Odds ‘n Sods:

I must mention that there have been several bad reviews of my latest novel “Founders” posted at Amazon.com. Several of them seem to be from people who haven’t even read the book. If you have read the book, then I’d appreciate seeing your reviews. In “Founders”, in response to more than a dozen requests from readers, I expanded the story of Ken an Terry Layton’s cross-country trek with a lot more detail. (Their journey had been just briefly described, post facto, in my first novel “Patriots.”) But now a few folks are hammering me for being “repetitive”–even though I obviously had to make that part of the story match the events described in “Patriots.” Perhaps it was a blunder on my part to include those passages. My apologies.

The other key criticism seems to be my references to Christianity. I’m not ashamed to be a Christian, and both my blog and my books are opportunities to share the Gospel and to demonstrate how Christians live by faith. I make no apology for that. If the ratings for my books suffer because of this, so be it. I’m not watering down my message, just for the sake of popularity.

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SurvivalBlog’s Editor At Large Michael Z. Williamson suggested an article about Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

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Education After The Collapse:  School When There Is No Classroom

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Reader J.M. wrote to mention: “I recently had a 15 year-old pair of Clark shoes re-soled by Resole America. This was all arranged by Internet and via UPS shipping. I sent them a pair of shoes with split-out stitching and thoroughly trashed soles. What they sent back looked almost like a new pair of shoes. They even arrived nicely polished and with a new pair of laces. They provided great “old school” craftsmanship. They charge from $50 to $70 (resoling my Clarks cost $77 with return postage), but that sure beats paying $130+ for a new pair of shoes. In addition to Clark, they re-sole many other shoes with stitched-on uppers from brands like Rockport, New Balance, Sperry, Havana Joe, Naot, and MBT. They also do Vasque and SIDI boots, and many other brands of boots.”

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R.B.S. sent: In the gun control debate, the words we use matter (a lot)