Right To My Head

Apparently there's an award of sorts floating around the blogosphere called the "Stylish Blogger Award."  If another blogger awards it to you (by mentioning you), you're supposed to "[l]ist seven things about yourself that other people might not know. Then pass the award to 15 other bloggers."

Since my online friend strandediniowa over at Between Two Rivers blog mentioned me on his list as "Iowa's hard fighting libertarian," I figured I'd better respond.  (I'm not sure how "hard fighting" I  really am or how much of that I owe to my silly choice of a blog title which makes me sound like a professional wrestler or something.  Nonetheless, I appreciate the mention.)

Now for the hard part: finding seven things to tell about myself without putting anyone to sleep.  Here goes:

1. I spent six years as an infantryman in the Iowa Army National Guard.  This was back in the pre-9-11 Clinton years when people still called us "weekend warriors" and all we fought off were hangovers.
2. Except for 6 months at Fort Benning Georgia, for basic training and infantry school, I've lived in Eastern Iowa my entire life.
3. I was in Moscow the month before the August 1991 coup attempt or 5 months before the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
4. I'm actually the fourth Benjamin Cashner in my family.  (Not in direct succession however.  My dad's twin brother had the name, but passed away too young to pass it on.)  My son is number five.
5. I've voted in every presidential and off-year election since I turned 18, first as a registered Independent, then Republican and now Libertarian.  (Perot, Dole, Bush, Bush, Barr.  Yes, I regret a couple of those.)
6. I've smoked a Cuban cigar.  (I didn't like it.)
7. A childhood friend and I thought we saw Bigfoot.  In retrospect, it might have been a farmer.

Okay, now to pass the award along.  Honestly I don't read enough blogs to be able to list 15 that I like, and a few that I do list probably aren't "blogs" in the truest sense of the word.  Anyway, here's a few stylish "blogs" that I enjoy:

1. Between Two Rivers: The only blog that I read every day.  I find it interesting that blogger strandediniowa and I often reach the same conclusion on political topics, but many times take different intellectual paths to get there.  Stranded's coverage of the Iowa firearms preemption battle has been great.  He appears to be a human web crawler with some of the local news stories he unearths.
2. Iowa Freedom Report:  More of a news site than a blog, it is maintained by Iowa freedom activist Steve Hoodjer.  Hoodjer seems to have his finger on the pulse of the Tea Party/freedom movement in Iowa.  It also occasionally has articles by yours truly (though not often).
3. Beth Cody, Libertarian Writer: A collection of Cody's recurring columns from the Iowa City Press-Citizen newspaper.  Unfortunately it's only updated a few times a year.
4. Republic Now:  Local libertarian firebrand "Commentator X" and his merry band of patriots "seek to make Iowa a freer, safer, and constitutional place to live."  Some of the "New World Order" and conspiracy theory stuff might scare off uninitiated readers, but there's good information there.
5. Des Moines Gun Rights Examiner: This is written by Sean McClanahan who is the host of the webcast Firearms Weekly and is the President of The Iowa Firearms Coalition.  Keeps you up to date on Second Amendment issues in Iowa.
6. Roberts Gun Shop:  Die-hard gunrights supporter Robert Fowler posts gun news from around the web on his blog.  Fowler organized the April 19th, 2010 Second Amendment March at the Iowa capital grounds.

That's it.  Thanks for the award stranded!