While the latest post on Right Wing of the Gods doesn’t outright say they are shutting down the blog, they strongly suggest it.  “More of us will redirect our efforts elsewhere. See you later.”  This saddens me deeply.  Many times, I considered spreading the word about their site and just never got around to it.  I never put it in my blogroll or told more than one or two folks about it.  I considered writing a review about their blog, but never “got around to it.”  I just took for granted that they would be around a long time.  Truth be told, my “liberal bias” assuredly played a role.

It’s not a big secret that I am not, nor ever have been, a conservative.  I used to be as radically liberal as they come.  Surprisingly, though, my exploration of paganism has actually tempered my political views — pushed me towards the right, so that now I am only moderately liberal.  I think what paganism really did for me was help me break free of the whole liberal/conservative dichotomy altogether and think outside that simple paradigm.  In some ways that made me more conservative.  In others it made me… something all together different.  But enough about me.

While I don’t always agree with RWOTG, their arguments tend to be well reasoned.  While they are conservative, they obviously don’t just mindlessly pull the “party line.”  They offer a third point of view in what often gets simplified into a two sided debate.  For example, in an article about Iraq, the writer gives a well reasoned argument for an option that hasn’t been really discussed: allowing Iraq to become several separate sovereign countries.  My opinion is that theirs is a reasonable conservative solution that will not be considered by the current administration for a pretty simple reason: it would make it too hard to get the oil.

In another article about “children gulags,” I couldn’t agree with them more. (Except that I do insist on my son saying “sir” and ma’am” to me and to all adults.) That is one issue I fall on the “conservative” side about.  I think our permissive attitudes about raising children, all the fluffy feel-good self-esteem crap, has done immense harm.

Unfortunately, I visited their site too infrequently to notice the decline in regular posting.  They went from about a post every day back in December, to about one every other day or so in February, to a sharp decline in March, during which they had a shake-up in writers.  After that, the site was updated once, maybe twice a month.  I know how hard it is to keep blogging when it feels like nobody is reading and nobody cares, but I sincerely hope they decide to stick it out and keep up their work.

Whether you are on the “right” or the “left”, RWOTG gives a pagan some meat to chew over.  They are a worthy opponent in the “clash of ideas” — one that just might win a few and cause us to reconsider some of our cherished but less rigorously examined ideas. This is my pledge to the folks at Right Wing of the Gods:  if you keep writing, I’ll do my part to spread the word about you, and I will blogroll you guys.  You represent a minority voice in the pagan community, and one that needs to be heard and considered.

Part of my philosophy is being prepared for violence. The way of the warrior is one of protecting one’s self and one’s family from harm of all sorts: natural disaster, emergencies, and the threat of violence from others. Phil Elmore, founder of the Martialist, has an approach to martial “arts” training that I concur with: self-defense is not a sport. It is not a game. The objective is to neutralize any threat with minimal risk to oneself and others. In other words: it is not about fighting “fairly.”

Phil is an ordinary guy who seeks out the most pragmatic, sensable solutions to self-defense issues. His website is quite a trove of useful information along those lines. I’ve already paracord-wrapped my “tactical flashlight” using advice from one of his articles. Purusing his e-zine and associated forums is time well spent.

Spinner’s Cavern is the latest of the handful of blogs that link to me.  I like it when people link to me.  I went to her blog to see what it was about and I liked what I saw.

Spinner is a polytheist and witch in Brittish Columbia, Canada.  Her articles are intelligent and insightful, yet concise.  A very rare combination.  It also seems we have very similar tastes in what we write about and general opinion, so I suppose it’s only natural I would think she is brilliant.  She does agree with me, after all.

She also goes into an area I dare not tread: music reviews.  Frankly, though I love music, I just don’t have the background.  I can tell you what I like, and I might be able to tell you why, but it would seldom make much sense or go any deeper than, “they just sound cool.”  Maybe I can get my wife to start writing reviews, since she does very much have the background.  But, nah, I think we’ll leave that area to Spinner and Jason.  They seem to have the Pagan music scene well covered.

This is one website that Louisiana Pagans who are environment conscious should be aware of. It has valuable information about the environment here, the problems, and most importantly, what you can do about it. I have seen the organization mentioned in numerous articles for their various court battles.

LEAN was founded to help Louisiana citizens change the balance of power and challenge the insanity of continued economic and ecological suicide as practiced Lousiana-style. By empowering more than one hundred grassroots, community organizations, and countless individuals, LEAN has already helped in gaining a tremendous foothold in the war to make Louisiana’s communities safer, healthier places to live. LEAN’s expanded efforts will allow the progress already made to continue.

I am forming a new list of links for environmental information and other “sustainable living” websites, which you will find in the sidebar. Recommendations for additions to my list are always welcome.

As you may know, I consider emergency preparedness to be a spiritual value. We owe the people around us our ability to take care of ourselves and take care of them, too, in times of need. It is a subset of what I categorize here as “sustainable living.” It is a category that has been sorely underrepresented here. I have only one article so far in that category and it is about honey. (It is an extremely valuable one, though. I have had a few testimonials since writing it about honey’s incredible effectiveness in wound treatment.)

Lately, I’ve been researching heavily and I have found some very useful resources which I will be telling you about over the next few weeks. The first of these is a wonderful little site that focuses on survival equipment called Equipped to Survive. It features reviews of equipment and, probably its most valuable asset, a very active forum frequented by extremely knowledgeable and experienced people. I highly recommend perusing this forum for its many nuggets of survival wisdom. The forum members use a variety of specialized acronyms, and no explanation of what they mean, so, as a resource to those who might want to visit, I’ve compiled a little glossary of the ones I’ve figured out:

ETS - Equipped to Survive. That’s the name of the website / organization.

EDC - Every Day Carry. One who is equipped for emergencies usually carries some minimal equipment everywhere they go and at all times. THis is often the stuff in a wallet or on a key chain.

PSK - Personal Survival Kit. This is a small kit that one carries when in the wilderness and has on them at all times. It is an EDC when one is in the outdoors.

SAK - Swiss Army Knife. A very common component of EDC’s.

BOB - Bug Out (or Bail Out) Bag. This is a bag of stuff you need to support yourself for 72 hours in an emergency situation, such as an emergency evacuation. Some Emergency Preparedness sources call it a “72-Hour Kit.”

FAK - First Aid Kit.

RSK - A small folding knife designed by the website’s founder Doug Ritter.

SAR - Search and Rescue. A lot of the folks on this site are first responders or rescue workers. There are basically two kinds of SAR kits - a “24 hour kit” for work on an SAR mission, and a 72-hour kit that is for a base camp and is almost identical to a BOB. Many BOB’s also function as an SAR kit.

The website is, I admit, mostly a bunch of guys talking about their favorite toys. Many of them take pictures of their PSK’s and post them, for example. But, I fit right in as I love to talk about my toys, too, and the things you can learn from these folks is priceless.