|
 The
following table provides the user statistics for herbswanson.com
for the first four months of 2004. These statistics are personally
gratifying as they indicate a higher level of use of this website
than I expected. The ratio of the number of "hits" to
the number of users is especially important as it shows that the
readers are not merely surfing through herbswanson.com.
Readers are staying and using the website. Considering the specialized
nature of the contents of this site, these statistics give me considerable
kamlangchai (encouragement) to forge ahead.
User Statistics for herbswanson.com
January through April 2004
| Month |
Total Visitors |
Daily Average Visitors |
Total Pageviews |
Daily Average
Pageviews |
| January |
822 |
26.5 |
1319 |
42.5 |
| February |
723 |
24.9 |
2181 |
75.2 |
| March |
1016 |
32.8 |
2169 |
70.0 |
| April |
731 |
24.4 |
1452 |
48.4 |
| Totals |
3292 |
27.2 |
7121 |
58.9 |
The
Marburger Mission's German-language website (www.margburger-mission.org)
contains back issues of their mission magazine, Marburger Missions
Magazin. The third issue for 2003 is dedicated to Marburger
work in Thailand. The contents are all in German, and so I can't
do more than point interested readers or researchers in the direction
of this source.
I've
had a couple of people ask me if I'm going to do a HeRB
review of the "The Passion of the Christ." The long and
the short answers are both, "no." Call it squeamish if
you like, but I've never been one for movie violence, gratuitous
or otherwise, and it doesn't seem wise to review a movie one hasn't
seen. Many readers, I suspect, have probably had enough of the debate
over the movie the way it is, and it does seem that as much has
been said about the movie as is necessary.
If,
however, some readers are interested in still more reviews of the
movie, a good source for such reviews is the Rottentomatoes website
page on the "Passion".
As of 16 April 2004, Rottentomatoes had collected a total of 222
published reviews of the movie, 110 positive and 112 negative. The
website, on that basis, gave it a rather mediocre rating. In a little
side box entitled "Consensus," the website states, "The
graphic details of Jesus' torture make the movie tough to sit through
and obscure whatever message it is trying to convey." It features
a New York Times review written by A. O.
37
Scott published on 25 February 2004 that highlights
a number of the more negative aspects of the movie. Just reading
the review blurbs on the Rottentomatoes website page captures something
of the controversy "Passion" has inspired.
Although
access is somewhat indirect, the online Adventist News Network
includes a substantial number of news items concerning Seventh
Day Adventist work in Thailand. The news network is found on the
SDA website (www.adventist.org),
and you can access the News Network either by clicking on the
news articles that rotate through at the very top of the homepage,
or you can go to the pull down menu for World Church and go to
news. In either case, you still have to do another click to get
to the homepage for the News Network. When you do get there, however,
you are able to do a search on "Thailand," which provides
quite a list of items going back to 1997. I initially accessed
the SDA news network through the news & society page of beliefnet.com,
which has a list of links to religious and denominational news
services.
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