In the spirit of Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing here, un-audited and un-verified, is the Mullings Annual Report:
The first "Mullings" was published as a service of GOPAC on March 11, 1998. It went to a couple of hundred recipients including Washington reporters, some Hill staff, and donors. In March of 1998, Al Gore had already invented the Internet but the notion of every person on the planet having an e-mail address and a computer on which they could send and receive messages had not yet occurred.
As Mullings was distributed via fax it was written to be a little under 500 words, in a memo format, which would fit on one printed page, faxing costs being what they were.
ALL 728 Mullings going back to 1998 are available on the web page.
As we end 2002, the Mullings database contains about 24,000 people. The Mullings web pages were visited 1,0125,333 times over the course of the year. A MILLION Page Views is a significant number. (NOTE: The term "hits" is worthless in Internet-speak. Mullings generated about 8.9 million "hits" in 2002, but that number means nothing, except I like to type it.)
Over the course of 2002 there were 154 separate Mullings columns each of which came with its own Secret Decoder Ring page. If you've never looked at the SDRs you should give them a shot. Click on the link at the bottom of each e-mailed column, or go to the web page and click on the Secret Decoder Ring icon in the upper left-hand corner.
My favorite column of the year was one in which I did the least original writing. It was the column dated
March 15, 2002 and was entitled, "Brothers."
In it, I reprinted the words of the Captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as he launched his carrier's aircraft into battle for the first time toward Afghanistan. Also printed was an e-mail from one of the pilots whose plane was among those launched that night.
It bears re-reading.
In addition to the columns, there were ten Travelogues covering trips to places like Alaska, Arizona, Harvard, New Orleans, and Miami as well as visits to the Donahue show, random airplane trips, the September 11th anniversary dedication at the Pentagon, and a parody of Bill Clinton's induction interview with an Israeli Army recruiting sergeant.
These totaled slightly over 140,000 words - the approximate number in a 300-plus page novel which, as I have noted before, is fitting as I make up most of what I write.
And none of that includes responding to the thousands of e-mails you were kind enough to send to me pointing out the grammatical, spelling, and usage errors which occur nearly every day.
I made 43 speeches and appearances over the past year racking up over 100,000 Delta miles (thus qualifying me for Platinum again for 2003).
Mullings is the elementary particle of the U.S. economy: A business with one employee. Me. I am the charmed quark of economic physics. The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices is a volunteer.
When the economy slowed, I could not, therefore, (a) lay off thousands of people, (b) lose hundreds of millions of dollars each quarter, nor (c) lie about how much is in the company checking account.
In February I ran a subscription drive which was based upon the National Public Radio model: You can listen to everything they broadcast whether you give or not, but you'll feel better about yourself if you give.
A lot of you felt better about yourselves and, in fact, provided the financial underpinning necessary
to keep Mullings going. The subscription drive will be repeated in about a month. I hope you will consider,
seriously, joining in.
Your continued support and continued interest are the only reasons Mullings carries on. And so it will in 2003.
Thank you. And happy New Year.
A BIG Secret Decoder Ring today: A link to the March 15 column, a link to the Clinton parody, a moving Catchy Caption, a pretty good Mullfoto, a comparison of the length of well-known novels, and a very interesting World War I poster.
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