100,000 visitors later ... reflections on 1,845 posts and 6 1/4 years of blogging

My sitemeter tells me I am about to hit the 100,000 hit mark here on Legal Ruralism--probably in the next day or two.  I know that number isn't very accurate because I didn't set up site meter until I was perhaps a year into this enterprise, and Google tells me Legal Ruralism has had many more hits than that--some 190,000 since the blog's exception.  Nevertheless, it seems that nice round 100K number is inviting me to reflect on the six and quarter years since I established Legal Ruralism:  A Little (Legal) Realism about the Rural.  

First, I will say that, while time-consuming, the blog has proved very helpful in terms of cataloging themes and trends I see regarding rural America--what is happening there, but also how what happens there is depicted in the mainstream, national, and mostly liberal elite media.  Regular readers will know that the three media outlets I draw on most frequently are the New York Times, NPR, and my hometown weekly, The Newton County Times.  In the context of the New York Times, coverage of rural people and places is the exception, less so with NPR.  In sharp contrast, rurality is the unspoken, taken-for-granted context for the Newton Count Times.

Second, I enjoy visiting the sitemeter occasionally to see who is visiting--by that I mean the city, state, and or country.  Lately, I've been getting lots of visitors from Turkey.  Before that, visitors from China were outpacing those in other nations, and visitors from the former Eastern bloc are relatively common, too, as are those in Australia.

The blog has just 19 "followers," but I am happy to say that it has attracted attention among a wide array of folks who occasionally write with invitations.  Most rewarding have been the periods during which I get to blog with my students.  They add so much variety and valuable new perspectives to the enterprise.

Here's to another 6 and a quarter years--at least.