Blogkeeping - my core values

Who is Deborama? I wrote that tongue-in-cheek introduction almost two years ago. Looking back on it, I feel older now, but I find that that's true of anything "funny" that one writes. It probably seemed wise and clever at the time, and when you read it after any passage of time, it seems a little silly. Still, in the tradition of wise fools, there is probably a nugget of truth in it.
My blog has, in the way of blogs, grown up in the 22 months of its existence. It acquired post titles, several new templates, sister blogs, a blogroll, comments, trackbacks, statistics, blogshares value, a google rating, a google search box, and all the detritus and strange attractors that live in the left-hand margin. Amongst that LHM stuff, a fairly recent addition, are links to some of my starring posts. Ever since adding them, I have been thinking about tackling the question of what my blog "is about" which is somewhat related to the question of what I am about. I have decided today to stop procrastinating and do it.
In my blog description, my main areas of interest are prominently listed as politics, sex and religion. I think the fact that I listed "sex" there, just to be consistent, when it is actually a pretty minor part of my blogging interest, is responsible for about 50% of my page hits, and probably 90% of the "false positives" who come here once and never return. I have steadily moved up the ladder for yahoo searches (by far the most numerous on "sex") from three digits to less than 50. In addition to the big three, there are also history, philosophy, humour, literature, et. al. I occasionally also venture into the more macho areas of sport and hard science. Food and books are relegated to separate blogs.
So, without dithering around anymore, here is a segmented list of my major areas of bloggable interest. In some of these I am listing "my position" as a sort of shorthand to point to what interests me in particular. Although I do not strive for "journalistic objectivity" (and in fact don't believe it exists) I do try to present things fairly, and despite being a Scorpio, I have been known to change my mind, even.

• Politics:


• Democracy, how it works, how it mostly doesn't


• The war on terror, especially in Iraq (sort of why I started blogging, although I have never been a "war blog")


• Human rights, international law, freedom of conscience, anti-slavery, migration issues


• Guantanamo, anti-torture, Abu-Ghraib


• Anti-racism (see also History, infra)


• Anti-death penalty


• Religion in politics - anti-establishmentment, pro-choice, anti-theocracy


• British politics, especially New Labour


• Green Party, environmental issues, anarchism (see also History, infra)


• Economic issues, mainly fair trade, globalisation, poverty, homelessness


• Sex:


• Gender identity, sexual identity, GLBT issues


• Sexual/reproductive health, especially women's


• Erotica, pornography, censorship


• Sex and religion, e.g. gay issues in Christian church, female priesthood, Marian Christianity, Mary Magdalene, goddesses


• Religion:


• Gnostic Christianity


• Christian Socialism


• Islam


• Power of the "religious right" in America, arguing with Fundamentalists


• Religious wars and conflicts


• Eastern spirituality, especially Hindu philosophy, yoga and Taoism


• History:


• Labour history (US, British, international)


• British political history


• Civil rights, history of

There are also some things that I don't really blog about, mainly because they are not the sort of things that either make the news or intrude into my daily life, but I am very interested in these things and spend much of my solitary reading and studying on them. This will probably be reflected somewhat in my book choices. They include:

• Gnostic Judaism, Kabbalah, Sabbatianism, Lost Tribes


• The moon (I did blog about it at least once)


• Philosophy, both ancient and modern (and post-modern)


• India, history of


• American civil war


• Soviet Union, history of


• Spanish Civil War


• Military history and theory, especially of WWII


• History of Celtic peoples


• Genealogy


• Codebreaking, secret writing, artificial languages


• Conspiracy theories, occult organisations


• Crime, law enforcement, detective work