500 hits! and a tribute to San Francisco Values

 

big spike in the number of hits. . .yay! someone found my blog! Cool!

 

I was thrilled today when my blog achieved 500 hits!  After all, I ‘ve only been launching my blog entries into the ether for a matter of  weeks now and other than the handful of folks I’ve told about it, it’s a mystery who finds it, how they find it and what they think of it. Let alone this all repeating 500 times. It ‘s actually amazing to me. Every time the ticker goes up by one I wonder those things!

I’ve not had more than 20 hits in any given day (and it’s usually much less) so just imagine my surprise to see the blog-hit counter reach 500 today. A look “behind the curtain” (the stats) produced the graph displayed above and lo-and-behold, I had something like 70 hits today?!?  I’m incredulous and curious!! To what do I attribute this??  Wordpress provides the tool to help; I realized I had my first ever referrer… a link someone actually took the time to point back to me!!  And boy- did it work!! Wow!!  Cool!!  Now I’m wondering …who created the link?  Which post grabbed them and moved them to connect back to me?? Do we share a common passion?? Have I found a new cyber pal?? Will we banter and cross-polinate via our blog posts?? I followed the link and. . .

–EEK!!

I don’t know whether to laugh or scrub myself clean. . . the site that linked to me is equal parts ridiculous, scary, more scary, sad and foul material, some of the worst I’ve ever seen on the net.  I’ll tell you this much only- it ‘s run by and for fundamentalist, and I mean the most fringe of the fringe, Evangelical Christians, waiting the Rapture. I’d tell you the link but I don’t want to give them the traffic.  It is repellant stuff!

They found my post about the “three head six arm buddha” and linked that in some inscrutable way to myth of the Anti Christ and the ushering in of the Ra . . .  I’m not even going to go there. Not only did they link. They quoted my whole post and put it on their site. No joke. They presumably read the fascinating article to which I linked, detailing how the artist found discarded, desecrated and plundered religious art and created this Buddha in response, with intention to give dignity back to the art that was destroyed and, by extension, acknowledged the religious struggle behind the politics.  The triumph of art over war, of the human spirit overcoming oppression, of creating a thing of beauty from an act of ugliness. . . these folks didn’t quite get that part.

(And, I’m making a conscious decision not to call them Christians because they don’t represent the religion well, by any measure.)

So thanks guys for the traffic, it was fun to watch the counter notch up throughout the day, today. But you really only represent 70. Thanks to the other 430+ of you  that took the time to visit Mus-E-Yum and a huge thank you to the ones that left a comment 😉 I love it! Keep watching here for more about San Francisco values which, I happen to think, are among the highest you’ll find anywhere.

And thanks to Shanghai for that wonderful Buddha, a 3 head 6 arm sculpture that is not only beautiful but reflects (in my view) all that is Good about San Francisco. Our city that provides endless possibility and opportunity to all who have imagination. Our city that Preaches Peace and Love, Not War. Our city that Embraces all who have been outcast from and broken by the place where they grew up, and that puts them back together again. Our city that welcomes and celebrates people of all ethnicities, religions, non-religions, sexualities and creeds. Our city that fights every day for the Basic Human Rights and Intrinsic Worth of each and every person. Our city that is Beautiful. Our city that its Active. And Smart. And Generous. And Vibrant. And KIND. Our city that shines that Light back to a world that still has pockets of darkness, and Loves even the parts that would have the Light extinguished. Our city Persists, always striving to represent our best ideals.

Today Buddha, you mean all the more to me and, rest assured,  you have a home that loves you here in San Francisco!

 

three head six arm buddha in San Francisco