My readership seems to have plateau’d

Now that I am posting less often than I used to, pageviews of my blog have taken a decided downturn. In fact, my readership has plunged alarmingly pretty much leveled off except for occasional mountains here and there. You might even say that interest in my blog has plateau’d:

At first it seemed to me that more views were taking place on Mondays, but that phenomenon was short-lived. My current theory is that the number of readers a blog attracts depends on whether the labels attached to individual posts match what potential readers enter into search engines.

It occurs to me that the chart of my blog’s pageviews has counterparts in nature.

Here’s proof:

The Rock of Gibraltar:

Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, USA:

Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia:

Canyonlands National Park, Utah, USA:

(CC-BY-SA-3.0; Released under the GNU Free Documentation License)


Maybe I just have an overactive imagination.

You don’t have to agree so readily.

In closing, I have something to say to readers and potential readers everywhere.

Don’t mesa with my blog.

Why couldn’t Hillary Clinton just tell the truth and say, “My dog ate my emails”?

I’ll tell you why. Because even if the dog actually did eat her home- work emails, we wouldn’t believe her.

Transparent? The woman wouldn’t know transparent if it walked up to her and slapped her in the face.

She seems a nice enough person to the casual observer. I’ll give her that. But that is also the problem. She wants us all to remain casual observers and just believe whatever she says. Who are we to question her?

As columnist Matt Bai points out in this article today on Yahoo, it’s no longer the 1980s or 1990s. The world has changed. Whether the change is for the better, you can discuss amongst yourselves. But changed it certainly has. (Sorry, I lapsed into Yoda-speak there for a minute.)

Jackie Kennedy smoked, but who knew? She never did it in public, so the game was to make us think she never did it at all. It was whispered about Mamie Eisenhower that she drank a lot. Betty Ford came right out and admitted it. Hillary Clinton’s feet of clay may well be that she is known to shout and scream and drop F-bombs all over the place in private. Then again, at this point, what difference does it make?

The world never stops changing.

Hillary Clinton continues to stumble over her own “master plan” -- or so it seems to all of us not-so-casual observers. She never seems genuine. She always gives the impression that she has examined carefully every possible response and picked the one that will deceive convince the greatest number of people voters.

Since I just violated two of my own rules (Never say never; always avoid always) , it must be time to stop.

Hillary Clinton, a woman with many admirers and many detractors, may well wind up becoming America’s First Female President. Only time will tell.

Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

Maybe the world hasn’t changed that much after all.

My name is Bob and I’m a folk dancer

(I’m not really a folk dancer. This was another one of those Facebook photos I just couldn’t resist.)

According to our old pal Wikipedia, “The hokey cokey (United Kingdom) , hokey pokey (United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) is a participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure. It is well known in English-speaking countries. It is of unclear origin, with two main traditions having evolved in different parts of the world. The song and accompanying dance peaked in popularity as a music hall song and novelty dance in the mid-1940s in Britain and Ireland.”

The entire article is fascinating, and I recommend that you read it.

Hokey pokey may also refer to:

* An iconic New Zealand flavour of ice cream
* A New Zealand term for Honeycomb toffee
* A record label
* An album by Richard and Linda Thompson released in 1975

Now there’s something I really could become addicted to.

Grammarians, do not think less of me for ending that sentence with a preposition. Someone has said that people who think prepositions are something you should not end a sentence with do not know what language is all about or what prepositions are for. No less a personage than Winston Churchill, when he was criticized (British, criticised) for ending a sentence with a preposition, said, “That is the sort of criticism up with which I will not put.” He said some other memorable things as well, but they are not pertinent.

Speaking of words and how they are used, there is a slide show over at dictionary.com showing seven words the Internet has reinvented. The words are friend, troll, like, link, address, surf, and block. Take a look.

As longtime readers of this blog know, I have always tried to cover many topics in my posts. And when I cover a topic, I try to look at it from different angles. Whether the subject is words or Winston Churchill or ice cream or the participation dance known as the hokey pokey (hokey cokey in the U.K.) , my readers deserve no less. After all...

That’s what it’s all about.

Time marches on

I can’t remember whether I have shown these photographs to you before, but if I have, I’m about to show them to you again.

Mrs. RWP and children, circa 1969:

Mr. and Mrs. RWP and children, July 2010:

Two of the six grandchildren, circa 1999:

Same two grandchildren, October 2014:

The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone’s connected to the leg bone, the leg bone’s connected to the knee bone; or You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours; or Follow the money

I know that everything one encounters online, especially on Facebook, is not necessarily true. All’s fair in love and war, everyone seems to have an axe to grind, and so forth. Nevertheless, I found the following particularly interesting:

For readers who find reading white text on a black background difficult, especially if it is in a sans serif font, the text under the photograph of a long, long line of railroad tank cars reads as follows:

“Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad (BNSF) owns all of the rail lines in the US that connect to western Canada, and they haul 80%+ of the crude from Canada to the Midwest and Texas or charge other Short Line railroads a fee to use their tracks. BNSF charges $30 per barrel to haul the oil while the Keystone Pipeline would cost $10 per barrel by the State Department’s own estimates. BNSF is owned by Berkshire Hathaway whose chairman is Warren Buffet. In the last 2 election cycles, Buffet gave extensively to democrat causes and candidates. He also bundled and hosted numerous fundraisers for Obama. If anyone believes the Keystone Pipeline isn’t being blocked by Obama on Buffet’s behalf, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Buffet could stand to lose $2 billion+ a year if the pipeline is constructed. He makes the same amount every year that the pipeline is delayed.”

I have no idea whether the figures 80%+, $30 per barrel, $10 per barrel, and $2 billion+ in the above paragraph are true, but I do know this:

Warren’s last name is Buffett. Not Buffet. Buffett.

An error like that just makes the whole thing suspect in my eyes.

But it certainly provides ample food for thought.

Photo: “Hot Buffet line aboard Celebrity Equinox” by Joe Ross of Lansing, Michigan, 12-09-2011. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy, and Bess

I briefly considered writing a post about sauces but my research gave me a headache. I will tell you that many French sauces have geographical names (Hollandaise, Lyonnaise, Bordelaise, Bourgignonne) , but even though a few English sauces have geographical names (Worcestershire, Oxford, Yorkshire) it is far more common among the English to refer to sauces as white, red, green, brown, and so forth.

Be that as it may, a family friend told us the other day that one of her great-great-grandmothers was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian and that someone else who had “done the research” had told her that her family were direct descendants of Queen Elizabeth.

Whoa! Wait just a minute, Nellie (not her name) . I, being the sort of fool who always rushes in where angels fear to tread, immediately mentioned that Queen Elizabeth was (a) known as The Virgin Queen, (b) never married, and (c) didn’t have any children. This bit of information didn’t faze my friend, however. She ended this particular thread of conversation by replying, “Well, I don’t know about any of that, but there was more than one Queen Elizabeth.”

Of course there was. Queen Elizabeth One and Queen Elizabeth Two. But she couldn’t have meant the current one, could she, and now be claiming to be a Mountbatten-Windsor?

No.

This particular conversation spurred me on to do some research of my own, and my friend is absolutely correct. There have been a whole slew slough passel bunch of Queen Elizabeths or Queens Elizabeth or whatever they should be called. So I thought I would make today’s post about them.

In no particular order, they are:

*Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) , last Tudor monarch over England, reigned 1558–1603
*Elizabeth II (born 1926) of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms, reigning since 1952
*Elizabeth The Queen Mother (1900–2002) , queen consort of King George VI, queen dowager and queen mother of the United Kingdom, born Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
*Elizabeth Woodville (1437–1492) , queen consort, queen dowager and queen mother of England
*Elizabeth of York (1466–1503) , queen consort of England
*Elizabeth de Burgh (1289–1327) , queen consort of Scotland
*Elisabeth of Bavaria (1876–1965) , queen consort, queen dowager and queen mother of the Belgians
*Elizabeth the Cuman (1239/1240–1290) , queen consort and regent of Hungary
*Elizabeth of Sicily, Queen of Hungary (1261–1303) , queen consort of Hungary
*Elisabeth of Bohemia (1292–1330) , queen consort of Bohemia
*Elisabeth Richeza of Poland (1286–1335) , queen consort of Bohemia and Poland
*Elizabeth of Poland, Queen of Hungary (1305–1380) , queen consort of Hungary, regent of Poland
*Elizabeth of Bosnia (1340–1387) , queen consort and queen dowager of Hungary and Poland, queen mother of Hungary
*Elizabeth Granowska (c. 1372–1420) , queen consort of Poland
*Elisabeth of Habsburg (1436–1505) , queen consort, queen dowager and queen mother of Poland
*Elizabeth of Austria (1526–1545) , queen consort of Poland
*Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia (1596–1662) , the "Winter Queen", briefly queen consort of Bohemia, wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine
*Elisabeth of Bavaria (1837–1898) , queen consort of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia
*Elizabeth of Holstein-Rendsburg (c. 1300-before 1340) , junior queen consort of Denmark, wife of Eric Christoffersen
*Elisabeth of Bavaria-Ingolstadt (c. 1370–1435) , queen consort of France
*Elisabeth of Austria, Queen of France (1554–1592) , queen consort of France
*Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Germany (c. 1227–1273) , queen consort of Germany, Jerusalem and Sicily
*Elizabeth of Carinthia, Queen of Germany (c. 1262–1312) , queen consort of Germany
*Elizabeth of Pomerania (1347–1393) , queen consort and queen dowager of the Romans, Bohemia, Italy and Burgundy
*Elisabeth of Nuremberg (1358–1411) , queen consort of the Romans
*Elizabeth of Luxembourg (1409–1442) , queen consort of the Romans, Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia
*Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern (1715–1797) , queen consort and queen dowager of Prussia
*Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria (1801–1873) , queen consort of Prussia
*Elisabeth of Romania (1894–1956) , queen consort of the Hellenes (Greece)
*Elizabeth Kaʻahumanu (c. 1768–1832) , queen consort and queen regent of Hawaiʻi
*Elizabeth Kīnaʻu (c. 1805–1839) , queen consort, queen regent and dowager queen of Hawaiʻi
*Elisiv of Kiev (1025-c. 1067) , also known as Elisaveta Yaroslavna, queen consort of Norway
*Elisabeth of Wied (1843–1916) , queen consort and queen dowager of Romania
*Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine (1711–1741) , queen consort of Sardinia, Cyprus, Jerusalem and Armenia
*Elizabeth of Hungary, Queen of Serbia (1255–1313) , queen consort of Serbia
*Elizabeth of Carinthia, Queen of Sicily (1298–1352) , queen consort and regent of Sicily
*Elisabeth of France (1602–1644) , queen consort of Spain and Portugal
*Elisabeth of Swabia (1203–1235) , also known as Beatrice of Swabia, queen consort of Castile and León
*Elizabeth of Aragon (1271–1336) , queen consort, queen dowager and queen mother of Portugal, also known as Saint Elizabeth of Portugal
*Elisabeth of Valois (1545–1568) , queen consort of Spain
*Elisabeth Farnese (1692–1766) , queen consort, queen dowager and queen mother of Spain

Forty-one in all. It would have been just perfect if there had been 42. Which one of those my friend is related to I will let her figure out on her own.

There are also a couple of fictional Queen Elizabeths or Queens Elizabeth or whatever they should be called, and I don’t want to leave them out:

*Elizabeth III of the House of Winton, monarch of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, in David Weber’s Honorverse books
*Elizabeth X, aka “Liz 10”, fictional queen of Starship UK in the Doctor Who episodes “The Beast Below” and “The Pandorica Opens”

As Paul Harvey used to say on the radio, “Now you know the rest of the story.”

Fittingly, I end today’s post with a riddle in the form of a nursery rhyme from Mother Goose:

Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy, and Bess,
They all went together to seek a bird’s nest;
They found a bird’s nest with five eggs in,
They all took one, and left four in.

Douglas Adams, paging Mr. Douglas Adams

Here are the answers to the poetry pop quiz in my last post and a few more answers thrown in for good measure:

1. “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” by Emily Dickinson.
2. “Fable” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
3. “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes.
4. “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou.

The answer to the question “Where’s Waldo?” (which was asked in the title of the poetry pop quiz post) was 2 (Ralph Waldo Emerson) . He was there all the time.

The answer to the question “What is The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?” (which wasn’t asked at all) is 42.

42 is a domino game played mostly in Texas.

42 is the age of the youngest president of the United States (and it was not John F. Kennedy) .

42 is the number that baseball player Jackie Robinson wore on his jersey throughout his Major League career.

In Lewis Carroll's Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Rule Forty-two is “All persons more than a mile high to leave the court”. Specifically:


At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his notebook, called out “Silence!” and read out from his book, “Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”

Everybody looked at Alice.

“I’m not a mile high,” said Alice.

“You are,” said the King.

“Nearly two miles high,” added the Queen.

“Well, I sha’n’t go, at any rate,” said Alice: “besides, that’s not a regular rule: you invented it just now.”

“It’s the oldest rule in the book,” said the King.

“Then it ought to be Number One,” said Alice.


I must say, I quite agree with Alice.

According to a woman named Connie Robertson in A Dictionary of Quotations (1998, p. 447) , Voltaire once said, “England has forty-two religions and only two sauces.”

42 is a lot of things. For just some of them, click here.

It will make your head swim.

This post is the blogging equivalent of the Theater of the Absurd, a term that can be traced (sort of) to “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus, which was written in -- wait for it -- 1942 .

It is only fitting, therefore, that we end this post with the song “Mairzy Doats” which was written in 1943. Here is little Janet Lennon, youngest of The Four Lovely Lennon Sisters, singing it on The Lawrence Welk Show in 1957 (1:39) .