TBT: The Worst of 2019

Well, 2020 is, after today, in the books, and we can breathe a collective sigh of relief.  Of course, all the problems of 31 December 2020 will still be there tomorrow when we wake up to 1 January 2021, but there is some optimism that an arbitrary flip of the calendar based on the Earth’s rotation around the Sun will set us up for a better calendar year.  With Biden the Usurper assuming the throne in twenty-one days, I don’t share in that optimism, but I’m looking forward to a music- and art-filled 2021 nonetheless.

At the end of 2019, I painstakingly went through the stats to find all the posts I’d written with just one view in 2019—the ultimate reminder to be humble, and to not expect huge pageviews right away.  I imagine that some of these were read in e-mails sent to followers, so I don’t get pageview counts for those, but that means the number of eyeballs reading these posts was depressingly low.

Of course, it being a Thursday, I pretty much have to give myself the easy way out and feature a TBT, so why not look back at the failures of a prior year?  And, in the spirit of yuletide wealth redistribution, maybe we can show these posts some holiday love.

Here is 31 December 2019’s “The Worst of 2019“:

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Wayback Wednesday: Airlines; Back to the Grind

I’m doing more retrospective/throwback posts here at the end of the year.  The end of the year is always a good time for reflections, but I’m also on the move in these last, dying days of 2020, so I’m trying to log posts in advance.

Indeed, today I’m hopping a flight to Mobile, Alabama, with my ultimate destination being a small town in George County, Mississippi.  My girlfriend and I are going to spend a few days with her folks before driving back to South Carolina after the New Year.

She might not appreciate this fact, but it’s reminiscent of a summer trip to New Jersey with my last girlfriend (although it went in reverse:  she and I drove up to New Jersey together, and I flew back solo).  I can never seem to date anyone whose parents live twenty minutes away—or even within easy driving distance.  New Jersey, now Mississippi—where next?  Here’s hoping I never date anyone from Alaska (although that would be cool); really, let’s hope I never have to hit the ruthless dating market again!

I don’t like flying.  I’m not scared of it, it’s just a pain—you can’t take shampoo and fingernail clippers with you because some Muslim jerks destroyed the Twin Towers.  I might be a jerk sometimes, but c’mon—do I look like someone who is going to hijack a plane with nose-hair tweezers?  Let’s apply a little discriminatory common sense here.

But here I am, yet again hopping a couple of flights to distant, sleepy locales.  With that, here is Summer 2019’s “Airlines; Back to the Grind“:

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The Worst of 2020

In the spirit of last year’s “The Worst of 2019,” I’m dedicating today’s post to looking back at the posts with the least views in 2020 (and maybe you could do me a solid and turn off your ad-blocker while reading through these neglected posts).

However, there’s a bit of a wrinkle—in 2019, I just featured posts that had only one view.  The problem:  I didn’t have any posts with a single view this year!  That’s a good problem to have, but it presents a bit of a conundrum.

I do, however, have a TON of posts with four views, which is my new minimum threshold.  So, for your enjoyment, here are the worst posts (in terms of pageviews) for 2020 (as of 23 December 2020):

1.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Independence Day 2020” – Apparently, patriotism is on the ropes.  Or maybe people just don’t want to pay a dollar to read quality content.

2.) “Lazy Sunday III: Historical Moments” – This one is one of the early Lazy Sundays, so I’m not surprised it’s not fallen from the heights of glory.  Or maybe people hate history.

3.) “Lazy Sunday LXVIII: Phone it in Fridays, Part II” – Talk about the ultimate in lazy in-phoning—a Lazy Sunday dedicated to various Phone it in Fridays, and this one is a lame sequel at that!

4.) “TBT: Election Day 2018” – Not any people in 2020 were interested in reading about an election from 2018.

5.) “TBT: Remembering 1519” – The Aztecs were horrible, so much so that no one cares to think about it too much.

6.) “TBT: High-Tech Agrarianism” – This essay was legitimately good, which is why I did a TBT to it within the same calendar year.  Apparently, readers disagreed.

7.) “Catching Up” – It’s little wonder this post did poorly:  it’s basically me making excuses for why I wasn’t writing something good that day.

8.) “A Very Dokken Christmas, Part II: Tooth and Nail” – This post goes back to December 2018, so it makes sense it’s fallen down the memory hole in 2020.  Still, it’s a good album!

9.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Festival Circuit: Ridge Spring Harvest Festival and Clinton Scots & Brats” – Again, the cheapskates are missing out on some quality content here.  Who doesn’t want to read about western South Carolina harvest festivals?

10.) “Lazy Sunday XCVI: Questions, Part V” – Another lazy premise:  the fifth part in a tired series of Lazy Sundays looking at posts that ask question in their titles.

11.) “Memorable Monday IV: Happy Labor Day [2020]!” – It seems this Labor Day wasn’t all that memorable after all.

12.) “Halloween Week!” – Considering I wrote this post in 2019, I’m only mildly disappointed that it didn’t do better in 2020, but Halloween deserves the best!

13.) “SubscribeStar Saturday Delayed: Family Birthday” – Another post giving a lame excuse for why I wouldn’t be posting that day’s SubscribeStar Saturday on time.

14.) “Americans Oppose Illegal Immigration” – I guess not as much as I thought—that, or the observation is so obvious, no one needed to read the post.

15.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: 9-11” – May we never forget.  And yet, for readers of this blog, it seems we have (that was actually the thesis of the post!).

16.) “America’s Roman Roots” – Perhaps the parallels between the United States and Rome are too unsettling to contemplate.

17.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: River and Stone” – A post about Roger Stones’s pardon—and floating down the Saluda River in a tube.

18.) “Breaking: Biden Picks Harris as Running Mate” – The beginning of Kamala’s thousand-year reign.

19.) “TBT: Lazy Sunday XXIV: Education” – Looking back at posts about education on a Thursday afternoon is not going to fill the seats.

20.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Returning to School in The Age of The Virus” – My reflections on going back to school after a summer of fun.

21.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Reflections on Distance Learning: First Month Review” – My reflections on teaching online during the Quarantine Spring.

22.) “Saturday Reading: Communist Infiltration is Real” – An older post, one that was a shocking revelation at the time I wrote it, but now is just an assumed fact.

23.) “Lazy Sunday LV: Animals” – I like animals.  My readers, it seems, do not.

24.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Social Peace Requires Social Capital” – This might be a 2019 post (I’m too lazy to check again—I have to write a lot of these little summaries), but it’s a really good essay.  Please read it.

25.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Distance Learning Reflections, Week One Review” – These posts about distance learning didn’t really catch on, did they?

26.) “TBT: Nehemiah and National Renewal” – A throwback to a really excellent post—one of the more popular ones on the site.

27.) “The Joy of Hymnals” – One of my favorite posts, which I believe I wrote in 2019, or earlier this year.  It deserves to be read!

28.) “Lazy Sunday XXXI: Trump, Part II” – Some posts about GEOTUS.

29.) “TBT: Transformers 2: Conservatives in Disguise?” – A throwback to a very old post I wrote in 2009.

30.) “Another Monday Morning Appeal” – A sales pitch.  It didn’t work.

31.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films” – I love the old horror movies of Hammer Films.  You’d like them, too, if you read this post!

32.) “Reblog: Quintus Curtius, ‘On Living Near the Ocean’” – This essay from Quintus Curtius was really good.  I think my commentary on his essay is solid, too.

33.) “Portly Movie Review: Teacher (2019)” – One of my earliest movie reviews.  I dropped the “Portly” from the title of future film reviews, but it has a nice ring to it.

34.) “TBT: Conservatives and Country Music” – Another throwback from the old 2009 site.

35.) “TBT: End the Income Tax” – From my keyboard to God’s web browser.

36.) “Happy Labor Day 2019!” – Labor Day is not a good day for pageviews.

37.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Coronavirus Prepping” – Most of this advice could be adapted for The Boogaloo.

38.) “Lazy Sunday LI: Just for Fun” – Sounds fun to me.

39.) “SubscribeStar Saturday: Liberty and Safety” – Why do we trade liberty for the illusion of safety?

40.) “Lazy Sunday XXII: Reading” – I love to read.  Read my thoughts about reading.

41.) “Lazy Sunday XX: The Laziest Sunday” – I thought reaching twenty Lazy Sundays was a big deal.

42.) “Teachers Quitting in Record Numbers – Reflections on Education” – Teachers are quitting in record numbers, and no one seems to care.

43.) “Deluge” – My old apartment flooded.  Thank goodness I don’t live there anymore!

44.) “North Korea Reflections” – It looks like Kim Jong Un never made it over here for a visit, but notice how no one talks about North Korea these days?  Thank you, Trump!

45.) “TBT: Rustics Have Opinions, Too” – Yet another post from the old Blogspot page.

46.) “#MAGAWeek2019: Alexander Hamilton” – Perhaps Hamilton fever has broken.

47.) “The Impermanence of Knowledge and Culture: The Great Library and Notre Dame” – Just like the Great Library and Notre Dame, this post is a prime example of impermanence.

48.) “First They Came for Crowder” – Now everyone is getting cancelled, and Crowder seems annoying and compromised.

49.) “The Left’s Cluelessness on Gun Control” – Again, another post with a premise so obvious, no one needed to read it.

50.) “Deportemal” – Still a good prescription for America.

51.) “The State of the Right, Part II: Dissident Right and Civic Nationalists” – Another one y’all need to read!

52.) “TBT: Family Matters” – A throwback from the Blogspot site during its revival in 2016.  One of my best essays.

53.) “Bland and Gay” – Remember Pete Buttigieg?  Neither do I.

54.) “They Live Analysis and Review” – You really should see They Live.  John Carpenter is a legend!

55.) “Lazy Sunday XLI: Food” – C’mon, people.  Who doesn’t want to read about food?

Shew!  That took a long time to compile that list.  Make my effort worth it and give these forgotten posts some love.

Bologna

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Update on Letter Writing

A couple of Saturdays back, I wrote a post about “The Lost Art of Letter Writing.”  While most of the details of the post are behind the paywall of my SubscribeStar page, the meat of the post was in the preview:  letter-writing is an intimate, thoughtful, and fun way to connect (or reconnect) with old friends and family.

I started my bout of letter writing fifteen days ago, sending out ten postcards I’d purchased at Universal Studios for $12.  After churning through those postcards, I found two greeting cards in a drawer, and send those out.  The cards had nothing to do with Christmas—a former student over a decade ago gave them to me, and they featured a photograph of a lizard he’d taken in the desert—but they were better than nothing.

By that point, facing some free time and having caught the bug, I wrote two letters.  Lacking cards or postcards, I turned to an old notebook I’d picked up at Target years ago—a simple spiral-bound, ruled notebook with a wacky robot on the cover.  The single page opened up new vistas of development, allowing for slightly longer, more detailed letters.

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Lazy Sunday XCIII: 2020’s Top Five Posts

It’s the last Sunday of 2020, so in keeping with last year’s tradition, today’s Lazy Sunday is dedicated to reviewing the Top Five posts (in terms of views) for 2020.

The posts below are not the top five in terms of views all-time.  Instead, I’m featuring the top five published in 2020.  Indeed, there were several posts from 2019 that blew these out of the water (all view totals are at the time of writing, 22 December 2020):  “Tom Steyer’s Belt” (2864 views), “Napoleonic Christmas” (295 views), “Christmas and its Symbols” (212 views), and others.

So, again, these are the Top Five Posts of 2020, published in 2020.  All numbers are as of 22 December 2020, so there could be some shifts:

1.) “The Cultural Consequences of the American Civil War” (254 views) – This post was adapted from a lengthy comment I made on a post at Nebraska Energy Observer, “What Do You Think?” by Audre Myers.  The comment sparked some good feedback, so I made it into a post.  Rachel Fulton Brown shared the post on her Telegram chat and her personal Facebook page, which really boosted the numbers.  The post discusses the oft-forgotten cultural and spiritual consequences of the Confederate loss to Yankee materialist imperialism.  I’m no closeted Neo-Confederate, but I tried to offer up a nuanced take on the downside to Union victory, and what was lost when the South fell.

2.) “Thalassocracy” (201 views) – This post really surprised me with its success.  I wrote it mostly as an after-thought—the situation with many posts when I’m churning out daily material—but the topic interested me.  Based on the limited search term information WordPress gives me, it turns out that many people were searching the unusual term for the same reason I was:  the video game Stellaris.  In searching for the meaning of “thalassocracy,” I stumbled upon a lengthy essay on the fragility of thalassocracies—nations and empires that build their fortunes on naval prowess, rather than substantial ground forces.  It’s an interesting (and long) essay, but hopefully my humble post sums it up well enough.

3.) “You Can’t Cuck the Tuck III: Liberty in The Age of The Virus” (87 views) – As you can see from the numbers, the posts begin dropping off a bit in views from here on out, though I consider anything over fifty views pretty solid for this humble blog.  This piece explored the destruction of liberties in The Age of The Virus, something that I find has occurred with shocking ease, and which continues to ever more ludicrous extremes.

4.) “Big Deal” (78 views) – This post was about Joe Rogan’s move to Spotify, and his own implicit sell-out to social justice cuckery.  I can’t account for its mild popularity, other than it was a timely post that touched on a widespread sentiment on the Right.

5.) “The God Pill, Part II” (76 views) – This piece reviewed former pick-up artist Roosh V’s dramatic conversion to Orthodox Christianity (covered in “The God Pill“; read the whole series here), and his decision to unpublish his bestseller, Game.  That decision has really cost him financially—he recently took a gig doing construction work in Alabama for a few weeks, and is apparently back living with his parents in Maryland—but it was the right move spiritually.  Many thought Roosh was converting as a way to reinvent himself to make an extra buck, but he really seems to be putting his faith first.  Kudos to him.

That’s it!  It’s hard to believe another year is in the books.  Thanks to everyone for reading, and for your ongoing support.  It can be difficult to maintain the pace of posting at times, but your feedback and comments really keep me going.

God Bless—and Happy New Year!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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SubscribeStar Saturday: End-of-Year Reflections 2020

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

It’s hard to believe that another year is in the books—and what a wild year it was.  In keeping with last year’s “End-of-Decade Reflections” (subscriber link), I decided to reflect again on the swiftly expiring year.

Indeed, technically 2020 is the last year of the long Teens decade, with 2021 marking the beginning of the 2020s, just as 2001, not the year 2000, is the first year of our current century and millennium.  But no one thinks about it that way, so I did end-of-decade reflections last year.  My post this year will take a more humble scope and just focus on the year 2020 itself, not the ten preceding it.

Besides, 2020 has contained a decade’s worth of events inside its twelve months, as every Internet wag and memester has already noted.  There’s enough to consider in this year to fill up a SubscribeStar Saturday post:  distance learning, Universal Studio trips, teaching music, the challenges to indie musicians, running for Town Council, etc.  The world—already a rapidly changing place—has changed substantially in just a few short months.

What to make of those changes is the real challenge going forward.  What happens next?

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Flashback Friday: Christmas and its Symbols

It’s Christmas!  Another magical day to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

2020 was a tough year, but Christ is mightier than The Virus.  Thank God—literally!—for sending His Son.

Have a wonderful, safe, loving Christmas Day.  God Bless all of your for your support and generosity, and for being such amazing readers.

Here’s 25 December 2019’s “Christmas and its Symbols“:

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TBT: Christmas Eve

Here we are—another Christmas Eve.  It’s a night full of magic, mysticism, and wonder—the Light and holy version of Halloween, when the tenuous division between our corporeal existence and the supernatural world is thin.

Last year I wrote of my family’s Christmas Eve traditions, which are changing up a bit again this year.  In lieu of the usual evening candlelight service, we’re going to an afternoon service at a church in my younger brother’s neck of the woods.  Afterwards, we’ll be enjoying Chinese food—a newer tradition for us—and some fondue, a tradition from my sister-in-law’s side of the family.  We’re beginning to sound like 1970s Jews on Christmas.

Here’s wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas tomorrow—and some Christmas Eve merriment tonight!  With that, here is 24 December 2019’s “Christmas Eve“:

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Doodles for Christmas

Seeing as it’s Christmastime, I’m taking a more light-hearted approach to posts this week, focusing on Christmas and the fun and music surrounding it.  To celebrate Christmas (and Festivus, which is today), I decided to share some of my favorite Sunday Doodles with you.

Normally Sunday Doodles are exclusive for $5 a month and higher SubscribeStar subscribers (and $3/month subs get doodles the first Sunday of the month), so think of this retrospective as a small Christmas present to you, my loyal readers.  If you want the full commentary on each doodle, though, you’ll have to subscribe.

The Very First Sunday Doodles – “Rose-Tinted Glasses” & “Cheeks”

These two doodles were from the first Sunday Doodles, dated 11 November 2019 (Veterans’ Day!).  “Rose-Tinted Glasses” has appeared as the “featured image” on posts before, but the Peter Griffin-esque “Cheeks” is new to the free site.

Sunday Doodles II – “Disco Dracula” and “The Hardcore Monsignor”

You can tell early on I was still going strong with my doodling A-game, as this second Sunday Doodles—from 18 November 2019—suggests..  “Disco Dracula”—who looks like a character from a 70s Blaxploitation film—and “The Hardcore Monsignor”—derivative of Monsignor Martinez from King of the Hill—are both awesome looking dudes.  “The Hardcore Monsignor” has been on the free site before, though I can’t remember the context.  “Disco Dracula” looks particularly spooky—and funky!

Sunday Doodles V – “Sophisticated Baby” & “The Toxic Drooler”

These doodles from the fifth Sunday Doodles (8 December 2019) feature two chunky babies of wildly different backgrounds.  “Sophisticated Baby” cracks me up every time I see it, especially the martini and the cigar.  “The Toxic Drooler” is what happens when I find a green pen on the ground and have time in a faculty meeting.

The Latest Sunday Doodles – #58!

As you can see, dear reader, you’ve missed out on a lot of Sunday DoodlesThe most recent edition, from this past Sunday, 20 December 2020, features some Christmas cheer, so I figured closing out on “Snowman” and “Christmas Tree” would be a fitting end to this post:

There you go—a small taste of the fun you’re missing.  I love a good doodle, and I’d love for you to get more of them every Sunday.

Subscribing is a great Christmas gift to yourself—and to yours portly!  ‘Tis the season, after all.  *Ding!*

Merry Christmas!

—TPP

Sunday Doodles LVIII, 20 December 2020 - Snowman

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