The Geography of Blog Readers

I moved my blogging platform from Blogger to WordPress, frustrated by some technicalities of Blogger. And, WordPress caught my eye. I'm still stymied by some functions which only work on a complete, customized WordPress site. But, I like all of the statistics and data WordPress allows me to see about my blog.

One of my favorite parts of WordPress, and the most encouraging part of using WordPress is the My Stats section "Views by Country."

First, to viewers from these countries, I say

Shukriya!

Thank you!

Terima kasih

Muchas Gracias

Merci beaucoup

Toda rabah

Salamat sa iyo

I find the experience of seeing people around the world reading something I wrote exciting and humbling. Many, many topics and information available and twelve people representing eight countries elected to at least look at something I wrote. Awesome!

That the internet can be used in such a positive way is one of the best reasons for the Internet to remain forever and always an open and FREE environment for sharing thoughts, words, ideas, and expressions.

Despite the voluminous amounts of crazy stuff on the Internet, this technology represents one of the single most important inventions of Mankind. Few other technologies have contributed to making the details of governments, politics, companies, and people transparent. Few other technologies has been so accessible to so many so cheaply. Cell phones/Smartphones are indeed as ubiquitous yet piggy-back on the network infrastructure associated with the Internet. While the Internet existed prior to smartphones, smartphones would be nowhere near as useful without wireless networks and cell phones which are then connected to the Internet.

Governments around the world should endeavor to keep the Internet within the domain of the People. Not merely the people of the United States, or Canada, or Germany, but the People of the World. 

The Internet, the child of DARPA and the French Government, is the sole global democratizing influence in the world today. Information is the ally of people and a threat to tyranny.

Again, thank you to all of my readers around the world, wherever you may be. 

PAX

Israel - Isreal? Who cares, right?

I care.

This is another one of my pet geography peeves, the misspelling of "Israel".

It is not "Is-real";

It is "Isra-el".

And there is a good reason for this.

"El" means god. Specifically, "El" is the true God, the God of the Hebrews, and thusly, of Christians and Muslims. Other forms exist as "Elohim" and "Eloah".

When we break apart Israel into its constituent parts, Isra and -el, we get this: "something" + "God". What does Isra mean?

Isra means "he who struggles" or "he struggles." When we add the two together, we get:

Israel, or, "he who struggles against God," or " he who struggles with God." And that is certainly what the Hebrews did, struggled against God, throughout Exodus and Leviticus.

This is a lot different than Isreal, "is real."

I can find Israel on a map. I don't know where Isreal is.

Now that we know about El, we can use it to figure out some names.

Michael (micha-el): he who is like God
Raphael (rapha-el): healing God
Gabriel (gabri-el): devoted to God

Middle East Reality

Not only a good blog on the Middle East but also contains links to other interesting blogs, as well.