Non Fluffy Wicca

A wonderful article by Jenny Schumaker, a Triad member of my wonderful tradition the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca. Lots to think about.

Witchvox Article:


Why Would You Do THAT?

Author: Jenny Schumaker [a WitchVox Sponsor]
Posted: January 27th. 2008

I volunteer with the dying. No One Dies Alone is a national program in hospitals wherein a group of trained volunteers is on call 24/7 to sit with and offer comfort to people who are, for whatever reason, dying alone.

We also come in when friends and/or family need a break from their own vigils and would like to know that someone will be by the side of the dying person so that they can try to get some much needed rest in a very stressful time.

This commentary isn’t really about this awesome program, though I ask anyone who thinks they can do it to go see if their local hospital has a chapter. It’s about the reason behind why I do it, and why it shouldn’t be a shock to Pagans or anyone else that people do this kind of volunteer work.

Believe it or not I actually enjoy this work. There are inevitable moments of sadness. There are times when it’s physically and emotionally challenging, too.

Usually I take the “graveyard” shift, not even arriving at the hospital until at least midnight. Hospital room chairs are notoriously uncomfortable. Sometimes patients are awake, aware, and in distress. Usually there are a lot of machines, and sometimes patients are full of various tubes. It’s usually too bright or too dark in the rooms. But uniformly, the staff is happy to see us.

They are gracious and accommodating, especially if they know you’re a new volunteer. I have yet to relive a family member at a death vigil, but one woman I sat with had only her best friend of nearly 80 years to be with her. The friend could not drive at night and could not stay at the hospital, even though death was hours away.

To her, my presence meant she could say goodbye and that a real person would be there just for her friend. I would do what she couldn’t, and when I had to leave somebody else would take my place.

I shed a few tears with her, and I felt very, very blessed to be there. It was my privilege to witness a deep and abiding love between two friends and provide a comforting presence for both of them. When no one else is around, even if the patient is unconscious, I still know that I’m providing a service through my presence, to both patient and staff.

All of the people I trained with cited a desire for service, to be able to give back from their experiences, as their main reason for volunteering with the program. There was a war veteran who had seen a lot of death years ago, a few lay-ministers, a nurse, and others. Everyone had experienced the death of someone close to him or her.

Most of the trainees in my group noted that they believe that death is a life-passage or rite of passage, and that it should be attended by others just like other rites of passage. This very pleasantly surprised me. Out of a group of maybe fifteen, only two of us were non-Christian, another of us was Jewish.

These were blessedly not the same type of people who attended the church I grew up in (only one older man seemed to be under the impression that he was there to talk to the dying about Jesus, and he was quickly but gently disabused of that notion by our pastoral care sponsor). This isn’t the attitude toward death I had previously encountered in Christianity.

When I first read about the NODA program in the local newspaper, I immediately thought of how well suited Pagans are for this kind of volunteer work. Generally, we already come with the assumption that death is part of the cycle of life. It’s natural. It will happen to everyone.

It isn’t something to necessarily fear, though the unknown can be a bit frightening in and of itself. We believe that there is no default “hellfire” setting on death, and we usually have strong opinions against proselytizing, especially to people in distress.

People dying in hospitals come from all walks of life, and in a public hospital there is (supposedly) no over-riding religious doctrine. A lot of organizations that take volunteers are Christian-oriented. While that doesn’t bother me in particular, I do know Pagans who would rather not, and I know from other people’s stories that not all such organizations are friendly toward openly Pagan volunteers.

NODA doesn’t require formal religious training or expect any religious persuasion. At my local hospital it is administered by the Pastoral Care Department which has the duty of ministering to the spiritual needs of all people of all or no religion. Training is provided. I saw it as an open invitation for personal growth, and to use my specifically Wiccan world-view for good. Also, as a Wiccan minister, aka a priestess, I believe that my duty is to serve. I already serve my coven and my tradition, but this was an opportunity to serve the greater community where I live.

All that being said, as a community I don’t think we deal with death as often as some other religious communities do, and we certainly don’t have the same amount of tradition behind us for guidance, at least not in Wicca and other Neo- Pagan religions.

For instance, when the member of a Catholic church dies, he or she has a large religious community and a highly trained professional member of the clergy to guide him or her on the way to the afterlife. For the dying person and the family there is about 1600 years of established church tradition to guide and comfort them. You will see many older people in a Catholic church. In fact, people in the latter half of life may make up the majority of those in attendance.

I can’t speak for all Wiccan traditions, but in mine the vast majority of people with whom I’m familiar are between the ages of 20 and 50. Our “elder die-off” happened before my day, and our elders were not many. To my knowledge we have not lost an active member to death since I joined in 1999, though one member lost a child and one lost a life-partner, as well as various deaths of parents and grandparents and other relatives.

We haven’t been directly confronted—yet.

But in 20 or 30 years, surely we will be so confronted. When it happens we will have to begin crafting our traditions regarding death in earnest. Undoubtedly other larger and somewhat older traditions are dealing with this.

However, my unscientific guess is that the average age of Wiccans in general hovers somewhere in the 30s because of the massive influx of young members that happened in the 1990’s due to the explosion of the Internet.

Even if it’s ten years older, people in their 40s usually have both parents still living, along with their own children, spouses, and their siblings, not to mention their friends and co-workers, who are probably close in age.

We see death in the news and in movies and video games, but it isn’t close and personal. It isn’t in our living room, and we can turn it off and it goes away.

As a community we don’t have a large body of literature regarding death and dying. In fact, the only book I can think of is Starhawk’s (et al) Pagan Book of Living and Dying and I don’t know anyone who personally has a copy on his/her shelf.

It still surprised me when more than one person asked why I would want to volunteer in a hospital, especially around dying people and all of their issues. One person more-or-less questioned my sanity, and another couldn’t see doing something for no money that wasn’t “fun.”

I clearly recall the first Pagan person who couldn’t wrap his brain around the idea. He really did ask, “Why would you do that?”

After a moment of shocked silence I explained the above. He shrugged and said, “Well, I guess you’ve thought it through.”

I wasn’t freaked out by being confronted with death and a Pagan did not understand why I was not freaked out by death. I don’t get it. I still simply don’t understand.

This is not a matter of constant attendance at deaths of my family members. Almost anyone would be losing his or her mind over that. The death of your immediate family members holds more significance in many more ways.

While I love these people I help, each and every one of them, I do not love them the same way I love my children or my husband or my other close relatives. What I fear in losing family is not actually death, it’s my natural, selfish need to have them near me and available when I want them, amongst other things.

I can think of ways in which I would fear to die, but I have no fear of death itself. My experience with Pagans in general has shown that for most of us this is the case, regardless of what our particular beliefs are about what happens afterward. My experience with these few people has shown again that there are always exceptions to any rule.

I can think back to a time where I was afraid of death. I don’t mean 'ookie' dead things like road kill; I mean I was afraid of Death.

Having been raised with the fundamentalist Christian belief in a literal Hell with literal eternal flames and more, I was desperately afraid that my salvation didn’t “take” at the age of seven, that Jesus did not love me, and that God would send me to Hell forever.

As I grew out of that, I grew out of my fear.

For some I’m sure there’s still a lingering fear about eternal divine retribution… even amongst Pagans. They may not want to admit it, but it’s there and it festers in the mind.

For others, I believe it’s an inability to get comfortable with the concept of not knowing for SURE what’s coming after. Some non-Abrahamic religious traditions have a proscribed set of beliefs about the afterlife, and some don’t. But with the very few I’m familiar with, an afterlife isn’t a certainty the way the “people of the book” have certainty.

For those of you who are afraid of death I ask that you take some time to truly examine this fear and find out why you are afraid. Meditate, write in your journal, whatever method suits you, and take a deep look inside.

It’s true that most people will fear change to some extent and death is a really big change. Many people also fear the unknown. But if this leads you to truly be afraid of death and avoidant of confronting it, you really need to attempt to work it out.

You will be dealing with it eventually, like it or not.

Posted by mikki at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I truly do not understand how companies think that we're quite so stupid as to let them get away with these things.

TomTom: When a paid upgrade is a downgrade:


Stick this one in the extremely shady business practices category. In order to add more revenue to the coffers, a paid upgrade from existing TomTom 910 and 510 maps that currently include locations of Starbucks will result in losing the locations of said Starbucks! Hey, that's darned good service for all us long-standing customers.
It wasn't until after the map upgrade that my folks told me that they could no longer find any Starbucks when they did a POI search. What's the cause of this? TomTom has decided that these POIs are now a Paid For option. And, to make matters even worse, after calling support, I was informed that:

• The web-based online store is down (due to a planned upgrade that was supposed to take 21 days and is now taking much longer)
• The Windows-based version of TomTom home has access to it, but the Macintosh version does not
• This change was intentional and not based on any licensing fees

What's the solution?

For me, I think the solution is going to be getting the POIs from someplace else. I'm not sure how up-to-date they are, but the POIs available from POI Handler seem to work fine and many are free. There's a database of over 7000 Starbucks available. You may need to register for the site (I had already registered previously), but I have yet to receive anything annoying from them. Once there, follow the Download POI link to get to the screen where you can get your POIs. They're tailor made for a bunch of the common GPS devices and have pretty up-to-date data.

Posted by mikki at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lab setup creates out of body experiences:


Scientific American reports on simple lab setup involved a video camera and a head-mounted display to generate out of body experiences.

Last year, two research groups induced out-of-body experiences in healthy participants with virtual reality techniques. The experiments, described last August in studies by H. Henri Ehrsson and Olaf Blanke and colleagues in Science, demonstrate that out-of-body experiences, previously confined to the realms of psychiatry, fiction and the occult, occur when the normal processing of sensory information is disrupted. This research provides an important tool to understand how the feeling of self is generated by the brain.

The participants wore virtual reality goggles connected to video cameras that filmed the participants’ backs. Thus each participant saw his or her own body from the back ... To complete the illusion, the scientists used two plastic rods to stroke synchronously, for 1 or 2 minutes at a time, the participant’s back and the back of the virtual body. Next, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire to evaluate their subjective perception of the illusion. Amazingly, they reported feeling as if they were being behind their physical bodies and looking at them from this location. The illusion failed when the stroking was asynchronous.

Link (Via Further: Strange Attractor & beyond)

Posted by mikki at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Missing Cat Found in Owner's Suitcase:


PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) - The last time cat-owner Kelly Levy saw her tiger-striped feline was before she took her husband to the airport. The 24-year-old came back to her house late Friday to find the bottom step, where Gracie Mae would usually be waiting, empty.

Levy tore the house apart looking for the 10-month-old tabby who had been spayed just days before. She and her dad took out bathroom tiles and part of a cabinet to check a crawl space and papered the neighborhood with "lost cat" signs.

Then she got a phone call.

"Hi, you're not going to believe this, but I am calling from Fort Worth, Texas, and I accidentally picked up your husband's luggage. And when I opened the luggage, a cat jumped out," Levy recalled the caller saying.

Gracie Mae had crawled into Seth Levy's black suitcase undetected, been put through an X-ray machine, loaded onto an airplane, thrown onto a baggage claim conveyor belt and picked up by a stranger.

The tabby made the 1,300-mile trip home on an $80 plane ticket Sunday night.

Posted by mikki at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Top 10 Reasons to Believe Logic Over Religion:

Written by Daily Garlic

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for turning my tap water into alcohol and a never ending food basket, but I’m tired of all these people whining and telling me how to live my life. You do your thing, I do my thing, we’re all happy, but after reading that someone is paying Facebook to post a religious article titled “6 Reasons You Have To Believe In God”, I figured I’d grab my own cross and at least have fun while getting ready to be crucified for having an opinion.

The argument that because complex life exists, it must have been “created” is ridiculous, and it’s time someone said it. Yay, we have lots of chromosomes, we can see in color and keep erections for 4+ hours (commercials say see a doctor, I’d rather see a sorority house), but explaining away the unexplainable with magical explanations is as real as the emails I get from the prime minister of Nigeria who wants to send me $4 million dollars via a cashiers check.

1. “Earth is the perfect environment, it had to have been made for us”

Nai-eve. Get real. I point you to Arachaea, aka Archaebacteria and Extremophiles. These miraculous organisms live in ridiculously extreme climates. Climates much like that of, I don’t know, other planets perhaps? The point is, different kinds of life require different things. Ours needs water, oxygen and beer. Anyway, as far as we know, in the 9 planets (fuck you, Pluto still counts) we have in our Solar System, we’re the only ones with real sentient life, so I guess that means we’re the only ones right? Oh wait, I forgot about the BILLIONS+ of other planets and solar systems in other galaxies and what not that we haven’t been to or seen up close. So we’re here, great, that’s awesome, but if it were so damn perfect, Canada would be part of the United States, it wouldn’t be so damn cold here in the winter, and Yellow Stone would shoot up Budweiser. Hey, a guy can dream right?

2. Free Will - Contradicting a Contradiction

God “gives” us “Free Will” so that we can choose which path to follow. He knows what we’re going to do, but he’s “giving” us the choice to, uhm, choose what he already knows we’re going to do? To put it simply, if God can know 100% without a doubt you’re going to do it, it’s set in stone, you can’t change it, you’re just fulfilling destiny or a “plan” laid out by someone else. Either he gives us free will to do what we want (in which case there are many different paths and there is no way to KNOW which one we’ll do), or it’s all an illusion and you’ve got a puppet string coming out of your ass.

3. Hillary Clinton is leading the polls

If there is a God, and he does love us, then this would never have happened. Every time I realize my calendar doesn’t say April, I wonder if there is a God and he has a sick sense of humor, but then it would have to be a really, really sick sense of humor.

4. Evolution

I don’t actually think that evolution disproves creationism, actually if there was an “intelligent designer” this would have been an “intelligent design” to build in. It’s nature’s undo button once you figure out that giving tigers the ability to fly just wasn’t the best idea out on the market. But since the church feels that evolution cannot co-exist with creationism, point me.

5. Intelligent Designs lack of a designer

Aren’t we smart, we are truly awesome. Don’t misunderstand me, I love walking on two legs and peeing standing up, but telling me that we have to be created by a magical being just because we exist, begs questioning.

Logic dictates that if (a) we are here so we must have come from somewhere, i.e. a “designer” who is more complex and intelligent than us, then (b) a complex and intelligent designer, would also have to have come from somewhere i.e. a “designer” who is even more complex and intelligent.

If the reasoning for a God is we’re here, then where did he come from? My favorite famous lines are “he always was” and “no one knows”. Shave the wool off your back and follow the herd if you believe that. If someone HAD to have created us, they would have HAD to have been created. If our creator could have ALWAYS been or just magically appeared, then so could we have.

We can’t just assert that God is mightier and he just magically came to be, if that’s the logic, I say someone still had to find him in the bottom of a cereal box, it’s a paradox.

6. Ron Paul is behind in the polls

“Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) is the leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital.” He’s advocating for FREEDOM, come on, how can you not love freedom. He wants to legalize pot and I’ve seen him kiss at least 6 babies in the past week. He wants to get rid of the IRS, imagine a world without angry letters from those bastards! If God existed, Ron Paul wouldn’t be just President, he would have been made Co-God back in the 60s.

7. Pot is illegal but Alcohol is A-Okay

Alcohol, the leading cause of drunk driving, and as such the leading cause of alcohol-related deaths, is totally cool for me to drive down to the liquor store to pick up and binge drink on. On the flip side, lighting up a joint and scarfing down a large pizza or two will get you boned hard. If God was around, he’d rather I eat a bag of Doritos and pass out than get drunk, beat my wife and piss on the couch. The worst that can happen with pot is smoking yourself stupid and passing out, but alcohol makes people angry. Hulk mad. If only there were a God… and then Ron Paul would set the record straight.

8. Bad things happen to good people, great things happen to bad people

For a society that constantly gets the short end of the stick when it comes to miracles, I’ve never fully understood how people can whipe away such an obvious shortcoming with one or two hail marys. If we’re God’s children, how come Bin Laden hasn’t been bent over his knee and beat with a wooden spoon yet? Why the hell are people stopping to help stalled motorists and getting raped murdered, and why is it that every time a girl scout makes it to my door she’s out of thin mints? I’m sick of it. Shortbread cookies suck, they do. There, I said it. Aside from such atrocities, every single day bad people get rewarded, while good people are getting creamed on the side of the road by drunk drivers. Give credit where credit is due, if you’re an asshole, you should have karma spitting in your face, and if you’re a good-looking, stand-up guy who wants some damn thin mints, you should get some damn thin mints.

9. Blind Faith

If we’re supposed to believe in a God, and he wants us to believe in him, and the only way for eternal salvation is to believe, then why can’t he take 30 seconds to hop off his throne made of golden baby carcasses and pop in and have coffee with me tomorrow? Starbucks, 10:30, I’ll buy. If it’s such a big deal to believe, why is it not such a big deal to give a reason to believe in?

10. The proof is in dying

Ever notice how religions promise us stuff that cannot be instantly proven? One of the biggest promises is heaven after we die or in Islam they promise 72 virgins. That has got to be the lowest thing.. promising pussy in the after life for accepting their religion.

The biggest logical fallacy is that a religion can offer us millions and millions of years of heaven for accepting their beliefs for just 100 years max? What is the ratio there there, how can accepting something for 100 years or so get you something for millions of years (or eternity) to come. When something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Conclusion

I don’t want you to change your views for me, hell I don’t care if you DO believe that Jesus is magic and my house was struck by lightning and swiftly burnt to the ground right after posting this. It’s your life, do what you want, but don’t sit back and take everything you’re told with a spoonful of sugar and a blindfold, that’s for republicans.

About the Author: David enjoys long walks on the beach, casual strolls down the boulevard and writing long and drawn out posts in his underwear in the wee hours of the morning.

Posted by mikki at 06:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Grotesque statement of the day:

Wales: There has been a string of teenage suicides in Bridgend recently. The young people all knew each other, and might have been inspired by the earlier deaths. It's a terrible situation, but one religious nutter knows it wasn't the pressure of school, the lack of employment opportunities, or the impossibility of getting a start in adult life contributing to the record levels of depression and self-harm among young people. As he explained to the Daily Mail:

Teenage suicide doesn't surprise me. Children are taught at school that we are nothing more than animals, descendents of an ape-like creature. When life gets tough why carry on living if our lives are just a freak of nature. Well done to all those who teach our kids that evolution is a fact.

If being more than an animal means being a nasty, hateful scumbag, well I say OOK!

Teenage suicide cult sweeps through town as SEVEN youngsters kill themselves in copycat deaths—The Daily Mail, 22nd January 2008.

Posted by mikki at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pot, kettle, very dark colour:

United Kingdom: Okay, this story is from the Daily Express, but it seems its not only self-styled Christians who refuse to do their jobs and then claim religious discrimination.

According to the Express, a young Muslim assistant at a branch of Marks and Spencer refused to serve a woman trying to buy a book of sanitised Bible stories for children, declaring the book to be "unclean" and declining to touch it. But if the assistant hopes for support from Muslim organisations, she looks unlikely to get it.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, described the assistant's comments as offensive and called for Marks & Spencer to carry out a thorough investigation.

People who think they are Christian have turned out to be much less reasonable, and have responded, not by turning the other cheek, but by entering into a competition to see who can come up with the most disgusting comment. First up, the woman who was trying to indoctrinate her grandson, who starts with the traditional phrase used when you are about to say something really racist:

I am not racist but I have vowed never to let a person wearing a headdress serve me again. It will be a long, long time before I shop again at M&S.

Then we discover that Shipley in once again in the hands of a really nasty Tory:

Mr Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, west Yorkshire, said: I find it unbelievable. We are a Christian country. I'm afraid it is no good for people to work in Marks & Spencer and not serve their products.

And then, the Muslim Council of Britian representative pours more fuel on the flames by continuing to be reasonable:

Mr Bunglawala said: This appears to be a very regrettable incident and the 'unclean' remark was clearly very offensive and unacceptable.




“Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran. We hope that M&S will investigate this incident.

Marks and Spencer have said that the incident does not reflect company policy and that they will investigate.

Personally, I'm wondering how the assistant squares her bigotry with her working for a company with such a solid Jewish heritage.

OUTCRY AS MUSLIM M&S WORKER REFUSES TO SELL 'UNCLEAN' BIBLE BOOK—The Daily Express, 15th January 2008.

Posted by mikki at 07:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Va. AG Sides With Conservative Churches In Dispute - News Story - WRC | Washington:


McLEAN, Va. -- Nearly a dozen conservative Virginia church congregations seeking to split from The Episcopal Church in a dispute over homosexuality and other theological issues received the support of Virginia Attorney General Robert McDonnell in legal papers filed this week.
The Episcopal Church, a national denomination of roughly 2 million members, sued the 11 congregations last year in an effort to regain control of church property.
The 11 congregations -- including two especially large and prominent congregations, Truro Church in Fairfax and The Falls Church in Falls Church -- voted in 2006 and 2007 to leave The Episcopal Church and realign under a network led by conservative Anglican bishops in Africa who also oppose The Episcopal Church's theological views, including its acceptance of an openly gay bishop.
The congregations, which consider themselves members of the newly formed Anglican District of Virginia, say they should keep their church property, worth tens of millions of dollars. The Episcopal Church argues that the votes are not legitimate and wants the property returned to the denomination.
In a motion to intervene filed Thursday in Fairfax County Circuit Court, McDonnell sided with the breakaway congregations on a key legal matter. The attorney general urged Circuit Judge Randy Bellows to follow a state law dating back to the Civil War era in resolving the dispute.
That law allows a majority vote of the congregation to determine ownership and affiliation when a "division" has occurred within a religious denomination.
The Episcopal Church has argued, among other things, that the state law is unconstitutional because it requires the court wade into theological issues such as whether a schism has occurred within the Episcopal denomination.
"As a matter of federal constitutional law, the Episcopal Church is simply wrong," McDonnell wrote in the motion. "The Constitution does not require that local church property disputes be resolved by deferring to national and regional church leaders."
Instead, the Supreme Court has allowed courts to decide such disputes on neutral principles, like looking at the language of property deeds. McDonnell, a Republican expected to run for governor next year, said the court should simply look to determine that the vote authorizing the disaffiliation was conducted properly.
"There is no need for the judiciary to inquire into matters of religious doctrine," McDonnell wrote. "The inquiry is entirely secular."
If Judge Bellows were to accept McDonnell's argument, it would be a major victory for the 11 congregations, but not a decisive one. The judge will have to rule on other issues before making a final judgment, including claims by The Episcopal Church that the votes to leave the denomination were done improperly.
Patrick Getlein, spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, said the diocese is looking at the motion and plans to provide a formal response to the court next week.
Jim Oakes, vice chairman of the Anglican District of Virginia, welcomed McDonnell's motion.
"Our parishes voted overwhelmingly to disassociate from the Episcopal Church due to its rejection of the authority of Scripture," he said. "Our decision is just one small piece of evidence that there is a widespread division within the Anglican Communion."
The dispute is being watched closely by church leaders worldwide; dozens of congregations and at least four of the 110 Episcopal dioceses in the U.S. are taking steps to break away and align with an overseas Anglican leader. The Episcopal church is the U.S. body of the 77 million member worldwide Anglican Communion.
Both sides in the Virginia dispute say they have spent more than $1 million in legal fees as the case has dragged on.
Oakes said he is "appalled at the money this is costing us" and said the congregations remain willing to settle the case amicably, despite their confidence in the strength of their case.
Bellows could rule on the constitutionality of the state law in coming weeks but is not expected to set a final trial date until September or October at the earliest.

Posted by mikki at 05:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I can only imagine what would happen if I asked the school district permission to provide free copies of "All One Wicca" to the same classrooms.

The Associated Press: Court Ends Bible Distribution in School:


ST. LOUIS (AP) — A rural school district's long-standing practice of allowing the distribution of Bibles to grade school students is unconstitutional, a federal judge has ruled.
An attorney for the southeastern Missouri school district said Wednesday he will appeal the judge's injunction against the practice.
For more than three decades, the South Iron School District in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis in the heart of the Bible Belt, allowed representatives of Gideons International to give away Bibles in fifth-grade classrooms.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit two years ago on behalf of four sets of parents. In August, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a temporary injunction against the practice.
The district altered its policy, saying the Gideons and others were still welcome to distribute Bibles or other literature before or after school or during lunch break, but not in classrooms.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ruled both practices were illegal and granted a permanent injunction.
The purpose of both practices "is the promotion of Christianity by distributing Bibles to elementary school students," Perry wrote. "The policy has the principle or primary effect of advancing religion by conveying a message of endorsement to elementary school children."
Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based law group that represented the school district, said he would appeal.
"I think the current policy creates an open forum that allows secular as well as religious persons or groups to access the forum to distribute information," Staver said. "The court has clearly misread the First Amendment and the cases regarding free speech."
The parents who sued are Christian but believe religious beliefs should be taught in the home, not school, said Anthony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.
The South Iron district has about 500 students in the grade school and South Iron High School.
Superintendent Brad Crocker was out of the office Wednesday and did not respond to a call seeking comment.
Gideons International, based in Nashville, Tenn., distributes Bibles in more than 80 languages and 180 countries, according to its Web site. A spokesman did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Posted by mikki at 11:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

End of skeptic James Randi's million dollar challenge:


For ten years, skeptic magician James Randi has offered a million dollars to "anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event." He's just announced that the James Randi Educational Foundation is discontinuing the Million-Dollar Challenge two years from now. The money will be freed, he says, "to generally add to our flexibility" and enable the group "to do many more projects." From his note on the matter:

Now, we’re sure that there will be those who will offer all kinds of objections to this decision – though they could have simply applied and won the prize. There will be accusations that the JREF is concerned about the safety of the prize money – which was never any sort of concern, I can assure you – and there will be more claims that the money was never there in the first place. I can see the professionals out there sighing in relief that they no longer have to answer questions about why they won’t take the prize, and they’ll just wait out the remaining period that the prize is available. All that’s to be expected.



Ten years is long enough to wait. The hundreds of poorly-constructed applications, and the endless hours of phone, e-mail, and in-person discussions we’ve had to suffer through, will be things of the past, for us at the JREF.



Those who believe they have mystic powers now have two full years to apply… Let’s see what happens.

Posted by mikki at 04:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

News::Wiccan: If Suspect Was Wiccan 'Throw The Book At Him':


Two days after their deaths, balloons and a teddy bear sit at the home of 10-year old Kendra Suing and 8-year old Alysha Suing. A common practice in the U.S. which signifies the love and sorrow people have for the victims and their families. But something not so commonplace is what allegedly took place behind the walls of this house, witchcraft.

Dr. Bruce Forbes, Morningside College Religion Professor, "Satanism and witchcraft, they kind of come together but there's no relation and in fact anyone I know involved in witchcraft at all thinks it's a joke."

Rev. Jeva Singh-Anand, Wiccan "A lot of satanists reject these practices... They reject the actual hurting of people."

The man charged in the girls' death, their step-father. Police say Lawrence Harris told them it was a spell gone wrong.

Forbes, "When I think of other crimes in the past that have been associated with witchcraft, it's really a mentally unstable person who then looks for some kind of religion that is unusual in the larger society and then they're drawn to those symbols but it's not the religion that made him do that, it's their own mental illness or personal problems that cause them to do that."

Jeva Singh-Anand is the head of the local Siouxland 1st Wiccan Congregation. A federally recognized religion which practices witchcraft.

Jeva Singh-Anand, "Being part of a spell that had gone wrong, it doesn't make sense, I don't know what the man's religion was, if it turns out he was a Wiccan, then I would say, as as Wiccan, throw the book at him."

Singh-Anand, "He's casting a spell and something goes wrong, he ends up killing those kids, I think that's just an excuse."

A judge and jury must decide that.

Funeral arrangements are pending for Kendra and Alysha at Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapter.

Posted by mikki at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MyFox Cleveland | Evolution Debate Heats Up In Florida:


MIRAMAR, Fla.  --  Kelli McCormack decided to homeschool her two daughters because she didn't want them being taught "medieval superstitions" and "religious doctrine" in their science classes, especially when it came to evolution.
She e-mailed the governor and the State Board of Education and posted blogs urging them to approve the proposed new science standards that would make teaching evolution more in-depth mandatory. While the word exists in many text books already, it isn't required.

McCormack and her husband arrived early at Tuesday's public hearing, one of a few held around the state before the board votes next month on the proposed science change.

"If you are not teaching the correct science terms, you are dumbing down science," she said.

The 40-year-old mother says tax dollars shouldn't be used to teach anyone's religious agenda.

She has trouble with the ultraconservative crowd who try to blur the lines of church and state by pushing for prayer in schools and the teachings of intelligent design, an alternative to evolution favored by some religious conservatives.

"I believe in evolution but it hasn't affected my religious beliefs," says McCormack, who was raised Catholic and now attends a Unitarian church with her husband and daughters.

An animal handler for the Seminole Tribe of Florida, McCormack is "passionate about science" and teaches her daughters to apply "logic and rationality" to their studies.

She homeschooled 17-year-old Meghan until high school and still homeschools 12-year-old Rowan.

A nature lover who surfs and canoes, McCormack has come dressed in a T-shirt and army fatigue shorts. She says she's tailored her daughters' curriculum to include an appreciation for the outdoors, museum and theater outings and reading the newspaper "to make sure their education is well rounded," she says.

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Across the aisle from McCormack at Tuesday's meeting, Oscar Howard Jr. rises from his chair and approaches the microphone.

Howard, 60, tells the audience he's superintendent of Taylor County school district, a small county about 50 miles south of Tallahassee. He drove nine hours to attend the hearing.

"We're in opposition to teaching evolution as a fact. Evolution continues to be a theory," says Howard, dressed in a suit and tie with a button that says 'Children First.'

Last month Taylor County School Board unanimously approved a resolution saying the district is opposed to teaching evolution as a fact.

He's heard from hundreds of parents who promise to pull their children out of the school system and put them in private schools, if the state approves the changes regarding evolution.

"It's not a religious thing," Howard says. A lifelong churchgoer, Howard says he's never had conflict between his belief in God and what's taught in schools.

Until now.

"That's why I'm here tonight," he says. "I don't have anything against the folks (at the hearing opposing him), but they can't prove a darn thing they're saying."

He worries what would happen if the board approves the measure.

"If they approve it, then we'll have to teach it," Howard says in a passionate southern drawl. "Would we agree, no. But would we teach it, yes, we'd have to."

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The remarks can be attacking, direct, passionate, but as a former middle school principal, Donna Callaway has heard it all before.

Now, pouring over the more than 8,000 fevered letters and e-mails sounding off about the debate issue, Callaway and the other State Board of Education members find themselves caught in the crossfire.

And it can get ugly.

"Please do not let these liberal wackos in the Washington foundations warp our young minds into thinking that their existence is an accident," reads one.

Another says, "Please do not bow to the demands of these religious fanatics who are trying to distort the perceptions of our society for their own gain."

Callaway says she doesn't "expect everyone to agree with me or like me. You have to make tough decisions."

And so, this mother of two and veteran educator with a southern accent finds herself with a weighty decision before her.

She lets the nasty notes "roll off," though she understands their fervor.

"There is a passion that belongs to this issue that doesn't get stirred up on others ones," she says. "This kind of strikes to the core of what each believes themselves to be. It's a much more personal issue."

A long time attendee of First Baptist Tallahassee, Callaway has already indicated she will vote against the standards.

She declined to comment when asked whether her personal views on religion would affect her vote, but told the Florida Baptist Witness in a December editorial intelligent design should not be taught, but "acknowledged as a theory which many people accept along with others. Students need to have any proof, scientific evidence that is there. But the face that there are other theories about certain parts, at least needs to be pointed out, footnoted."

"My hope is that there will be times of prayer throughout Christian homes and churches directed toward this issue," she wrote.

Posted by mikki at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

BA's old policy was NO symbols of faith. Now they allow "all" symbols of faith.

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Airport worker loses cross case:


A British Airways worker who claimed she was religiously discriminated against after being banned from wearing her Christian cross has lost her case.
Nadia Eweida, 56, from Twickenham, south-west London, said her BA bosses banned her from wearing a small cross around her neck.

But an employment tribunal said she had breached the firm's regulations without good cause.

In a statement the airline said it was "pleased" at the decision.

Miss Eweida said after learning of the judgment: "I'm very disappointed. I'm speechless really because I went to the tribunal to seek justice

"But the judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff."

She vowed to proceed with her case if her solicitor agreed.

"It's not over until God says it's over," she said.

The row began in October 2006 when Miss Eweida was told she could not wear the cross or hide it from sight.

Valued member

When she refused she was put on unpaid leave.

The company eventually changed their uniform policy and Miss Eweida returned to work in February 2007 and continues to be employed by the airline.

She has been on rest days this week, but will return to work on Thursday wearing her cross.

In a statement BA said: "We have always maintained that our uniform policy did not discriminate against Christians and we are pleased that the tribunal's decision supports our position.

"Our current policy allows symbols of faith to be worn openly and has been developed with multi-faith groups and our staff.

"Nadia Eweida has worked for us for eight years and continues to be a valued member of our staff."

Posted by mikki at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Law.com - ABA Asked to Examine Accreditation of Pat Robertson's Law School:


On Friday, a Houston civil rights lawyer sent a complaint letter to the American Bar Association asking the group to examine the accreditation of Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law after the school allegedly violated his client's free speech rights.

On behalf of his client Adam Key, Houston solo Randall Kallinen sent the complaint letter to the ABA alleging that last year the school suspended Key after he posted an unflattering picture of Robertson on his Facebook page online and criticized, on an online university forum, Robertson's public comments that advocated the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Key was a second-year student at Regent Law.

While the Virginia Beach, Va., Christian law school is private, it maintains ABA accreditation. To maintain accreditation, it must not be in violation of ABA Standard 211(c), which prevents it from discriminating against its students on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age or disability. That standard "is administered as though the First Amendment of the United States Constitution governs its application."

"As a Christian and as a Lutheran, Mr. Key has religious convictions that religious leaders be held to high standards and that it is permissible to criticize any wrongful behavior," the complaint letter states. "When Mr. Key refused to conform to Regent's religious and political views, he was suspended and ultimately removed from law school."

"What they're doing is they are creating a bunch of lawyers who don't believe in free speech," says Kallinen, who wants the ABA to revoke the law school's accreditation.

Telephone messages were not immediately returned by officials at the law school or the ABA.

In November 2007, Key filed a civil rights complaint, Key v. Regent University, against the law school in U.S. District Court in Houston, claiming the school violated his right to free speech and freedom of religion.

Posted by mikki at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

San Jose Mercury News - U.S. Supreme Court upholds San Francisco group's Dykes on Bikes trademark:



U.S. Supreme Court upholds San Francisco group's Dykes on Bikes trademark
Bay City News Service
Article Launched: 01/07/2008 12:48:19 PM PST

The U.S. Supreme Court today turned down a Dublin lawyer's challenge to a San Francisco group's trademark right to the name Dykes on Bikes.
The high court declined to hear an appeal by attorney Michael McDermott of a ruling by a federal circuit court in Washington D.C. in July upholding the trademark granted by the U.S. Trademark Office.
The group, also known as the San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent, won the right to the name in 2004.
The bikers traditionally lead the annual San Francisco Pride Parade and describe themselves as supporting women motorcyclists around the world as well as gay rights endeavors.
McDermott, who challenged the trademark as an individual acting on his own behalf, said today he considers the Dykes on Bikes name to be "hostile to men."
He argued in his opposition to the trademark that the name was disparaging to men and immoral.
But the appeals court ruled last year that the name "would have no implications for a man" and that McDermott hadn't shown he had a reasonable belief he would be harmed by the trademark grant.
Lawyers for Dykes on Bikes weren't immediately available for comment today, but attorney Brooke Oliver said last year that the appeals court ruling showed that "asserting pride in being 'Dykes on Bikes' does not impact others negatively."
The high court's refusal to hear the appeal means the July 11 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. is the final decision in the case

Posted by mikki at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.Va. to Return Looted Greek Statues to Italy:


CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) - The University of Virginia plans to return two ancient Greek sculptures to Italy nearly three decades after tomb raiders looted them from Sicily.

The acroliths of the Greek goddesses were created about 525 B.C. out of cloth, wood and marble. They have been on display at the university's art museum since being donated to the university in 2002.

"We're honored that we had them," U.Va. art history professor Malcolm Bell III said. "We took good care of them. A lot of students saw them and learned from them. Now we're happy to return them to Italy."

The life-size statues were originally displayed inside a temple in Morgantina, an ancient Greek settlement near what is now the Italian city of Aidone. They are thought to represent Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture and grain, and her daughter Persephone, the queen of the underworld.

U.Va. hasn't disclosed who donated the statues to its museum. However, the New York Times reported in September that New York diamond merchant and philanthropist Maurice Tempelsman previously owned the acroliths.

Upon receiving the statues in 2002, the university negotiated a deal to keep them for five years, with the understanding that they would be returned to Italy afterward. The Italian government endorsed the deal.

To mark the return of the sculptures, the school will host a symposium Feb. 2 titled "The Goddesses Return."

Following the event _ which will feature discussions on museum ethics, the antiquities market and archaeological preservation _ members of the Italian police, or carabinieri, will escort the acroliths back to Italy.

"We're very pleased and grateful and happy to be getting these magnificent statues back," said Silvia Limoncini, a cultural counselor of the Italian Embassy in Washington. "It's an example of the excellent relationship between Italy and the United States."

Since their discovery in 1978, the two acroliths have traveled the world via the black market of looted antiquities. According to the New York Times, they were smuggled through Switzerland and surfaced in a London showroom in 1980. Tempelsman bought the acroliths from the London dealer for $1 million, the newspaper reported, adding that there is no indication that Tempelsman knew they had a potentially shady origin.

In the late 1980s, the statues were on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. But after an Italian prosecutor notified the museum that they were possibly illegally excavated, the acroliths were returned to Tempelsman.

Upon the acroliths' return to Italy, they will be displayed at a museum in Aidone. In the coming years, the sculptures will be joined by other priceless works of repatriated art from American museums.

The return of the acroliths is especially appropriate, Bell said, because the myths of Demeter and Persephone involved themes of traveling and returning. After Persephone is kidnapped and taken to the underworld, her mother searches for her across the Earth. Meanwhile, Persephone returns to Earth once a year, heralding spring and rebirth.

Posted by mikki at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'd like to know the difference between the 700 club telling you that if you pay them, they predict your life will become much better, and a Wiccan turning over a card and telling you that your life will become much better. Cept that one is legal and one is illegal in Louisiana. Weird...

2theadvocate.com | News | Wiccan priest sues over Livingston soothsaying ordinance — Baton Rouge, LA:


SPRINGFIELD — A man who describes himself as a Wiccan priest has filed suit against Livingston Parish over its soothsaying ordinance.

Inspiration from the divine transmitted by a Wiccan should be treated legally the same way as a message from God transmitted by a Christian minister, Cliff Eakin said Wednesday.

“To dictate what you can and cannot do in a spiritual sense” violates constitutional rights, he said.

Eakin, who said he is legally a Wiccan minister, said he knows of at least 100 members of his faith residing in Livingston Parish.

Many of them are reluctant to make their beliefs public for fear of persecution, he said.

“No person shall engage in the practices of soothsaying, fortune telling, palm reading, clairvoyance, crystal ball gazing, mind reading, card reading and the like, for money or other consideration,” according to the ordinance the Parish Council approved May 10.

Eakin said that when he owned a metaphysical shop in New Orleans, he usually gave divinations for free.

But he added that he believes Wiccans should be able to seek small contributions for the practice, in much the same way Christian churches receive tithes and offerings.

The suit, filed on behalf of his business — Gryphon’s Nest Gifts  Inc.,  says that the business seeks the right to perform divinations in Livingston Parish for profit.

The suit maintains that the parish ordinance violates the plaintiff’s  right to free speech.

“The intent of the Parish Council in passing the ordinance was to promote Christian mythology over paganism,” the suit states.

 The suit also asserts that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague.

“The ordinance leaves only an individual law enforcement officer to determine whether a particular conduct qualifies as ‘and the like,’ ” the suit states.

Attorney James A. Harry filed the suit electronically Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana.

The suit asks the court to declare the ordinance unconstitutional, to issue a permanent injunction prohibiting the parish from enforcing the ordinance and to assess damages.

Eakin said he believes people who use fortune telling to steal money should be arrested under laws against fraud.

Parish President Mike Grimmer could not be reached by phone for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Posted by mikki at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seems we're not the only ones who are fighting this assault of privacy.

We have everything to fear from ID cards - Telegraph:


We start the year in Britain with a challenge to our essential nature, for 2008 might turn out to be the year when we decide to rip up the Magna Carta.

Among the basic civil rights in this country, there has always been, at least in theory, an inclination towards liberal democracy, which includes a tolerance of an individual's right to privacy.

We are born free and have the right to decide what freedom means, each for ourselves, and to have control over our outward existence, yet that will no longer be the case if we agree to identity cards.

Britain is already the most self-watching country in the world, with the largest network of security cameras; a new study suggests we are now every bit as poor at protecting privacy as Russia, China and America.

But surveillance cameras and lost data will prove minuscule problems next to ID cards, which will obliterate the fundamental right to walk around in society as an unknown.

Some of you may have taken that freedom so much for granted that you forget how basic and important it is, but in every country where ID cards have ever been introduced, they have changed the relation between the individual and the state in a way that has not proved beneficial to the individual. I am not just talking Nazi Germany, but everywhere.

It is also a spiritual matter: a person's identity is for him or her to decide and to control, and if someone decides to invest the details of their person in a higher authority, then it should not be the Home Office.

The compulsory ID card scheme is a sickness born of too much suspicion and too little regard for the meaning of tolerance and privacy in modern life.

Hooking individuals up to a system of instantly accessible data is an obscenity - not only a system waiting to be abused, but a system already abusing.

Though we don't pay much attention to moral philosophy in the mass media now - Bertrand Russell having long been exchanged for the Jeremy Kyle Show - it may be worth remembering that Britain has a tradition of excellence when it comes to distinguishing and upholding basic rights and laws in the face of excessive power.

The ID cards issue should be raising the most stimulating arguments about who we are and how we are - but no, it is not: we nose the grass like sheep and prepare to be herded once again.

It seems the only person speaking up with a broad sense of what this all means is Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has devoted much of his new year message to underlining the sheer horribleness of the scheme.

He has said he will go to jail rather than bow to this "expensive, invasive and unnecessary" affront to "our natural liberal tendencies".

I have to say I cheered when I heard this, not only because I agree, but because it is entirely salutary, in these sheepish times, to see a British politician express his personal feelings so strongly.

Many people on the other side of the argument make what might be called a category mistake when they say: "If you've nothing to hide, why object to carrying a card?"

Making it compulsory to prove oneself, in advance, not to be a threat to society is an insult to one's right not to be pre-judged or vetted.

Our system of justice is based on evidence, not on prior selection, and the onus on proving criminality is a matter for the justice system, where proof is of the essence.

Many regrettable things occur as a result of freedom - some teenage girls get pregnant, some businessmen steal from their shareholders, some soldiers torture their enemies, some priests exploit children - but these cases would not, in a liberal society, require us to end the private existence of all people just in case.

If the existence of terrorists, these few desperate extremists, makes it necessary for everybody in Britain to carry an ID card then it is a price too high.

It is more than a price, it is a defeat, and one that we will repent at our leisure. Challenges to security should, in fact, make us more protective of our basic freedoms; it should, indeed, make us warm to our rights.

In another age, it was thought sensible to try to understand the hatred in the eyes of our enemies, but now it seems we consider it wiser just to devalue the nature of our citizenship.

What's more - it won't work. Nick Clegg has pointed to the gigantic cost and fantastic hubris involved in this scheme, but recent gaffes with personal information have shown just how difficult it is to control and protect data.

A poll of doctors undertaken by doctors.net.uk has today shown that a majority of doctors believe that the National Programme for IT - seeking to contain all the country's medical records - will not be secure.

In fact, it is causing great worry. Many medical professionals fear that detailed information about each of us will soon be whizzing haphazardly from one place to another, leaving patients at the mercy of the negligent, the nosy, the opportunistic and the exploitative.

"Only people with something to hide will fear the introduction of compulsory ID cards."

That is what they say, and it sounds perfectly practical. If you think about it for a minute, though, it begins to sound less than practical and more like an affront to the reasonable (and traditional) notion that the state should mind its own business.

In a just society, what you have to hide is your business, until such times as your actions make it the business of others. Infringing people's rights is not an ethical form of defence against imaginary insult.

You shouldn't have to tell the government your eye colour if you don't want to, never mind your maiden name, your height, your personal persuasions in this or that direction, all to be printed up on a laminated card under some compulsory picture, to say you're one of us.

You weren't born to be one of us, that is something you choose, and to take the choice out of it is wrong. It marks the end of privacy, the end of civic volition, the end of true citizenship.

Posted by mikki at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)