Happy half-birthday to the Jaltcoh blog

It's October 12, which means it's now been exactly six months since my first post, on April 12.

That post contained something of a mission statement:

I want this to be a leisurely, contemplative blog, not a "Here's what's going on this second" blog. There's probably a greater excess of content in the world right now than at any previous point in history. We have a glut of content but a dearth of thought. I'm trying to correct the balance.

And as you can see from that statement, I'm also trying to avoid the false modesty that's rampant on the blogosphere. So many blogs pitch themselves as "random babblings" or "incoherent rants." Why all the self-deprecation? Anyway, I'll have none of that here! I either want to do this well or not do it all.

On that note of shameless self-promotion, here are some of this blog's vital stats at the six-month point:

Total posts: 108

Total words (not counting comments): over 74,000

Total visits: over 76,000

Total links to this blog: at least 139

Most commented-on:

• How Obama lost me [part 1, part 2, part 3] (127 comments total)
  
  
• What are the disadvantages of being male? (84 comments)
  
  
• Should liberals support the death penalty? / Does the death penalty save lives? [part 1, part 2, part 3] (31 comments total)
  
  
• The 40 greatest grunge songs (30 comments total)
  
  
• How to write a New York Times article to make it seem like women work harder than men (23 comments

Wordiest posts (just individual posts, not counting series):

• What are the disadvantages of being male? (2,451 words)
  
  
• My anti-philosophy philosophy (2,161 words)
  
  
• Reaction to the death of Tim Russert (2,022 words)
  
  
• Should liberals support the death penalty? (1,792 words)
  
  
• Double negative (1,491 words)
  

Here's a word cloud based on all the content on this blog to date, created by wordle.net:

(Click here for the full-size version.)


To cap off the unabashed egotism of this post, here's some of the more gratifying feedback the blog has drawn in its first 6 months:

"Cohen's posts are well written, thoughtful, and provocative. Highly recommended."

"Hey there, this is my first time here, and let me say what a thoughtful and well written article that was. Outstanding! ... You are a brave person, perhaps braver than you realized, and I wish you well on your journey."

"Of those live-blogs I read, this is one of the more thoughtful, eclectic, real-time following of last night’s debate from the generalist perspective."

What a nice piece of Live-blogging, thank you very much Jac. I appreciate your acute comments, being overseas and too tired to stay awake to watch, I have a very sensible idea of what went on last night.

"This thread ... got the Princess thinking furiously about the relative advantages and disadvantages of being a man vs. being a woman..."

"John's post about gender rules and the disadvantages of being a man prompted me to stay up wayyyyyy too late last night reading and thinking about the topic..."

via email: "Just wanted to let you know that I explored your posts, and your links.... Please keep up the great work."

"The guy is a good thinker, and a good writer, on his own account. Jac and I don't agree (he will be voting for Obama), but from what I've read of his blog, he's a sane voice, as I hope to be."

"This was a great piece to read and remind me how fragile we all are, how kindly we should look on one another and how different the world could be with just a bit more attention to the how's and why's of our actions. Thanks for sharing."

"Fascinating"

"A fascinating argument"

"John, your premise has all the makings of a serious book on the topic, not some jumped-up Dr. Phil exploration, and I wish you luck should you delve further into it."

"My goodness. A tremendous, very well written, passionate post. ... I'm glad I was able to read it. Wow."

via email: "Keep up the good work, Glenn and I both love your blog." -- from Dr. Helen, referring to herself and Instapundit

Great, incredibly well-articulated post, by the way. <3

Thank you, everyone.

(Photo of me in Brooklyn this spring by my mom.)