As all of you know, Secretary Sage and I have installed numerous cross-checking Hit and Visitor Counters on this forum page as well as on all our individual pages. We check them frequently. Some of the information these statistics provide are quite illumnating and, to no small degree, gratifying.

During the past 60 days, these pages, Fun Forum, Lair, Laf Lions, Library, Music Pages, Thoughts of the Day, Sage's Journal, her Teen Pledge and Post Feminist discussion pages, as well as other have been accessed by people from France, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, the United Arab Republic, South Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and many other nations of the world. What we say here is gettig noticed and read by people all over the world. Perhaps those who feel they have nothing to add should rethink. WHat you have to say can go along way toward helping people in other nations see a side fo America that they won't find in their local news media or the major American outlets

I invite all our regular posters here to consider for a moment just what they would like to say to these people in other lands about what our nation stands for and what we won't stand for. Here's a chance to make a difference, if you so choose, or you can sit and bitch about the warped images of put forth by the likes of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Herald Examiner along with Al Jezeera, Abu Daubi Television, CNN, the BBC and others. Some of you gripe when I do a serious piece on political and social issues, saying I am "getting too heavy." Now you know part of the reason.

There are three other groups of visitors I have been noting with more and more frequency as well. Many of our visitors come from educational institutions, including Perdue, the Naval Academy and Air Force Academy, Cornell University, Georgia Tech and universities around the world, including Frankfurt, Germany. Again, what an pportunity that presents those of us who believe in freedom and don't swallow the liberal party line that seems to be the only message getting out through the filter of freely acknowledged liberally biased news media about us - we the people of the United States. Thanks to the Internet, the power of those media giants is lessened more and more every day as we speak to one another, person to person, via the Internet. The cyber access has created a new set of Committees of Correspondance similar to those used by our forefathers to spread the word of a new experiment in personal freedom in the 1770s. Our humble forum can be a reincarnation of Thomas Paine's Common Sense pamphlets or Hamilton's Federalist papers, if we allow it to be that. I sincerely hope we can and will do that. Perhaps we can encourage the lurkers to actually respond.

Particularly gratifying to me is the large number of U. S. high schools and middle schools who visit my pages, Secretary Sage's and this forum. I have seen such schools from as far away as Idaho and as near as Carroll County, Georgia. We welcome them all. We hope that Sage and I have provided them with a worthwhile use of their time on the Internet and that we have enhanced their exposure to other viewpoints via our writings and thoughts.

Not the least of all, I am particularly thrilled when I see IP addresses that end in .mil or .gov. We have many such visitors each month and that thrills me. We want our military men and women to know we support them in their arduous, often life-threatening duties wherever in the world they may be. If you don't know what else to post, then write an open letter for the next miliatary man or woman who visits here and let them know your thoughts and feelings. Take my word for it, they NEED to hear there are those of us back here in the land of the big, 24-hour PX who appreciate them and their sacrifices. As for the governmental visitors, perhaps they need to hear from we the people in a more personal way that they often ignore. You say you'd like to tell our elected officials and bureaucrats a thing or three? Well, they come here and read. It's your own fault if you don't say it. They're here to read it, if you'll ony say it!

Finally, there are the visitors to my Music Pages. These thrill me no end and I am proud to announce that, so far, over 17,400 people have taken the time to listen to Janna's Song and over 50-thousand have listened to, and read the words of, my In Requiem Medley. I am disheatedned that so few of the regulars and regular lurkers have not done so as well. Remember, we see the stats and we know who visited which pages, when and what they accessed while they were here.

Those Hit Counters help us know how we are being received and by whom. They also tell us stories about those who do visit... from someone in the City government of Cullman, Alabama to state offices in Saint Louis, Washington State, Illinois, Oregon and New York State. We're glad to welcome them all here.

Between Secretary Sage and me, we have provided you folks with a venue for letting others in all walks of life and in far-flung places around the world know what we Americans are really like. We don't hate Muslims, only fundamentalist madmen. We don't readily tolerate hatred or bigotry here and we're not shy about saying it.

I have been communicating with Brother Herb via computer for over 10 years now. I have read many of his essays and consider them "must reads" for these people he doesn't even know. Hobbsie, while as coarse as a dried corn cob, at times, has a lot of meaningful things to say. I hope he starts doing so again very soon. Z-dr is a passionate man with strong opinions. When he is not "goofing" and attempting to stir up trouble, he has some truly interesting and thought-provoking contributions to make to our group. Roseie-oh-oh's youthful search of truth and knowledge is refreshing and invites discussions where we all learn.

Secretary Sage and I set the banquet table of ideas for you folks and our visitors. It is all we can really do. It would be nice if you folks started preparing the full banquet of thinking and beliefs and served them to those who come to this table hungry for what we can provide them. I know you folks. It is fare fit for a free man and nourishing beyond telling to better understanding by us all.

Now, who is going to step up and play the good host? Sage and I set the table. Won't you put an intellectual dish there for us all to enjoy?