The Burning Taper blog passed a milestone of sorts yesterday by publishing its 250th post.I didn't notice it at the time, but it's good that #250 was the one about censorship in India and Pakistan. I've always been a big advocate of freedom of speech, expression, etc. Unlike many blogs, here you'll always find the comments section wide open — no trying to control the flow of conversation or moderate or pre-approve a comment before it's posted. (Now watch someone go and try me on this.... I will delete spam and overly-offensive comments if they don't further a point or cause.)
The Burning Taper blog was born out of my need for expression when my right to speak my mind was suppressed in my Masonic lodge upon order of Grand Lodge of Georgia officers. Of that you've read more than enough. Since that time, Burning Taper has gone in several directions, sometimes all at once, posting articles not only on Masonry — the good and the bad — but also on world events, science and technology, religious ideas, conspiracy theories, funny stuff and generally wacky things.
We first posted on BT in September, 2005. In February, 2006 we began counting visitors, and since then, we've had over 41,000 pairs of eyeballs check out the site. A more recent counter we installed last week shows vistors so far from 41 different countries.
We're a featured "related link" on the very popular About network's AltReligions site, hosted by Jennifer Emick. We were the Link of the Month for June on the Masonic website Freemasonry.fm.
Technorati.com currently tracks 2.7 billion links and 49 million blogs. Of those 49,000,000 blogs, it considers Burning Taper to be #30,504. A special thanks to all of you who have linked to Burning Taper.
BT spun off a sister site in January, 2006: SacredFems.com, where Mary and I (with the occasional help of others as well) share writing duties.
We have several hundred friends at Burning Taper's MySpace space. Visit us there, too.
We've made many friends, Masonic and non-Masonic, online and offline, since Burning Taper began. We thank each of you for your friendship and for continuing to make Burning Taper a regular part of your blogospheric reading experience (BRE).
It's probably not a good idea to thank people individually in public, because inevitably you always forget someone, but we want to thank certain people anyway for their special support and input, which has helped make BT what it is today: GrouchoGandhi, all the members of the United Grand Lodge of America, Greg Stewart, Tim Bryce, Tim Boucher, Rod, Arod, Darren, two Toms, Jeff Peace, Donna, George Ann, Jennifer Emick, Janice, Eris, John Ratcliff, two Davids, the Wayfaring Man, Patrick, all my Masonic brothers everywhere, Sandy Frost, Eric Julien (don't know him, never corresponded with him, but his 73-P comet impact story in May brought us more traffic than any other topic, ever), Robert Anton Wilson, Bob Dobbs, the late Ron Bonds — and even Josh the Baptist, 'cause without conflict, a magazine or blog just reads like an old issue of Grit Magazine.
— Mary and the Widow's Son
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Aziz, light!
ReplyDeleteThat means you're in the top ten percent of the top one percent, of all blogs tracked on Technorati. Great work. I'm just barely cracking the top half of the top one percent myself.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! A ,ighty voice of truth for Free-Masons world-wide!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats and kudos, WS. That's a lot of writing, editing, and deciding which article is worth the effort.
ReplyDeleteWow - I'm way down on the list at 473,131, which puts me at roughly .01%.
Are you gonna post a comment on the Rev. Juice blog to thank him?
You're firmly in the top one percent, Tom. Anything above 490,000 is.
ReplyDeleteDoh!
ReplyDeleteObviously my math skills are in the bottom 1%!