Another year of blogging under the belt. That makes six. I honestly had no idea I’d be able to keep it going this long, I figured I’d get bored with it sometime in Year 4…..

Anyway, I managed 58 posts – down two from 2018. Still more than one a week (vacations help!). There were 2,729 visitors and 3,859 page views (both of which are HUGE increases over 2018). Over two-thirds of those views came from the US. The United Kingdom, Canada, and France were next. People from a total of 69 countries (as defined by WordPress) stopped by (Hello Kazakhstan!). There were 136 “likes” – also a huge increase over 2018. Well, there are a lot more posts overall – their number isn’t going down. “Indiana Jones and the Top Men” is still my most popular post by a long shot – and I haven’t even been promoting it. It must show up on a lot of search engines.

Instead of the “most viewed” posts for 2019, I thought I’d plug the ones I personally liked the most (well, at least at this time of writing).

I’m getting tired of how a lot of the Leftists keep griping about how things are Unfair! because of the way the federal government seems to be structured against them, like how the Senate gives equal power and influence to a huge stat like California and a tiny one like Wyoming (the two states they love to use as an example). In “Fixing the Senate”, I noted that the Senate isn’t the only part of the government. Maybe these Leftists, instead of whining about how the rules of the game are so UNFAIR, they ought to figure out a strategy that will let them win according to those rules?

In “MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year”, I did a heck of a lot of research (well, compared to the average post) to find out which baseball teams had more than one of the sport’s major award winners. It turned out to be more common than I thought! Look for a spinoff post on “Whatever Happened to the Rookies of the Year” before Opening Day.

The one essay I “finally got around to” after planning it for ages was “An Open Letter to the National Film Preservation Board”. The Blob really does deserve to be recognized as a classic alongside films like The Wizard of Oz and Die Hard.

Speaking of movies, I had a heck of a lot of fun putting together the three posts on “50 States, 50 Movies”. I found a whole bunch of cool movies that are now in my “Watch these someday” queue. If you’re looking for movies to watch, try making your own list! It’s fun and easy!

I did have a heck of a lot of posts on the political situation. One that is still relevant in 2020 is “Burying the Lede”. The Press has got to do a better job of covering Trump and the campaign. There’s going to be so much doctored media and outright lies out there that it will be very difficult for the average citizen to keep things straight. Our news media needs to stop spreading the lies. Even if all they are doing is saying “This Twitter video has been selectively edited to completely distort the speaker’s meaning”, they are still spreading the lie. People are going to remember the original video, and not your explanation.

And it’s not a matter of who “scores the most points” against their opponent. It’s a matter of who is correct and whose ideas are the best.

But when folks follow [Trump’s] lead and focus on performance and visuals rather than the substance, they’re playing Trump’s game on Trump’s turf. And when that happens, Trump wins. So if you’re playing that game and still wondering how Trump always seems to get away with the outrageous and the unconscionable, you should just look in the mirror.

Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post