular vote.  But Trump managed to gain an electoral college victory.  I have never been one of the misled people who screamed that the electoral college system was a mistake.  It is not.  Donald Trump is the mistake.  

Trump has absolutely no political experience and is prone to dangerous, misbegotten, and inflammatory statements that can lead to huge international conflicts when they take place in diplomatic discussions or are quoted in the popular media which the man loves to use to what he perceives as his advantage.  Trump has significant indicators of serious mental illness, specifically antisocial personality disorder with megalomania, the uncontrolled and irrational desire for power.  Now, he has achieved the ultimate dream of every megalomaniac.  He will be sworn in as president of the United States.  After having been endorsed by only two world leaders, Kim Jung Un and Vladimir Putin, the world's two worst dictators.  There is also significant evidence of an improper relationship between Trump and Putin before the election.  Trump was endorsed by only two large newspapers in the entire country as opposed to 56 which endorsed Hillary Clinton.  Of all the living former Republican Presidential nominees, none endorsed Trump.  Yet, somehow, enough voters fell for his lies to allow him to win.  Trump has begun assembling a cabinet which is comprised of a group of people who have nearly universally been participants in prior major Republican failures.  His chief White House strategist is a supporter of the worst Right Wing Radical organizations in the world.  His nominee for UN Ambassador has absolutely no international experience.  His nominee for Secretary of Education is a supporter of charter schools and the destruction of the Department of Education.  His nominee for head of the Environmental Protection Agency wants to destroy the agency at a time when global warming is teetering at the point where it will become irreversible.  The country is headed into a disastrous time from which we may well not be able to recover.  

If I had $100,000 cash with which to build a two bedroom wheelchair accessible house (my wife has been in a wheelchair for more than 18 years)  in a safe foreign country I would be gone to Ecuador, New Zealand, Canada, Belize, or some other country where rational government is practiced.  I do not  believe the USA is safe for the foreseeable future either militarily, economically, or socially.  Trump has bred, fostered, nurtured, and encouraged racial, ethnic, and class hatred in a way that no one since Adolph Hitler has done.  Trump's campaign was modeled after the methods Hitler used to gain power in Germany.  He is remorseless, unprincipled, unethical, and extremely dangerous.  The next four years will be a horrible time in America in which the Right Wing Radicals will attempt to dismantle and destroy every good thing which has been produced in the last one hundred years.  They will destroy the Affordable Care Act which has provided reasonable health care for millions who never had any before.  They will destroy the Environmental Protection Agency which is the only bastion of protection between the populace and the destruction of the planet.  They will attempt to destroy Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Food Stamps, WIC, the GI Bill, Student Loans, HUD, and a plethora of other programs which comprise much of the difference between a socially productive and progressive nation and an oligarchy which cares nothing for its citizens.  They will attempt to "privatize" every aspect of government which contains money.  "Privatization" is a code word for turning government funds over to Right Wing bankers and stockbrokers so they can loot the funds with fees and outright larceny.  

The most likely positive outcome that come out of this electoral disaster is that the Democratic Party can regain at least one house of congress in two years.  But with control of all three branches of government, the most dangerous human on earth has no checks and balances for the next two years.  In two years time, irreversible damage will be done to the structure and nature of American government.  Worst of all, Donald Trump has no self control and no desire to have any.  He is perfectly capable of causing World War 3 without even knowing or admitting how it happened.  Nuclear war is a very real possibility with Donald Trump and Kim Jung Un in control of two nuclear nations.  Trump is no more rational, intelligent, or ethical and Kim Jung Un.  They are very much alike psychologically.  Both are highly dangerous, unpredictable, and unstable people.  It will be a miracle if we survive the next two years without a major diplomatic disaster which could lead to an unwinable and unsurvivable war.  

There is little to look forward to with hope in the next four years.  The American electorate has bought a pig in a poke.  The pig is fetid and feral.  The poke is rotten.  There is little to look forward to with hope in America this Thanksgiving Day.  

And, just to forestall and foresee those who will ask "don't you have anything to be thankful for", yes, I do still have most of the standard, human desires to be thankful for.  I own my own home free and clear.  I have a wife who loves me after nearly 25 years of marriage.  I have a better than average education which has given me the tools with which to foresee the coming disaster.  For today, the very brief, foreseeable future, I live in a Democratic country which will be governed until January 20, 2017, by one of the best Presidents of the last one hundred years who has done a wonderful job in the face of 8 years unreasonable and irrational opposition by the worst congress in American history.  And, sadly, I have the judgment to warn the rest of you that a terrible political train is coming down a very dark tunnel.  I can see the light on the engine as it roars down the track.  Why can't you?