"When dawn spreads its paintbrush on the plain, spilling purple... ," Sons of the Pioneers theme for TV show "Wagon Train." Dawn on the mythic Santa Fe Trail, New Mexico, looking toward Raton from Cimarron. -- Clarkphoto. A curmudgeon artist's musings melding metaphors and journalism, for readers in more than 150 countries.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Janus--Record month "blogstone"

Screen shot of stats at 2:36 p.m. today
January, month of Janus, the Roman god of two faces, looking back and forward, set two  records, reaching a 'bloodstone" for Coffee with Clark. 
Roman god Janus
The blog surpassed 6,000 page views this month between 2 and 2:30 pm CST today, about 500 more than last month, and more than 6700 page views in the last 30 days. 
Boosting the traffic this past month have been the numerous articles about my twitter for journalists class at UCO, #clarkclass, which generated a lot of interest. As with the new year, I don't know where this is going, but Coffee with Clark will continue to change and grow as it approaches its sixth birthday.
And during the month, a reader from Cameroon in Africa notched the 131st country to have readers of the blog, and 19th in Africa.
Cameroon
Cameroon, located just north of the equator, was colonized by Germany in the 1880s, but divided by Britain and France after WWI. After about 10 years of fighting against those colonial powers, the country gained independence in 1960-61. 
With more than 20 million people, Cameroon is slightly larger than California. While it is relatively stable and economically strong compared to its neighboring countries, there is a lot of poverty. In the early 2000s, unemployment was about 30 percent. French and English are official languages.
It has the same authoritarian president since 1984, and corruption is rampant, ranking it 144 out of 179 countries, according to one report. Still, it is a haven for many refugees from neighboring countries. Its flag was adopted in 1975. 
With more than 200 linguistic groups among the population, and a widely varied geography, Cameroon is often referred to as "Africa in miniature."I have no idea who the reader from Cameroon was this month, but these visitors help me travel the world in my imagination.

1 comment:

  1. Congrats, it has been great to watch your blog go and grow.

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