Letters from the Editor

Who’s with me?

I’m considering creating a new Political Party. It is to be called “The Pragmatist Party”. It will field candidates that are Pragmatists, meaning that if it works, do it.

Slogans: “If it works, good.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“If it has ceased to work, scrap it and build a new one.”

This party would be dedicated to the ideal that the best government is self-healing. Laws do not have to be made to fix imaginary problems, but they definately need to be made to fix problems that arrise.

This party would be dedicated to the ideal that the Constitution works, and therefore needs no tinkering with. There is no need for amendments to fix the Constitution since it’s plain enough. It works on it’s own.

This party would be dedicated to the ideal that the President’s job is to be the face of millions of Americans to the rest of the world. It would be dedicated to the ideal that the Supreme Court is to ajudicate problems it is presented with and that the Congress is the defacto ruler of the country. That would solve 99% of the current problems with this nation.

It would be dedicated to the ideal that people are inherently free to do what they want, within the law. Since it’s not illegal to read books, they would continue to be able to do so without people reading over their shoulders. Since it’s legal to drink, smoke, and to own a gun those things would be allowed to continue.

But since it is ILLEGAL to take money and contributions from groups who are asking for laws to be passed in their favor, special interest groups would be broken up and forced to disband. No more buying a president.

Since Social Security is broken, it would be scrapped and a new system that is like Social Security would be created. Since the Nationan Health Plan we have been promised over and over is broken, it would be reworked and presented as something that is workable.

That is what this party would be.

Who’s with me?

Well, there’s a time for everything.

Right now I have a lot of stress from various places that I have to focus on. So, once again, the Journal is going to suffer. I know that some of you got excited when I started posting more articles and writing more for the Journal.

But because work has picked up again (and I’m currently 2 days behind schedule mainly due to about 25 new-hires and requests I have pending), I’m going to have to let one of these balls drop.

My lovely other half Mary has voulenteered to write for me and to put things up in her own voice. I don’t know if I’m going to let her do it or not, but we can discuss it. I may just “constrain” her to posting here, since she does have an ID and could do so. But I don’t know.

Sorry my readers about this, but things happen. Hopefully this will work out somehow.

Sorry about the problems earlier. A new security proceedure was instituted and it broke my blog. No big deal, for Jen at Drak.net worked with me to get it fixed.

Now, let me sing the praises of Drak.net for a while. I have been here since almost two years after the Journal came into being. I had moved from free server to free server to free server and ALWAYS had problems. I had taken a job working with Jen so I could afford to pay for the Journal.

Since then, things have happened. I met Jaz DeWilis, formerly Gordon, a wonderful lady and a good friend who’s got a lot on her plate right now. I have met many BNP. I have been through three server farm moves, or is that four, mainly because there were problems with the company that Drak was buying their service from, and she didn’t want that to affect us. She has been working and doing and being and just really been good.

Who is “she”? Jen Bryan, owner and operator of Drak.net. It is a company that is not only Blue, but also female owned and it used to be Pagan, but Jen decided that UU fit her spiritual expression better.

Every time I have a problem, even if it’s my fault, she has been patient and courteous, up to and including checking with me to see if I want to upgrade service, refunding payments because I had a major problem, and occasionally giving me free service. (It used to be a policy to give former employees free hosting, but because of multiple moves, she had to discontinue that policy.)

Now, the point? THAT’S customer service. It’s something you don’t see very often these days. It’s interesting to watch and to realize that someone I have never seen face to face, never talked to on the phone, gives me better customer service than the fast food joint down the street where I spend more of my money.

The prices on Drak are reasonable (for example, I am running this site and I have almost 600 MB of space, 50 email addresses, something like 35 GB of transfer per month, and LOTS of other bells and whistles. What do I pay for this privledge? Only $15 per month. There is a $15 a year charge for my domain name, and that’s it. It’s $180 per year, plus the domain name charge, but that’s still reasonable for the level of service. She has plans down to an intro account, which is only $36 PER YEAR with the $15 domain name. For this, you get EVERYTHING I got when I started at Drak plus some.

For instance, when I started out, I got 100 MB of space, 10 GB of transfer per month, 10 email addresses, and 50 email forwarders. I paid $5 a month for that. It was called the “Jaz Account” in honor of the lady who came up with that package. Now it’s that inexpensive and the Intro account actually has a little more than I got.

Yes, I’m singing their praises. I think Drak is a wonderful company and I think that anyone who is sane should be using them. If you ever considered getting a domain of your own, PLEASE consider Drak. The Intro account is PERFECT for personal pages, and unless you are doing things with LOTS of pictures, 100 MB is pretty hard to fill with HTML pages.

I’ll even admit that there are times I deserved to be cursed and cussed out by Jen for stupid shit I did, and she refrained. I don’t quite know how, I’m sure I’m responsible for some of her gray hair, but all I know is that she has never been anything but polite. She’s so polite that she set up a Yahoogroup for her customers so we can chat, interact, get peer help for problems and so on. This is against EVERY buisness suggestion I have ever seen. Doing that is almost giving a club to people to beat you up with. But we never have. There are a few people who make a public specticle of a private issue, but they tend to be the jerks anyhow.

So, if you want a place to put your personal page that gives you a lot and allows you a lot of leeway with what you are doing, sign up and say that davensjournal.com recommended you. See, if I can get you guys to sign up, I get a credit on my hosting. I may not have to pay for a month or so if enough people sign up.

There is a new review available at the Journal!

The Witches’ Sabbats

Here’s something that I have wondered for a while now.

You have the eight sabbats, right? Okay, they are evenly spaced through the year. You have four lesser Sabbats on Midsummer, Midwinter, Spring Equinox and Autumnal Equinox. You have the four greater Sabbats on Beltane, Lughsnadah, Samhain, Imbolc. Right?

There are solar events for the Lesser Sabbats. What’s the basis for the positioning of the Greater Sabbats? I know that the Druids had their fire festivals on those days, but how did they decide THIS day and no other? Is there a solar event that occurs on those days? If so what is it?

And if the Lesser Sabbats have solar events to occur on those days, why aren’t they the Greater Sabbats? Why “lesser”?

Well, I have several books to review, so it’s time for an update to

( Dun duh DUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!)

DAVEN’S READING LIST (insert echo effect)

The Witches’ Sabbats

Advancing the Witches’ Craft

Lord Foxglove
New Page Books
ISBN 1-56414-811-4

Magic of the Celtic Otherworlds

Steve Blamires
Llewellyn
ISBN 0-7387-065704

Exploring the Pagan Path

Many Authors
New Page Books
ISBN 1-56414-788-6

I have most of the articles from The Witches’ Sabbats memorized, and it should be a fast read. Could have a review up by the end of the week. The KEWL thing is that I was asked for a cover blurb for that book specifically, and it appears on Acorn’s website about this book. Mike sent me a copy, autographed and dedicated to ME. How cool is that?

As for the rest, I can probably get Exploring done fairly fast, it is a collection of articles from various people. The other two however are going to be interesting.

EDIT: Just so you don’t get the wrong impression, I am not going out and buying these books. The publisher gives me these gratis with the understanding that I will review it. This sometimes helps sales, sometimes hurts sales. I’m not buying these, I get them free.