RightWingRocker was quite possibly drunk kind enough to identify my ravings, which are anything but scholarly, as stuff that makes him “think”. As such, I am to identify five blogs that make me “think”. RWR’s naming this blog as one that provokes thought proves, as I urge below, that “thinking” covers a good deal of ground.

I “think” I should note that I construe the term “think” very broadly. “Thought,” when boiled down to its essence, is a series of electrochemical events that takes place in our crullers, and there are all sorts of thinking one might do. For example, there is deep introspective thought, problem solving thought, fantasy thought, analytical thought, humorous thought and free-ranging thought (i.e. creativity), just to name a few. Given the breadth of the definition, any blog worth reading ought to provoke thought of one kind or another.

With that said, here are the five blogs that came to mind, understanding that any and all of those in my blogroll qualify as blogs that make me think, otherwise they wouldn’t be there.

Straight White Guy. Eric’s writing very often takes me to familiar places, but casts familiar things in a light that I had previously not seen. Eric can write about something as pedestrian as sitting on his deck with a cup of coffee, but he and observes, really observes, his immediate surroundings in a most compelling way, which is not only entertaining, but also often serves to remind me to look at the world around me more carefully, lest I miss something amazing.

Elisson and Erica. The two “E’s” (one of whom I have met a couple times and the other I will be meeting shortly) have taught me more about things Jewish than I had previously learned in my entire life, and they managed to do it in a most entertaining way — those wacky Jooos. Now that might not be such an achievement if I lived in a place where one never bumps into someone of the Jewish persuasion, but I live in the Northeast, where just about every town has a synagogue, so I didn’t exactly come to the table with a tabula rasa. Still, there is absolutely no way that I would ever eat gefilte fish.

Sgt. Hook. Our favorite Command Sergeant Major regularly reminds me of the quality of the people who serve in our armed forces and their steadfast dedication to their country, their comrades, their mission and to you and me. Sgt. Hook is a class act.

Two Nervous Dogs. Dogette, who is a gifted writer with a deadly wit and savage sense of humor, regularly manages to make me laugh. Perhaps more importantly, at least for purposes of this post, reading her stuff can light up a spark of creativity in me when my creativity meter is stuck on zero. I don’t understand exactly how or why that works, but it often does. So, that damned sure qualifies in the Making-Me-Think Department. (NOTE: If you are unable to see Dogette’s site, it’s because she has deployed multiple bot shields with enough Macht to send a ten-ton asteroid careening into space. If you are denied entry, let me know in the comments, and I’ll see what I can do, but you may have to chip in for cookies.)

Here are da Rules, which were lifted directly from RWR’s site.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

This exercise required entirely too much thought.