[Buddha-l] Words of thanks

[Richard Hayes]

Dear Denizens,
I was recently catching up on reading buddha-l squibs and got distracted
into counting beans. Specifically, I thought it would be interesting to
count how many squibs our most productive contributors have sent during
the first three months of 2008. During the first 91 days of the year,
the unofficial count of the five most active squibbists is as followers:

Joanna Kirkpatrick 130
Richard Hayes       59
Curt Steinmetz      52
Dan Lusthaus        44
Wong Weng-Fai       37

Piya Tan and Erik Hoogcarspel were close on the heels of Wong Weng-Fai.
It is interesting to note how much this forum, which was formed out of a
Buddhist forum originated in Japan, is now dominated by Americans (by
which I means people from the United States of America). I guess this
makes sense, given that a) the United States is such a strong Buddhist
nation (with nearly one half of one percent of the population claiming
to be Buddhist), and b) everything else in the world seems to be
dominated by Americans these days. Why not the discussion of Buddhism
(or least of what Americans fancy Buddhism to be)?

It is wonderful to see so many good discussions on buddha-l. It would be
even more wonderful to see some of our Asian, European and antipodean
subscribers joining Wong Weng-Fai, Piya Tan and Erik Hoogcarspel in
giving this forum more diversity of viewpoints of the same high quality
as theirs.

Thanks to all of you who enliven this forum in one way or another, even
if only by attentive "lurking".   

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico