The following post about bossyflossy and me was quite long so I decided to split it in half. I posted them in reverse order so they might come up in the correct order.

Many, many months ago I wrote a post that started this way:

“I am asking for your help. I don’t get many folks stopping by this blog. I am okay with that since these writings have a greater cathartic value. But if you know other folks please ask them to write to FOX news and complain about the use of the phrase “no spin zone”.

I was asking for the reader to ask people they know to contact Fox and to complain about the misuse of the term, ‘no spin zone’. One of the comments left on that post was this:

“I like your post, and understand why you feel so passionately....Just a tip...If you want readers you must go to other blogs and read them and leave comments on them....Otherwise you get lost around here...”

At the time I thought the commenter misunderstood what it was I was asking help about, although I must admit to the sentence structure being ambiguous. I wasn’t asking for help in finding more readers I was asking for help in spreading the word to Fox. But the words of the commenter stuck in my memory.

Yesterday I received a private message and within that message was the suggestion that if I went to thus and so blog and left a comment I might solicit more readers to my blog because thus and so has a high visitor count. That suggestion was unsolicited as we had been talking about something completely different. But it jogged my memory back to the comment left many months ago.

So what’s it all about, this blogstream? It looks as though it’s all about scratching my back and I will scratch yours. Bossyflossy (I hope there isn’t such a blogger, but just as an example) bossyflossy leaves a comment on one of my posts. So I’m expected to go to bossyflossy and leave a comment? But bossyflossy has a blog filled with Jesus, or her vacation or what she did today. Should I leave an insincere comment like, “I agree with you flossy, Jesus saves”, or “wow flossy it reminds me of my vacation last year”, or “hey flossy here’s what I did today”?

What’s the point in that? The odds are that bossyflossy didn’t read my post but merely commented in the hope that I would visit her post and add to her counter which was stuck on 2109. So I leave a comment, “gee, bossy, thanks for the pix of the grand kids. Good post” Here is where bossyflossy can make big numbers on her counter.

When I leave a comment on a post I invariably go back to see if they responded. It’s human nature, isn’t it? If flossy wants to add another 1 or 2 to her counter here’s what she should do. This might be a gut-check for many bloggers. To respond she only has to click once; either click ‘add a comment’ or click (CC). If she chooses (CC) she will automatically send her response to me as well as posting it.

Flossy would be showing some consideration by keeping me from going back time and time again to see her response. But that wouldn’t help that counter now would it? But bossyflossy is naive and never thought of that. Instead she returns to my blog, leaves another innocuous comment and clicks on ‘bookmark’.

I’ve book marked a few blogs but blogstream interprets that action as ‘blogs I like’. I didn’t say I liked them I only want to find them easily, like a bookmark. I only have five or six bookmarks, or should I say blogs I like, and I will use one as an example: Gaza Dreaming. Do I like the blog? No, the views expressed there run against my grain, more often than not, and I leave comments to reflect that disagreement.

In fairness to the writer, Dr. Mary, I have not been blocked from her blog although I disagree with her quite often. That’s more than I can say for others with whom I have left a disagreeing comment. I book marked it because I am interested in the Palestinian/Muslim point of view and Gaza Dreaming is hard to find on the blog. Gaza Dreaming has never commented on my blog and probably never will.

But I’m okay with that. I’m interested in them anyway even though they aren’t helping my counter. I am not writing for the counter. In the race to 50,000 I am the tail of the tortoise. I am writing for me. I am writing to become a better writer. I love substance and depth while I deplore fluffy and shallow. Sincerity matters, insincerity is cruel in its’ way.

Why would I bookmark Whit? His blog is easy to find. Why would I bookmark Coloconnect? Her blog is equally easy to find. I enjoy them both and I comment frequently. I comment on their posts but do I need to hold up a big sign that says I LIKE YOUR BLOG? Are Whit and Coloconnect offended because they aren’t in my extremely limited blogs I like list? I hope not. I know they’re out there, I seek them out. There’s no need to scatter bread crumbs along a path well worn by my shoes.

They should see that as a compliment. I know I do. If a person consistently comments on my blog and I am not on their blogs I like list, I’m complimented and I suspect their comments are heartfelt, not just some fishing expedition from bossyflossy hoping to lure me back to their web of numbers. I wonder if blogstream would consider a small window titled ‘blogs I don’t like’.

Oh well, there it is. Another post that no one will read. I have no friends. On a scale of 1-50 I’m only a 4. No one loves me so what’s the use. Even bossyflossy doesn’t come around anymore.

Maybe that commenter months ago was right. Maybe there is a blogstream click clique. Maybe there are quite a few of them. To help figure that out I went to the home page and looked through the “most popular blogs” list. I’ve been to most of them and commented on them as well. But there were two that were new; to me.

Cool Stuff I’ve Found is a blog I went to only once. I thought it was going to be about rare finds or antiques. It wasn’t, so I never returned. So I went over. The last post was on February 25, 2006. There were 21 comments. The author had not responded to any of the 21. The blogs I like was about as limited as mine and there were 22,412 visitors. The author hasn’t posted in 6 months and is at 22,412! No evidence of a click clique there, maybe it’s the catchy title. After all that’s why I visited the first time. Maybe “The Oh Really Factor” needs to be changed.

Second on the most popular, but new to me, list was Ann of Hearts. So much for the catchy title idea. Nothing catchy there. She was a complete stranger to me so off I went. Ann is active, both literally and figuratively. She posted today. She has 96 comments spread out over 46 posts. She has not responded to any of the commenters, publicly. But she may have privately because her posts are poorly written, all about sex and sings the praises of adultery.

Her first post was April 9th so she’s been at it four months. I made a note that I was visitor number 17,301 at 0830PST. I went back exactly 24 hours later and the counter was 17,586. 17,586 in four months! 285 in one day!(Two of them were me so actually 283) No click clique here and no catchy title either. It must be the subject matter. Maybe “The Oh Really Factor” needs to be changed.

**********I know it’s possible to click, click, click and increase the counter one at a time, but in the second place who has that kind of time and in the first place what meaning would that have?**********

I decided to look deeper. I clicked on ...more, in the popular blogs area. Knit Happens, now there’s a catchy title and surely it won’t be smutty. One post, February 21, 2006. Two comments. 7,905 on the counter. Wow! With numbers like that Knit Happens could be a sure bet dark horse to win the race. Perhaps big numbers rule in the How To category. Maybe “The Oh Really Factor” needs to change.

Scrolling down I noticed Donuts and think I need to make a footnote here. There is a huge difference between the likes of Ann of Hearts and Donut. Donut is a writer. Donut can spin a yarn. For me it isn’t so much what Donut writes about but the way it is written. A little further down is another that catches my eye, pissing it away. 2 posts, 5793 visitors. Even more, one of the two posts was removed. But did you know that removing the posts does not remove the comments?

The comments suggest a personal attack levied at a blogger I have come to know through her blog posts. I can’t say I love her because I don’t know her but I can say that I love her heart. I am glad the post was removed as I am certain it was something I would not wanted to have read. Scrolling down I came to myself so I guessed it was time to quit.

In the end there seems to be a lot of evidence to support the click clique suggested to me those many months ago. But there’s a lot of evidence indicating that certain topics, especially smutty and obscene, have vast appeal. Doing nothing seems to work for some. I received a message from Grandma baba the other day and perhaps she hit the nail on the head. She said to me that she had seen my blog for quite sometime but never came over because she thought it said “The O’Reilly Factor” and she didn’t want any part of him! Maybe a name change is in order. Any suggestions?

Thirty days ago the trouble started in Lebanon. It came over the news outlets that Hezbollah possessed 12,000 katyusha rockets. Within 24 hours Fox News had blanketed the area with all the familiar faces and it seemed as though they were determined to count each and every one that entered Israel, or the ocean adjacent. It was as if there would come a time when Shepard Smith, replete with helmet and flack jacket, would say something like:

“This is a Fox News Alert and by our accounts katyusha number 12,000 has just landed in a barren field northwest of our position, which we cannot reveal because of security reasons but we’ll cover the lense of the camera, pan over and show you the smoke. Fox News can now report that Hezbollah is fresh out of katyushas and the war in Lebanon is officially over”.

Damn! 12,000 katyushas and not one Pulitzer among them. My feeble mind began to wonder how things would have went in this skirmish with Hezbollah if there had been no cameras, no politically correct referees. Suppose it had been simply a war and the ‘war is hell’ adage had prevailed?

Which, of course, begs my dim wit to an even larger question. How would things have gone in Iraq if there were no politically correct overseers, no embedded reporters, no Ollie North, no Geraldo. How would it have played out if the international watchdogs weren’t around. Suppose the approach to Iraq had been ‘war is hell’?

I suppose you could say that we wouldn’t have seen Saddams’ statue pulled down, although that was more comical than uplifting, eh Ms. Colo? Even then the politically correct bunch had the soldier immediately take down the American flag he had draped over the tin man and replace it with an Iraqi flag. We should have known then that this was going to be a politically correct war. ‘War is hell” had been replaced with ‘war is hello’.

You could also say we wouldn’t have known much, if any, about Abu Ghraib but I would ask; did we really need to know? What good came out of our knowing that some American soldiers are retarded and some Americans higher up the chain of command are faultless. Haven’t we known that for 200 years? Anything really newsworthy there?

So what do you think, dear reader? Share your opinion about this wall-to-wall coverage of military conflicts.

Thank heavens the plot to blow up those planes was foiled. Who were those terrorists? Thank heavens the plot, centered in Miami, to blow up the Sears tower was foiled? Who were those terrorists? Let’s see now, how much more terror can we stand before we simply usher in another crowd of republicans? The GOP (global organized powerbrokers) has little else upon which to hang it’s hat.

A while back there was a threat that virtually shut down the NY subway system and resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime...fear...fizzle. Then there was the fellow driving across the country hell bent on blowing up the Brooklyn Bridge...fear...fizzle. How about the plot to fly a plane into Los Angeles’ largest building...fear...fizzle. Or the plot to hijack some planes to plow into Las Vegas...fear...fizzle.

Dear Republican friends, why all these fearful scenarios? Was FDR correct when he said that all we had to fear was fear itself?

Following the foiled liquid plot, I tuned into the Republican flagship, Fox News. I was looking for some of that fair & balanced reporting. Neil Cavuto’s idea of fair & balanced was the opinions of Ann Coulter and Tom Delay. Not fair & balanced to me but just when I was beginning to think there wasn’t a God, the audio feed from Ann Coulter failed! Yes, there is a God and, although I hate to burst the Republican bubble, God isn’t the dollar.

So, keeping an open mind, I turned to the patriarch of Fox News, Billy. He was spectacular. He has decided that the First Amendment was written by insightful and forward looking men while the Fourth Amendment was written by short sighted morons. Billy wants to unleash the police and allow them unlimited search based on nothing more than a hunch. Billy is all in favor of racial profiling even going so far as to characterize Muslims as either Mohammed or Abdul.

Well, my Republican friends, that offended me. That sort of characterization is nothing short of racism and bigotry. How would it sound if I were to refer to blacks as Aunt Jemima and Little Black Sambo? Anything cute about that? Anything even close to socially acceptable? If you laughed when he referred to all Muslims as Mohammed and Abdul...chances are you are a redneck, er, make that Republican.

Billy did have a counterpoint guest, Nita Lowey, a NY Congresswoman. He had earlier drawn the conclusion that Democrats are “dovish” on terror because they, along with 63% of the American people, are against our continued involvement in Iraq. He pointed his finger at Ms. Lowey and said she had voted against the Patriot Act. She acknowledged that and said it was because it gave the police too much unrestrained authority, sorta like those morons and the Fourth Amendment.

She asked why the Republicans had voted down two major anti-terror issues. One was that all workers at an airport must pass through a metal detector every time they enter a restricted area. The second was that all cargo loaded into the belly of a plane must be scanned and inspected. Billy poo-pooed both those questions so I will ask you, my Republican friends. Why were those two measures voted down. That attitude seems a little ‘dovish” on terror doesn’t it? Clear this up for me, set my mind straight because I am currently confused.

Morris the Chat, a natural emetic, showed up. He and Billy agreed that Mr. Leiberman would have won the election in Connecticut if the liquid terrorist plot had unfolded before the election. So the voters in Connecticut are stupid? Do the voters in Connecticut connect the Iraqi dots to the terrorism dots? Not too likely. There is no connection.

Yesterday, in Green Bay, Mr. Bush said we should make no mistake about it (he says that a lot) America is always under attack by terrorists. But he has also said, many times, we are fighting the war in Iraq vis-a-vie terrorism so we don’t have to fight it here, on our soil.

I beseech you, Republicans, help me out. We aren’t in a war with Palestine; but I see terrorism there. We aren’t in a war with Lebanon; but I see terrorism there. We aren’t in a war with Pakistan; but I see terrorism there. We aren’t in a war with Israel; but I see terrorism there. We aren’t in a war with Afghanistan; but I see terrorism there. We aren’t in a war with Turkey; but I see terrorism there.

We ARE in a war in Iraq and the only terrorism I see is their willingness to kill each other! The war on terror and the war in Iraq doesn’t seem to fit, but that’s probably just me.

Billy finished his show talking with an ex-Scotland Yard detective. He must have been pre-screened because he was the personification of a yes man. He and Billy decided that they would feel much safer living in England because England gives the police unlimited power (we fought a revolution over that, remember?) and there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Billy would feel safer!

Let’s see, hmmm. In spite of the Big Brother attitude those subway bombers managed to slip by. Then there was the innocent bystander shot dead two days later because he looked suspicious. Then they cordoned off an area of Manchester to search for explosives amongst the Muslims. That turned out to be nothing but more police hunches. Looks as if anybody would feel safer in England, if they looked like an Anglo-Saxon.

Republicans and premium members alike, lead me to the light. Show me the fair and balanced path. But before you jump on the NSA bandwagon remember that in this episode of the liquid bombers, the Administration obtained warrants FIRST. Looks like somebody learned that they are not above the law. Gotta love that Fourth Amendment.