Posts Tagged ‘Muslim’

News & Submissions 1/10/2012

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Arts & Entertainment:

Warner Bros. to adapt ‘Discovery of Witches’
David Auburn is looking for witches and vampires and has come on to adapt Deborah Harkness’ “A Discovery of Witches” for Warner Bros. and producers Denise Di Novi and Allison Greenspan.

Studio acquired the property last summer. Story centers on a reluctant witch and a 1,500-year-old vampire. The witch — a direct descendant of the first woman executed in the Salem Witch trials — accidentally unlocks an enchanted manuscript and finds herself in a race to prevent an interspecies war.

David Auburn is looking for witches and vampires and has come on to adapt Deborah Harkness’ “A Discovery of Witches” for Warner Bros. and producers Denise Di Novi and Allison Greenspan.Studio acquired the property last summer. Story centers on a reluctant witch and a 1,500-year-old vampire. The witch — a direct descendant of the first woman executed in the Salem Witch trials — accidentally unlocks an enchanted manuscript and finds herself in a race to prevent an interspecies war. Read full story from varitey.com

Racing the Rez Documentary Reaches KickStarter Goal!
On New Year’s Eve we posted a story about the incredible documentary Racing the Rez, which was $11,215 shy of of the $15,000 at the time.  A scant nine days later, director Brian Truglio and his team have reached their goal.  There are still three days of fundraising left for the film team to help build up their outreach program.  We reached out to Brian to see how he was feeling, and what comes next.  Here was his response:

The money, of course is, important, and the reason the KickStarter campaign exists, but I’m most blown away by all the support and excitement around the project.  The running community is really something special and unique.  Having Christopher McDougall‘s support means the world to me, it’s unbelievable that a writer and runner who is one of my heroes is supporting Racing the Rez.” Read full story from indiancounrytodaymedianetwork.com

Health:

How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body
On a cold Saturday in early 2009, Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus, was giving a master class at Sankalpah Yoga in Manhattan. Black is, in many ways, a classic yogi: he studied in Pune, India, at the institute founded by the legendary B. K. S. Iyengar, and spent years in solitude and meditation. He now lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and often teaches at the nearby Omega Institute, a New Age emporium spread over nearly 200 acres of woods and gardens. He is known for his rigor and his down-to-earth style. But this was not why I sought him out: Black, I’d been told, was the person to speak with if you wanted to know not about the virtues of yoga but rather about the damage it could do. Many of his regular clients came to him for bodywork or rehabilitation following yoga injuries. This was the situation I found myself in. In my 30s, I had somehow managed to rupture a disk in my lower back and found I could prevent bouts of pain with a selection of yoga postures and abdominal exercises. Then, in 2007, while doing the extended-side-angle pose, a posture hailed as a cure for many diseases, my back gave way. With it went my belief, naïve in retrospect, that yoga was a source only of healing and never harm. Read full story from nytimes.com

News:

Muslim group’s anti-gay leaflet was hate crime, court told
A group of Muslim men publicly distributed a leaflet calling for gay people to be given the death sentence, a court has heard.The pamphlet was entitled The Death Penalty? and showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose. It said sodomy was a sin that led to hell, that it used to be punished by hanging, and that people practising and allowing homosexuality would suffer, the court was told.

Five men – Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmed, 28, all of Derby – are alleged to have handed out the document outside and near the Jamia mosque in in the city in July 2010, and to have put it through people’s letterboxes in the neighbourhood.

They are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation, in the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010. They deny the charges. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Sister weeps at ‘witch’ death trial
A young woman broke down in court as she recalled events which led to her teenage brother being tortured to death in east London for being a “witch”.Kelly Bamu, 21, wept as she came face-to-face with her sister Magalie, and her partner Eric Bikubi, both 28, who are accused of killing Kristy, 15.

He was found drowned in a bath at the couple’s flat in Forest Gate on Christmas Day 2010 after being tortured when he was accused of witchcraft by Magalie and Bikubi. The couple deny murder and assaulting Kelly and a younger sister, who were also accused of influencing another child of the family with witchcraft.

The prosecution says Kristy and his two brothers and two sisters were beaten and terrorised for four days. The Old Bailey was told Kristy was tortured with “an armoury of weapons” and had 101 injuries before being placed in the bath of water where he “begged to die”. Read full story from google.com

Media:

Christians Have the Right to Bully Gay Kids (Source: YouTube – OnKneesforjesus4)

Blogspot:

Feel free to leave comments regarding the articles posted.

If you’re interested in guest blogging or would like to submit an article or event, contact me at pagansworld.org@gmail.com.

Thanks for stopping by! Well wishes to you all, have a great day!

Lisa

News & Submissions 8/30/2011

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

Arts & Entertainment:

New Creepier ‘Apollo 18′ Trailer (Source: Screen Junkies)

Events:

Discover Cherokee Nation at 59th Holiday
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The 59th Cherokee National Holiday, Sept. 2–4 in Tahlequah, Okla., offers visitors a chance to enjoy activities that are sure to please the entire family. Events such as the powwow and the downtown parade are perennial favorites. But there are other enticing events Holiday guests may not be as familiar with waiting to be discovered. Come learn a few phrases in the Cherokee language or take a tour of some of Oklahoma’s most historic structures. Or just kick back, relax and listen to some favorite sounds.

Eclectic Burning Man festival celebrates 25th anniversary
SANTA FE, New Mexico — Starting on Monday tens of thousands of people will descend on a great expanse of Nevada desert to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Burning Man, a gathering of free spirits, artists, entrepreneurs — and anyone else who managed to get a ticket.

News:

Psychic uses court as medium to fight Alexandria’s ban on fortunetelling
Rachel Adams wants to use the talent she believes she was born to share.

Adams, a mother of two who recently moved to Alexandria with her husband, has opened a fortunetelling business on Jackson Street Extension, Readings by Faith, where she hopes to use her psychic, fortunetelling and Tarot card-reading abilities.

There’s just one problem. Fortunetelling is forbidden in the city’s code of ordinances. Read full story from thetowntalk.com

Witch Hunting in Assam – Capital of Black magic to national shame
The history of witch hunting dates back to several hundred years. During the period of 14th to 17th century, persecution of witches had led to the torture and murder of thousands of innocent women and men, even children. Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) was burned alive at the stake for heresy at the age of 19 on May 30, 1431. It was believed that she was called to save France from England by supernatural voices when she was just 16. Her victories were legendary, but eventually she was captured and executed. That was history, but the sad part is that such practices still prevail in the world, – in different names, customs and beliefs. Whether it is Joan of Arc from history chapters or Hermione from a Hollywood blockbuster series Harry Potter, people still secretly believe in such practices,- some call it Voodoo, some call it witchcraft and some calls it Black magic. Read full story from timesofassam.com

Polygamist Leader Warren Jeffs Has Pneumonia, Is Not In Coma
Jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs is suffering from pneumonia and is not in a medically-induced coma, as has been widely reported, a source familiar with Jeffs’ condition tells NPR.

According to the source, the 55-year-old leader of the nation’s largest polygamist group was sedated, pharmacologically paralyzed and placed on a ventilator as part of his treatment for pneumonia. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity due to federal medical privacy laws that do not permit disclosure of medical treatment without permission of the patient or family. Read full story from npr.org

In Libya: ‘Biggest Fear’ Is Gadhafi Disappearing, Continuing To Fight
The news that ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s wife and three of his children have fled to Algeria underscores “the biggest fear” for many Libyans, NPR’s Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports from Tripoli — that Gadhafi will elude capture and that his forces will continue to battle for weeks, months or perhaps years. Read full story from npr.org

Religion:

Christian wants atheist registry
Florida pastor, Michael Stahl has suggested that an organization and website be created that would keep track of known atheists. The website would list by city and state all atheists with their photos and some personal information such as place of business. It would not include a physical address which seems to contradict one of the main purposes of the site.

Pastor Mike compares atheists to “convicted sex offenders , ex-convicts , terrorist cells , hate groups like the KKK , skinheads , radical Islamists , etc..”  He claims that the purpose of this organization/website called, “The Christian National Registry of Atheists” is to inform the public of known atheists so that they can be proselytize to and their businesses can be boycotted. Read full story from examiner.com

Muslim festival brings rare joy for some this year, but not all cheer
(CNN) — For Christians, the wild celebrations of Mardi Gras come before the solemnity of Lent, a last chance to celebrate before the abstinence marking the 40 days to Good Friday and Easter.

Muslims do it the other way around. First comes the month of daytime fasting during Ramadan, then the eruption of joy called Eid al-Fitr, marked with gift-giving, new clothes, donations to the poor, feasting and festivities.

But as the sighting of a crescent moon officially marked the beginning of Eid on Tuesday, feelings are decidedly mixed for many Muslims. Read full story  from cnn.com

Media:

TRENDING: Bachmann points to ‘great sense of humor’ after God joke (Source: CNN)
(CNN) – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann defended her recent comments about natural disasters in Washington, D.C. serving as messages from God, saying she was joking.

Texas pastor opens drive-in church (Source: CNN)

Blogspot:

Feel free to leave comments regarding the articles posted.

If you’re interested in guest blogging or would like to submit an article or event, contact me at pagansworld.org@gmail.com.

Thanks for stopping by! Well wishes to you all, have a great day!

Lisa

News & Submissions 7/28/11

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

Arts & Entertainment:

Scariest Movies
Over the history of cinema there have been many films that have been called the scariest movies. Many of these movies are horrific, gory and frightening on many different levels. Some people are scared by monsters while others are frightened by real life horrors, but all these movies scare people in many different ways. Read full story from screenjunkies.com

Native American:

Navajo Continues Life’s Work With AICF
Early this year W.K. Kellogg Foundation gave the American Indian College Fund (AICF) $5 million for the Wakanyeja “Sacred Little Ones” Early Childhood Development Initiative.

The program is funded for five years and is intended to:

  • improve young Native American students’ skill acquisition
  • prepare them for grades K-12 and post-secondary education
  • improve the quality of early childhood teachers in Native communities
  • bridge early childhood and K-3 education
  • integrate Native language and culture into early childhood curriculum
  • empower Native families and communities as change agents in education for their children

In March, AICF started looking for someone to administer the program, and they finally found someone who fits the bill. Read full story from indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com

News:

War Widow’s Truck Targeted By Vandals
SPARKS, NV – The wife of a Nevada National Guard soldier killed in Afghanistan woke Monday morning to find her husband’s truck vandalized.

Sadly, it was only the latest in a series of incidents which have marked Roberta Stewart’s life since her husband’s death.

The truck was to have been Sgt. Patrick Stewart’s coming home gift, a purchase he and Roberta, had planned together.

In 2005, he and Chief Warrant Officer John Flynn, both Nevada Army Guardsmen were killed when their Chinook helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.

Monday morning, the truck he had wanted, the one she bought, now bearing new Gold Star license plates as a tribute to their sacrifice, was parked outside her Sparks apartment, it’s windshield smashed by a large brick. Read full story from kolotv.com

Paranormal:

Children of the paranormal
I have been doing paranormal research now for over 11 years now. I have written four books on the subject and dozens of articles. I have also been to dozens of places around the US in nearly 20 states. To this day, in spite of many attempts and visits to notoriously dangerous locations, I have never been attacked or injured by a ghost, spirit, demon, entity, evil energy, ifrit, jinn or anything similarly supernatural. I am starting to feel a bit left out. When is my hair going to be pulled? When am I going to be poked, kicked or prodded? When is my immortal soul going to be in danger? I mean, if you watch some of these shows on television you would think this sort of thing happens all the time. Well, at least once or twice a week and maybe more on “sweeps week” and Halloween. Read full story from examiner.com

Paranormal Activity Found At Terror Mansion
SAN ANTONIO — At Halloween, you pay your money and take a scary tour through Terror Mansion, a popular haunted house in San Antonio.

But now the house is the subject of a paranormal investigation after ghostly orbs and other phenomena were caught on camera.

Photos of Nancy Alanis’ dog, Jenny, taken at Terror Mansion the day before the dog died, gave the first clues of paranormal activity. Read full story from ksat.com

Religion:

Atheists pick the wrong ground to fight
It is so common that zealous individuals take actions that seem wholly against what they claim they stand for it is almost a cliche; those who object to abortion as murder commit murder to get their point across, the heinous mass killing in Norway was meant to “protect” traditional values, Republicans claim to be defending US soldiers while they cut their pay and strip them of benefits, and multiculturalists out to protect “free speech” want to ban objectionable words and phrases.  Neither left or right is free from this hypocrisy, and it continues to hamper public discourse and objective consideration of opposing viewpoints, and a group here in NYC that I agree with in principle has done something I wholly disagree with, attempting to force the removal of a “cross” at the Ground Zero memorial. Read full story from examiner.com

Media:

Montreal First Peoples’ Festival: Fun!
Montreal is North America’s festival city during the summer, and one of the most exciting is the First Peoples’ Festival. This year’s festival—the 21st annual event—takes place August 2–9.

The year’s theme is “And now, the world,” according to Andre Dudemaine, Innu, the co-founder and director of Land InSights, a nonprofit organization that organizes and sponsors the event.

“Artists from First Nations of the whole planet will come to meet their North American counterparts and showcase their works. It is an opportunity here on Native land to reaffirm messages of welcome and peace they left as sovereign peoples to all the world’s peoples,” Dudemaine says on the festival website. Read full story from indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com

Colbert on the Media’s Rush to Blame the Oslo Attacks on Muslim Jihadists
Just because Norway’s confessed murderer is a blond, blue-eyed, Norwegian-born, anti-Muslim crusader doesn’t mean he’s not a swarthy, ululating madman. (Source – ColbertNation.com)

Blogpost:

  • Inciting A Riot – The Super Witch’s Tarot+
  • Pantheon – Guest Post: Drew Jacob on Lúnasa with “The Family”

Feel free to leave comments regarding the articles posted.

If you’re interested in guest blogging or would like to submit an article or event, contact me at pagansworld.org@gmail.com.

Thanks for stopping by! Well wishes to you all, have a great day!

Lisa

News & Submissions 7/26/2011

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

Headlines:

Jacobs, Benefiel To Spend 40 Days Laying Spiritual “Seige” To Washington DC
Last week we posted a video John Benefiel, head of the Heartland Apostolic Reformation Network, explaining how he had gone to Washington, DC in order to exercise his “spiritual authority” to “divorce Baal” and rename the city “the District of Christ.” Read full story from rightwingwatch.com

Why Pagans Need Community Centers
In response to the Sacred Paths Center’s financial situation, opinions have been circulating that Pagans don’t need community centers.  I realized that we assume the reasons for community center projects are obvious.

In some of the conversations online, the feeling that we get is that some folks are looking at just what they need instead of the needs of other people and the whole of the Pagan community.  If your first response is that you don’t need X (be it a building or whatever) to practice your religion, so that X isn’t a valid reason for Pagans to have a center, ask yourself this…  Are there are a lot of other folks who would benefit from that function of the community center?  What would having X mean for the Pagan community.  Just think of all of the Pagans in just the DC region.  What about the regions with large numbers of Pagans? Think of all of the Pagan groups and all of the Pagan event organizers.  Just because you don’t feel that you’re in need of a community center doesn’t mean that the Pagan community wouldn’t greatly benefit from a community center. Read full story from openhearthfoundation.blogspot.com

Arts & Entertainment:

10 Creepy, Sexy Fairy Tales That Should Be Films
— If there’s one thing we learned this past week at Comic-Con, it’s that Hollywood is obsessed with fairy tales. They’re magical, they’ve got instant recognition… and they’re public domain. But Hollywood keeps hitting on the same five stories.

With all due respect to both Emma Watson and Guillermo del Toro, the absolute last thing we need is yet another take on Beauty and the Beast. We also don’t need a Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, and god forbid someone try again with Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood. Rather than returning to the same well-worn stories, here are ten slightly lesser-known fairy stories worthy of Hermoine and the Hellboy director, as well as anyone else in Hollywood. Read full story from io9.com

News:

S.African ‘corpse’ wakes up, scares off morgue staff: report
A 50-year-old South African man thought to be dead woke up in a chilly morgue on Sunday and shouted to be let out, scaring off two attendants who thought he was a ghost, local media reported.

“His family thought he had died,” health spokesman Sizwe Kupelo told the Sapa news agency.

“The family called a private undertaker who took what they thought was a dead body to the morgue, but the man woke up inside the morgue on Sunday at 5:00 pm and screamed, demanding to be taken out of the cold place.”

This caused two mortuary attendants on duty to flee the building in the small town of Libode in the rural Eastern Cape as they thought it was a ghost. Read full story from yahoo.com

Saudi Arabia’s ‘Anti-Witchcraft Unit’ breaks another spell
The unit, established in 2009, is charged with apprehending sorcerers and reversing the detrimental effects of their spells in the Gulf country.

When the severed head of a wolf wrapped in women’s lingerie turned up near the city of Tabouk in northern Saudi Arabia this week, authorities knew they had another case of witchcraft on their hands, a capital offence in the ultra-conservative desert kingdom.

Agents of the country’s Anti-Witchcraft Unit were quickly dispatched and set about trying to break the spell that used the beast’s head. Read full story from jpost.com

Photography:

Photographers Capture Mysterious, Beautiful Patterns in Sand
One day these shells and rocks will be sand. See photos at wired.com

Religion:

Atheist group wants to stop World Trade Center cross
(CNN) — A group of atheists has filed a lawsuit to stop the display of the World Trade Center cross at a memorial of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The “government enshrinement of the cross was an impermissible mingling of church and state,” the American Atheists say in a press statement.

The group says it filed the lawsuit this week in state court in New York and posted a copy of the lawsuit on its website. Read full story from cnn.com

Anders Behring Breivik: Christian terrorist? Right-wing extremist? Madman?
When news broke about the bombing in Olso, many commentators assumed links with Islamic extremism. When reports came of the massacre on Utøya island, perpetrated by a “tall, blonde, Nordic, man,” speculation quieted down until Anders Behring Breivik was identified. News reports first described Breivik as a “Christian terrorist,” largely on the basis of his Facebook profile and his postings to Christian fundamentalist Web sites. After his manifesto became public, Breivik was characterized as a “right-wing extremist.” To most, the Christian terrorist/right-wing extremist distinction makes little real difference: Only a madman could engage in such wanton killing. REad full story from washingtonpost.com

Science:

The Science Behind Dreaming
For centuries people have pondered the meaning of dreams. Early civilizations thought of dreams as a medium between our earthly world and that of the gods. In fact, the Greeks and Romans were convinced that dreams had certain prophetic powers. While there has always been a great interest in the interpretation of human dreams, it wasn’t until the end of the nineteenth century that Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung put forth some of the most widely-known modern theories of dreaming. Freud’s theory centred around the notion of repressed longing — the idea that dreaming allows us to sort through unresolved, repressed wishes. Carl Jung (who studied under Freud) also believed that dreams had psychological importance, but proposed different theories about their meaning. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

“Spectacular” Double Meteor Shower This Week
A celestial traffic jam may be on tap this week as two meteor showers combine forces to put on a brilliant sky show.

One of the best shooting star events of the year is the annual August Perseid meteor shower. (See Perseids pictures.) However this year’s peak, on August 12, happens to coincide with a bright full moon—drastically cutting down the number of meteors visible to the naked eye.

Yet while the main event might be blocked out by the blinding moonlight, the opening act promises to be much better. Read full story from nationalgeographic.com

Where House Cats Roam: Researchers Compare the Mysterious Wanderings of Pet and Stray Felines
Anyone who has ever owned an outdoor cat knows that it tends to disappear for hours, sometimes days, at a time. Where do cats go when they are lurking out of sight? The question is of interest not just to pet owners but also to conservation scientists who study the impact of free-roaming cats on wildlife populations.  Scientists at the University of Illinois and the Illinois Natural History Survey recently attached radio transmitters to the adjustable collars of 18 pet and 24 feral cats in southeastern Champaign-Urbana and tracked the animals by truck and on foot for more than one year. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Media:

Norway attacks show why you can’t blame the muslims
In the immediate aftermath of 1995’s Oklahoma City bombing, much of the news media rushed to suggest that a Muslim, or at least a Middle Eastern connection, was behind the attacks.

News reports on television and in print featured Middle East terrorism experts claiming the Oklahoma City attack echoed a World Trade Center bombing two years earlier and that it contained parallels to recent Mideast attacks.

The FBI picked up Ibrahim Ahmad, a Jordanian American, for questioning in an initial dragnet.

Does ‘Christian fundamentalist’ label fit Norway terror suspect? Read full story from cnn.com

Breivik Attorny Speaks Out (Source – CNN)

Blogspot:

Thanks for stopping by! Well wishes to you all, have a great day!

Lisa

News & Submissions 3/10/2011

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Dalai Lama to retire from political life
The Dalai Lama has announced he will retire from political life within days.

In a speech posted on the internet and delivered in the northern Indian hilltown of Dharamasala, the veteran Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said that he would ask the Tibetan parliament in exile to make the necessary constitutional changes to relieve him of his “formal authority” as head of the Tibetan community outside China.

The assembly, which meets early next week, is expected to approve his request. Though long-anticipated, the move away from the limelight by one of the world’s best known political figures signals a dramatic change. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Chillicothe looks to add diversity to invocations
CHILLICOTHE — Chillicothe City Council has no intention of removing prayer from its formal meetings, but it likely will draft formal plans to make prayers more diverse and keep them separate from official business.

At a community affairs committee meeting Wednesday, council members met with Columbus attorney Matthew Burkhart, a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that has helped communities across the country adopt policies to keep invocations as part of their meetings.

“This policy would see those invocations continuing and formalizing the procedures,” Burkhart said. Read fulls story from chillicothgazette.com

Pagan holidays in modern Ukraine
For the most flavourful celebration of pagan rituals, visit Ukraine in the summer for the Ivana Kupala festival of making wreaths, jumping over bonfires and peeking into the future. In December, Saint Andrew’s Day is another chance for some quality palm reading while saying goodbye to the sun for the winter. Epiphany, celebrated in January, helps wash sins away – in icy rivers and lakes – but not before another healthy dose of fortunetelling. And when decadent parades sweep European and American streets for Mardi Gras, Ukrainians stand by their forefathers munching on pancakes during the Pancake Week celebrations.

The easiest way to experience the supernatural is booking a trip to Kiev in July. Celebrated after the summer solstice on 6 July, Ivana Kupala refers to the god of the fruits of the earth. Legend has it that if you venture into the forest and find a fern in bloom – although it is nearly a botanical impossibility – start digging. This magic fern allegedly indicates a hidden treasure. The rite has found its way into films, cartoons and children’s books, all contributing to its mass popularity across the country. Read fulls tory from bbc.com

The deity by any other name: Army resilience program gets a thumbs down from atheists
The best thing about writing a story as a journalist is that you get to interact with astute readers who are never reticient about telling you what you missed in your reporting. My story, “The Neuroscience of True Grit,” the cover in the current issue, talks about what we know, and what we’re still trying to find out, about psychological resilience: the thing that  allows you to slog through when S**T happens.

Even though there’s a lot that we still don’t know, the U.S. Army has launched a gargantuan program to teach resilience to soldiers and their families, an effort that encompasses more than one million people. There is a software training module in one segment of the program to teach “spiritual” fitness. The Army is smart and they emphasize that the program is oriented toward the “human” side of spirituality. Translation: we are not violating separation of church and state. Secular, secular, secularissimo.

Here’s where it gets interesting, though. The atheists don’t really buy the official interpretation as handed down by the Army. “Spiritual,” to them, can’t be construed as anything but the sotto voce mouthing of the letters “G-O-D.” I got several e-mails about my uncritical mention of the spiritual fitness module, one of which contained a press release from The Freedom From Religion Foundation , the nation’s largest atheist organization (actually, they call themselves ‘nontheists’ because they also have agnostic members) that stated: Read full story from scientificamerican.com

The True Language of a Pow Wow Drum
The pow wow season is under way, and the sound of drums—the universal “heartbeat of the nation”—will reverberate in dance arenas around the country.

But in Denver, a major crossroads in Indian country, surprisingly few pow wow-goers may actually understand the words that accompany some drum songs—veterans’ songs, for example– rather than just hearing the vocables, or syllabic sounds, that accompany others. The same gap is likely true at other pow wows.

Doug Goodfeather, Lakota, leads a drum group that carries his grandfather’s drum’s name, Rock Creek Drum, from the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. His name, Goodfeather (“Wiyaka Waste’”), was derived from both who he is as a Hunkpapa Lakota and also from who he is in terms of his personal character. It was given him as a small boy in ceremony by his grandmother after an eagle flew at him in attack mode and then shot skyward, leaving a feather behind.

The values of his Hunkpapa band are embodied in Sitting Bull, to whom Goodfeather’s grandmother always referred to as “Grandpa Sitting Bull” not “Chief Sitting Bull,” he said, adding he has not done the genealogy that might describe lineal descent.

He estimates that only a very small percentage of the 40,000-some Native residents along the Rocky Mountains’ Front Range are regular pow wow attendees or participants who really know and understand the songs. Read full story from indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com

Human remains found in Bronze Age pots
wo Bronze Age burial pots containing human remains have been found at the base of a standing stone in Angus.

Archaeologists excavated the ground around the Carlinwell Stone at Airlie, near Kirriemuir, after it fell over earlier in the winter.

Both pots – known as collared urns – could be up to 4,000 years old and were typically used in early Bronze age cremation burials.

The 7ft (2.1m) high monolith will be re-erected on Friday.

One of the pots is about 4in (10cm) in diameter, and the other is about 8in, the archaeologists said.

Melanie Johnson, from CFA Archaeology of Musselburgh, said: “The pots are typical of early Bronze Age cremation burials. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

Satanic sex cult paedophile guilty
AN “EVIL” paedophile and three women are facing years in jail today for establishing a satanic sex cult to abuse children and young adults in a quiet Welsh town.

Former Tesco security guard Colin Batley, 48, presided over the depraved “quasi-religious” sect which indulged in occult Egyptology-inspired rites from his home in Kidwelly.

A jury at Swansea Crown Court found him guilty of carrying out a series of perverted sexual acts on children and adults, including 11 rapes. Read full story from walesonline.co.uk

Dalai Lama ready to give up political power (soiurce cnn)

Al Qaeda trying to radicalize U.S. Muslims, congressman claims (source cnn)

Students walk out of high school to bring Ten Commandments back in (source wdbj7)

News & Submissions 3/9/2011

Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

“Black Death” a treat for medieval history buffs
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – You can’t quarrel with that title, “Black Death.” The film is black all right, pitch black, and death is everywhere.

The story is set in 1348, after all, when the plague began to sweep through Europe, decimating its populace by as much as half and spreading panic to every corner. Yet what a strange land for a horror filmmaker to pitch camp in since he has little to add when horror is a fact of everyday life.

Sure enough, Christopher Smith (“Creep,” “Severance”) plays with the notion of necromancers and demons lurking within the pestilence, but winds up retreating into a kind of historical morality tale told with documentary flourishes and a grim attraction to violence and cruelty.

All of which leaves “Black Death” without a reliable audience. Horror film buffs like to giggle as much as scream but there’re no giggles here. To its credit, the film doesn’t indulge in visual-effects devilry as a very similar plague film, “Season of the Witch,” did just two months ago. So it’s up to medieval history buffs to fill the theaters when it opens on Friday. Lots of luck.

The coincidence of storylines between “Season of the Witch” and “Black Death” is rather striking and in every instance Black Death is the superior film. In both films, the church, seeing its grip on the population severely loosened by this inexplicable plague, sends Christian knights into a remote region to determine if witches, demons or non-believers are the source of this frightening scourge. Read full story from reuters.com

Bulgarian Mayor: ‘Dog Spinning’ Ritual Harmless Folklore, Not Barbarian!
The “dog spinning” ritual practiced in a southeastern Bulgarian village is misinterpreted by the society and the international community, according to Tsarevo Municipality Mayor Petko Arnaudov.

In dog spinning, which is practiced in Brodilovo, a southeastern Bulgarian village, at the beginning of March, a dog is suspended above water on a rope.

The dog is turned repeatedly in a given direction to wind the rope, then released so that it spins rapidly in the opposite direction as the rope unwinds, until the dog falls into the water. The locals claim that the dog is not supposed to be physically hurt.

This ancient ritual of pagan origin is performed in order to prevent rabies and is a part of the traditional Kukeri rituals. Read full story from novinite.com

Blair launches new faith films contest for youth
Last year, Tony Blair ran a film contest for young people, inviting them to make films about faith.

His Faith Foundation was overwhelmed by the response: hundreds of entries, from Jews and Christians, Muslims and Hindus, Sikhs and humanists, on five continents around the world.

Buoyed by the success of the first “Faith Shorts” film contest, Blair is now doing it again.

He was impressed not only by the quality of the films, he said, but what they said about the people who made them.

“I think the fascinating thing about young people and the films that they sent us about faith… is that for them their faith isn’t just about a personal relationship with God, it’s also motivating them to do things, to get active, to have a purpose in life,” he told CNN. Read full story from cnn.com

Muslim-Christian clashes in Cairo leave 11 dead
Clashes between Muslims and Christians in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, have left 11 people dead and more than 90 wounded.

The clashes broke out on Tuesday night as thousands of Christians protested against the burning of a Cairo church last week. The church was set on fire after tensions escalated over a love affair between a Muslim and a Christian that set off a violent feud between the couple’s families.

Security and hospital officials said six Christians and five Muslims died from gunshot wounds and 94 people – 73 Muslims and 21 Christians – were wounded. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

“An inoffensive, vanilla Christianity”
Paris, France (CNA) — Addressing a gathering of European church officials on March 4, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver warned that many contemporary Christians have reduced their faith to a convenient “form of paganism,” which cannot compete with the widespread “idolatry” of modern consumer culture.

Archbishop Chaput offered his observations at a conference in Paris honoring the late Cardinal Archbishop Jean-Marie Lustiger, a Jewish convert to Catholicism who was the Archbishop of Paris from 1981 to 2005.

The Denver archbishop described Cardinal Lustiger as “an unsentimental realist” who dared to speak about disturbing trends in the Church and society – including a lack of faith among professed Christians, leaving a vacuum that would be filled by other “gods” such as sex and money. Read full story from calcotholic.com

Fort Bragg says atheist concert was treated the same as Christian group
Fort Bragg’s garrison commander said Tuesday he supports an atheist concert on post, but the concert’s organizer said the colonel’s refusal to allow it on the Main Post Parade Field or to provide funding effectively canceled it.

Sgt. Justin Griffith was planning an event called Rock Beyond Belief for April 2 on Fort Bragg. British atheist Richard Dawkins was to be the keynote speaker in a day that included other speakers and bands, Griffith said.

Rock Beyond Belief was, in part, a response to Rock the Fort, a concert sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association that was held on the parade field in September.

In a letter dated Sept. 22, Lt. Gen Frank Helmick wrote in response to protests of Rock the Fort that Fort Bragg would be “willing to provide similar support to comparable events sponsored by similar nonfederal entities that address the needs of the soldiers on this installation.”

Col. Stephen Sicinski, the garrison commander, and Griffith disagree over whether Fort Bragg is holding true to that statement.

Sicinski said he has received overwhelmingly negative feedback since the concert’s cancellation, and he believes that in part is because people aren’t aware of the facts.

“It disheartens me a little bit to think that we’re being misrepresented,” Sicinski said.

Sicinski said Fort Bragg’s market analysis determined that Griffith’s event would draw, at best, hundreds of people. Events at the parade field need an expected crowd of 5,000 or more, Sicinski said. On March 1, Sicinski wrote to Griffith that the event could be held at the Main Post Theater or the York Theater. Read full story from fayobserver,cin

Why won’t pagans accept trans women?
At a pagan gathering in February, the Pantheacon in San Jose, California, trans women were excluded from a Dianic ritual in honour of Lilith. Many of the defenders of this position – the veteran witch Z Budapest, for example – argue from an essentialist position (“you have to have sometimes in your life a womb, and ovaries and moon bleed and not die”) but also by an appeal to tradition, which is a bit rich from a religious standpoint invented or at best recreated within the past 50 years.

Most of the really bad things that happen to trans women could happen to all women – rape, murder, unequal pay. Some of them happen to trans women more, proportionately; when there aren’t many of us to begin with, a murder rate worldwide of one every two or three days is something we notice.

So being snubbed or made to feel unwelcome in women’s space really is not all that important. After all, some hostile feminists will say – have always said – there are so few of us, why are we demanding all the time that we have this conversation? As if excluding us were not starting that conversation pretty definitively. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Early humans began in southern Africa, study suggests
Modern humans may have originated from southern Africa, an extensive genetic study has suggested.

Data showed that hunter-gatherer populations in the region had the greatest degree of genetic diversity, which is an indicator of longevity.

It says that the region was probably the best location for the origin of modern humans, challenging the view that we came from eastern Africa.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Africa is inferred to be the continent of origin for all modern human populations,” the international team of researchers wrote. Read drull story from bbc.co.uk

News & Submissions

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Accused pig killer in trouble again
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) – The woman accused of killing and maiming two pigs, then leaving one of the pig’s heads on its owner’s front porch last week is in trouble again.

Police say 21-year-old Ashley Marie Fowler was arrested at her place of employment last Wednesday after they found evidence in her car linking her to a recent church burglary.

On February 9, just a day after the accused pig killings, Chesapeake police responded to the Northwest Baptist Church on Ballahack Road in reference to a burglary. Several items were taken from the church, according to police reports, including: three fire extinguishers and three wooden crosses. Read full story from wavy.com

Indonesian blasphemy law sparks Muslim violence in Java
Indonesia has been shocked this month by two outbreaks of religious violence on the island of Java, involving Muslim fundamentalists who attacked members of the Muslim Ahmadiyya sect and, in a separate incident, three Christian churches.

On 8 February an angry mob condemned a court in Temanggung for its “lenient” sentence against a Christian convicted of blasphemy. Antonius Banwengan, 58, was arrested last year for handing out a Christian book and leaflets poking fun at some of the most sacred Islamic symbols. The five-year prison sentence for blasphemy, the maximum allowed under Indonesian law for this type of offence, was not enough for the crowd. “Kill him,” chanted more than 1,000 demonstrators who attacked the building and police, threatening the judges and prosecutor, the accused and his counsel. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Fortune telling ordinance challenged
MERIDIAN — Sandy Mitchell stood in front of his computer Tuesday afternoon and pointed indignantly at the section of the city’s Web page that boasts of the historic Rose Hill Cemetery and its primary attraction, the side-by-side graves of the king and queen of the gypsies.

“They can use my family’s gravesite as a tourist attraction,” he said,” but they won’t let their descendants do business in the city.”

Mitchell is a Roma gypsy, a self-proclaimed descendant of Meridian’s famed Gypsy Queen Kelly Mitchell and King Emil Mitchell. He and his family have been reading palms and tarot just outside of Meridian for decades, but his repeated attempts to move his business inside the city limits have been denied —  fortune telling as a business has long been outlawed within the city limits.

Now, the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the constitutionality of the law, and the city council has declared a temporary moratorium on fortune telling. Read full story from Read full story from meridianstar.com

Make your own talisman
What, you may wonder, is a talisman? According to Dictionary.com it is:

1. a stone, ring, or other object, engraved with figures or characters supposed to possess occult powers and worn as an amulet or charm;

2. any amulet or charm.

3. anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions; Read full story from journalgazette.com

The administration of magic
I love Harry Potter. I’ve read the books more times than is socially acceptable, and I have been to every midnight movie showing since “Order of the Phoenix.” But like any superfan, I have overanalyzed the Harry Potter universe many times, and I always wonder: Who pays for Hogwarts? Where do the professors get their salaries? If it’s apparently tuition-free, does the Ministry of Magic collect taxes from magical families?In the real world, it seems Romania, land of Transylvania and the largest concentration of Gypsies in Europe, has considered the taxation of witches.

In legislation aimed at helping finance Romania’s debt obligations, Romania reclassified witches and soothsayers as a “taxable profession” one month ago.  Read full story from idsnews.com

Evidence of slave life found at Eastern Shore estate
One day more than two centuries ago, a Maryland slave of West African descent took a smooth stone he had probably found in a plowed field and slid it between the bricks of a furnace he was building.The slave might have believed, as West Africa’s Yoruba culture held, that such stones had connections to Eshu-Elegba, the deity of fortune, and were left behind like mystical calling cards after a lightning strike.

The bond servant sealed the stone into the brickwork, where it would stay for generations, an artifact of the enslaved man as much as the god whose favor he sought.

On Monday, the University of Maryland unveiled, among other things, details of the stone’s discovery at the Wye House “orangery” – a jewel of European architecture, now found to have imprints of the slaves who built it. Read full story from washingtonpost.com

Dalai Lama’s nephew killed while walking road in Palm Coast
The nephew of the most recognized figure in Buddhism was killed Monday while walking along a Florida highway in an attempt to draw attention to the struggle of Tibetans to gain their independence fromChina.

Jigme Norbu, 45, of Bloomington, Ind., was the nephew of theDalai Lama. Norbu was walking along the white line on the side of the dark highway when he was struck and killed by an SUV about 7:30 p.m. on State Road A1A, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

Norbu was struck by an SUV driven by Keith O’Dell, 31, of Palm Coast. O’Dell had two children with him in his vehicle at the time of the crash. They were not injured, and O’Dell was not charged.

Few other details about the crash were revealed. In September, a man was killed on a bicycle on the same highway.Read full story from orlandosentinel.com

Apostasy Now
In contemporary America, apostate is a casual term of derision used to describe someone who is in some vague way at odds with a party, as in Charles Krauthammer’s discussion of the two Republicans who gunned for the 2008 presidential nomination: “Giuliani’s major apostasy is being pro-choice on abortion. McCain’s apostasies are too numerous to count … . [On] tax cuts, immigration, campaign finance reform, Guantanamo he … opposed the conservative consensus.” Paul Waldman used the same metaphor in a recent post at the American Prospect blog: “the Republican Party takes a harsher view of apostasy than their Democratic counterparts.”

To risk splitting hairs: Krauthammer and Waldman should have invoked heresy, not apostasy. Heretics continue to claim identification with their religious community, even as they hold heterodox views. (Martin Luther, for example, was charged with heresy—he did not reject Christianity; he just had revolutionary ideas for reforming it.) The heretic might get thrown out, but she wants to belong, and indeed often claims to represent the authentic expression of the faith. An apostate, by contrast, rejects her faith and religious community altogether—like Paul Haggis, Academy Award-winning director and screenwriter of Crash. As Lawrence Wright describes at great length in his much discussedNew Yorker article, Haggis resigned from the Church of Scientology in 2009 over the church’s refusal to denounce California’s Proposition 8, which aimed to undo the state’s recognition of same-sex marriage. Read full story from slate.com

Nigeria’s celebrity preacher wants to save your soul
Dressed in simple trousers and a shirt and bowtie, Enoch Adeboye’s modest appearance belies the enormous influence and power he wields.The Nigerian pastor, known to his flock as “Daddy,” is one of the world’s most influential spiritual leaders. On any given night, he can draw more than a million to his service at Nigeria’s Redeemed Christian Church of God.

His fervent sermons, coupled with his magnetic personality, have turned the Pentecostal church into one of the fastest-growing evangelical congregations across the globe. Read full story from cnn.com

The World’s Worst Place to Be Gay? (source YouTube – TreVelocita)

Sunday Morning Post

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Valentine’s Day: Love… actually?
Valentine’s Day didn’t begin with a pair of star-crossed lovers or a hallmark greeting card campaign — it started with a bunch of half-naked Romans running through the streets  whipping women with strips of goat hide to cure their infertility.

In ancient times February 15 was the Roman feast of Lupercalia, which also included one other rather interesting  tradition: a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a box. The lucky, or not so lucky, girl would then be the fellow’s sexual partner during the remaining year. Often the lady would receive a gift or a greeting in the name of Juno, a Roman goddess. Was this the precursor of the Valentine’s Day card?

Unsurprisingly, the church didn’t quite like all this carrying on so they did what they usually did with deeply ingrained pagan festival — they rebranded it. The date was changed from February 15 to February 14, and the lottery was expanded to allow girls to pick names as well. Now, the names were of Christian saints and the lucky ones who drew the names had to imitate the saints’ actions for the rest of the year. It didn’t catch on. Read full story from tribune.com.pk

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Imagine, for just one minute, that vampires, witches and so on really do exist. Where would they go to meet each other? What sort of jobs would they do? In her day-job, Deborah Harkness is an academic historian of science; her novel started, she says, the day she asked herself that question. The resulting opus is 600 pages long, the hit of the 2009 Frankfurt book fair, the first volume in a projected trilogy; I don’t think we need even mention Dan Brown or Stephenie Meyer, or the entire walls of our suffering local libraries given over to “urban fantasy” and “dark romance”.

It probably is worth noting, however, that as a historian, Harkness specialises in the 17th century, the time when, as her novel puts it, “astrology and witch-hunts yielded to Newton and universal laws”; and that she decided, in answer to her own question, that nowadays vampires and witches would probably work, like her, as academics. Vampires would stick to science – the long hours in chilly labs would suit them. Witches would do well in the humanities. It’s a neat concept, and easy to see why the publishers were hooked. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

Spelling victory with magic
Supermen love superstition. Or so it seems in Karnataka politics. Yeddyurappa — named after a god; benefactor of temples; pilgrim of occult exotica from the sites of donkey sacrifice to the famous Rajarajeshwari temple in Taliparamba in Kannur district, Kerala — fears black magic is afoot, to bring him to a grisly end; if not politically at least personally. His nemesis and Voldemort is none other than senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah who is so offended by what he calls “character assassination” by the Karnataka chief minister he has threatened to drag Yeddy to court.

The shadowy world of politics has always been inhabited by dubious practitioners of the occult, upon whose advice, it is whispered in the corridors of power, politicians perform nocturnal rituals and pujas, wear saris to bed (as the late NTR did), wear talismans and visit powerful temples. Remember Dhirendra Brahmachari and Chandraswamy?

These days, the action has shifted to Karnataka; the current occult calendar going back to the eve of the trust vote on October 10, 2010. Within the Vidhana Soudha premises surfaced a voodoo doll, a lemon pierced with nails, chopped chicken heads and entrails, eggs, blood, vermillion and strings of coloured thread strewn all over. Read full story from expressbuzz.com

Build respect and tolerance
A WEEK before Chinese New Year, the Prime Minister and his family sent me a Salam 1Malaysia e-mail wishing me Gong Xi Fa Cai.

For those who haven’t received the message, he said this in his e-mail: “May the Year of the Rabbit bring blessings of much happiness, good health and prosperity always. With new beginnings comes new opportunities and as we usher in the Lunar New Year, it is my sincere hope that you achieve success and satisfaction in all your undertakings. Your accomplishments are reflective of our nation’s triumphs, and may we always excel beyond expectations!”

As a Christian, I credit the many blessings in my life to God. But as one who had a multi-ethnic education at the Methodist Girls’ School in Ipoh I accept his sincere greetings and look forward to getting a Salam 1Malaysia e-mail at Christmas too.

The fuss that was made by a non-Muslim aide in the Prime Minister’s Office over a cross at the annual Christmas tea party for Najib last year has not helped his 1Malaysia campaign.

The aide later apologised but the incident led to rumblings the next time the Prime Minister or one of his Cabinet members called on Malaysians to fully embrace the philosophy of 1Malaysia. Read full story from thestar.com.my

Gay couples may soon be able to tie the knot in church
The Coalition government is considering a change in the law to allow gay people to have marriage-style ceremonies in places of worship.

Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone is expected to announce later this week that a ban on civil partnerships being conducted in religious venues is to be lifted.

The move, which could also allow hymns and readings from the Bible, is likely to be welcomed by gay rights groups but met with strong opposition from traditionalists within the Church of England, other mainstream religions and the Conservative party.

However minority religious groups such as Unitarians, Liberal Jews and Quakers, who already carry out ceremonies for gay people, will be sympathetic to the move. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

The revolution that has given Egypt new hope, pride and confidence
Akhem Hassan came so late to the revolution he thought he might have missed it, but on Saturday he discovered that it is far from over. For days, Hassan watched events unfold on television. Or rather, he fumed as the state broadcaster spewed forth a stream of lies about the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“They said the demonstrators were paid by foreigners and agents of Israel,” said the 41-year-old driving instructor. “They said they only went to Tahrir Square because there was free Kentucky [Fried Chicken]. But we Egyptians were afraid of the government since the day we were born and no one would go against it just for free Kentucky.”

It took Hosni Mubarak‘s television address, though, to get Hassan down to the square. Like many of his countrymen, he had been expecting the Egyptian president to quit on Thursday night. When he didn’t, it was too much.

“I decided that for my sons’ future, I too must be brave,” he said.

Hassan arrived in Tahrir Square on Friday morning as the growing crowd seethed with anger at what was widely regarded as the regime’s duplicity after the near euphoria of the day before at statements from the army and politicians that Mubarak was about to quit. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

The Masque of Africa: Glimpses of African Belief, VS Naipaul, Picador
VS Naipaul travels through Africa to gauge and gain input on the beliefs of the continent. Much of Africa has changed because of the white man’s touch and the evangelical campaign. The natives are getting farther and farther away from their ‘paganism’ to embrace the new religion, which brings them ‘prosperity.’ India has received and withstood the onslaught. Africa seems to be shriveling under it. As Naipaul, the master of words travels from Uganda, to Ghana, to Nigeria and then finally South Africa, he observes unmistakable similarities of the practices of magic.

“To believe in the traditional African religion was to be on the defensive. There was no doctrine to hold on to; there was only a sense of the rightness of old ways, the sacredness of the local earth,” says Naipaul, whereas the new religions, Islam and Christianity, offered a philosophical base, a book, one god and global connectivity. Read full story from organiser.org

The boy who ‘went to heaven’
“MANY people all over the world would love for this to be their worst day.”

It’s tough advice from your dad to contemplate when your six-year-old has been left paralysed and fighting for life after a car crash you caused.

Incredibly, father of four Kevin Malarkey has not only seen more good come out of the horrific accident that almost cost his son’s life – but if he had his time again, he would not change a thing.

The story of Alex Malarkey, The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, has not only made the New York Times’ best seller list, but has attracted interest from people around the world, particularly in Australia.

After hearing of his plight on the internet, people as far away as Afghanistan began praying for the little boy who suffered the most severe spinal injury, a broken pelvis and traumatic brain injury. Read full story from dailymercury.com

Horse owners warned plaiting could be for theft or rituals
A worried horse owner has issued a warning for people to be on their guard after she discovered one of her animals with a plait in its mane.

The owner, who lives near Shepton Mallet, but does not want to be named for fear of reprisals, fears her horse could have been targeted for theft by gypsies or travellers after similar incidents were featured in the equestrian press.

Horse owners claim the plaiting of a mane carried out by an intruder in daylight could be a signal for horse-stealers returning under covering of darkness. Feeling the plait in a mane could indicate the horse has already been checked as not being branded or micro-chipped and so is free from any identity coding that could prove it stolen when it later comes up for sale.

But other comments on websites say it could be a plague of My Little Pony fans just wanting to plait horses manes. And another correspondent states: “If they’ve got time to plait a mane they’ve got time to steal the horse.” Read full story from thisissomerset.co.uk

News & Submissions 2/3/2011

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

How to convert witches to Catholicism
Witches can and should be converted to Catholicism, according to a robust new booklet from the Catholic Truth Society that portrays spell-casting as spiritually empty, exhausting and immoral. Instead of “seeking to change God’s mind or violently alter his plans through circle-casting”, it says, Wiccans should be encouraged to surrender this often frightening burden and accept the love of Christ.

In other words, come to Mass, leaving your broomstick at the door.

Actually, I should make it clear that Wicca & Witchcraft: Understanding the dangers by Elizabeth Dodd doesn’t make any silly cracks about broomsticks. But I can’t resist. There’s no eco-bore like a Wiccan eco-bore. I’ve met a few and, believe me, you need to be under a spell to sit through a three-hour whinge about Mother Gaia from a practitioner of white magick. It makes one long for the days when witches restricted themselves to a quick cackle before riding off into the night. (Just kidding, witches and pagans! Seriously, last time I had a go at them they reported me to the Press Complaints Commission, which proved resistant to their magick.) Read full story from telegraph.co.uk

Pagan Spirit Gathering Moves to Illinois
Pagan Spirit Gathering, one of America’s oldest and largest outdoor Pagan festivals, has announced that it has moved its base of operations from Missouri to Illinois. This is the festival’s second move since cutting ties in 2009 with Wisteria (and Ohio-based Pagan-friendly campground). Read full story from wildhunt.org

Coffin abandoned in woods sparks mystery
About a month ago, Scott Owens set out to find a prime fishing spot near Slidell.

The 37-year-old outdoors photographer from River Ridge thought he had found one off winding, tree-lined McManus Road. But before he crossed the woods and got to the water, he stumbled across an open and empty casket that might have been unearthed from a nearby graveyard that was flooded during Hurricane Katrina.

Owens, struck by the mystery of whom it belonged to, called a local television news reporter. The reporter notified authorities and aired a story about the discovery during the weekend, launching an effort to find the deceased person’s relatives and properly recover the coffin.

But on Monday, coroner’s office investigators determined that the woman who once rested in the casket is indeed properly buried. Though Hurricane Katrina’s flooding unearthed the coffin years ago, authorities subsequently managed to recover the remains and bury them again; the funeral box, however, was apparently discarded nearby and forgotten. Read full story from nola.com

The stuff of folklore
THE Rabbit or Hare is an emblem of longevity and is regarded as a symbol of fertility or innocence (a prey animal). The fourth animal sign in the 12-year cycle of Chinese zodiac, the Rabbit has built a legend that revolves around the Moon.

In Chinese astrology, the year 2011 is said to be the Year of the Rabbit.

According to Chinese folklore, the white Hare with its gleaming fur is a divine creature that has lived 1,000 years. Its coat was blue if it lived only 500 years, according to author Ruth Q. Sun in The Asian Animal Zodiac.

Legend has it that during the Chou Dynasty, white hares once frisked on the streets of Ch’ang-an, the capital city. Thereafter, it became customary that whenever a white hare was found, it would be caught and delivered to the emperor. Read full story from thestar.com

Vikings considered Stone Age objects ‘to have magical qualities’
Oslo, Feb 3 (ANI): Vikings considered Stone Age objects to have magical qualities, and such ‘antiques’ were more important in Viking culture than previously understood, according to new archaeological findings.

Excavation of around 10 Viking graves in Rogaland, southwest Norway, had uncovered Stone Age items, such as weapons, amulets and tools.

Olle Hemdorff of Archaelogical Museum in Stavanger told Aftenposten newspaper that he believes these items were buried so that ‘they would protect and bring luck to the dead in the after-life’. Read full story from yahoo.com

Chilean miner sheds light on underground religious life
One of the rescued Chilean miners shed new light Thursday on the intense religious and spiritual experiences of many of the miners while trapped underground for 52 days last year, saying that faith was a key part of surviving t he ordeal.

“We realized we had only one alternative and that was God himself,” said Jose Henriquez in an address to the National Prayer Breakfast on in Washington, speaking to a crowd that included President Barack Obama.

“We were different creeds and churches,” Henriquez said, speaking in Spanish with simultaneous translation. “So I got them in a circle and made sure everyone could pray in a participatory fashion. And as we prayed we began to know the presence and blessing among us of God in the mine. We were strengthened, our spirits were revived.” Read full story from cnn.com

Download: Cult Of Youth’s Unnerving Goth-Folk Terror “New West”
Lean toward the folksy and brooding? Not afraid of the dark? Chances are you’ll bump into Cult of Youth frontman Sean Ragon in 2011, as his New Year’s resolutions seem to make him the busiest man in the Brooklyn indie underground. After quitting his house-painting job and vowing to go “all in,” Ragon has become a black-clad mogul-in-training. There’s his vintage record store, Heaven Street, located in the back of Greenpoint’s Fox & Fawn: “As far as used vinyl goes, it’s highly edited, so no endless rows of Molly Hatchet records.” There’s his record label, Blind Prophet: “I’m up to the fifth release now — the amazing debut LP from the Argentinean duo Mueran Humanos, out Valentine’s Day.” And of course, there’s his own band, Cult of Youth, which has evolved from a bedroom project into a fleshed-out goth-folk-punk terror. Mixing the unnerving shanties of The Wicker Man with the post-apocalyptic strum of Current 93 or Angels of Light, Cult of Youth is definitely walking in the shadows, even if their jaunty, fiery grooves remind us more of Wall of Voodoo, Adam Ant, and Big Country. The Morricone-core of “New West” is the first track off their self-titled debut (due February 22 on Sacred Bones), a rollicking dust-sucker that teams a Gun Club-style twang-punk screed with soaring strings and post-industrial ‘tude. Read full story from villagevoice.com

TRENDING: Obama delivers major speech on personal faith
President Barack Obama gave an unusually personal speech about his religious faith on Thursday, saying that “it is the biblical injunction to serve the least of these that keeps me going and keeps me from being overwhelmed,” in address to a prayer breakfast in Washington.

The speech, delivered at the National Prayer Breakfast, comes on the heels of public opinion surveys that show only a minority of Americans know that Obama is a Christian and that a growing number believe he’s a Muslim. Read full story from cnn.com

Visitors to Reading shop say Virgin Mary statue is crying
READING, Ohio – Some are calling it a miracle.

There is a statue of the Virgin Mary that appears to be crying tears inside a Reading shop.

In the back of the small shop is a statue of Mother Mary. It looks like she is weeping and there are two teardrops on her face.

The statue of Mother Mary crying inside Our Lady Queen of Reading religious lending library is bringing tears to some visitors’ eyes. Read full story from wcpo.com

News & Submissions 1/31/2011

Monday, January 31st, 2011

Mummy fried – woman sets fire to house while trying to reanimate long-dead sister
A night fire in an apartment block has been caused by a woman who tried to reanimate her long-dead elder sister with electricity.

The horrific story happened in Ekaterinburg, the biggest city in the Urals.

The suspected arsonist, 69, apparently was not completely of sound mind, judging by her mental health record. Read full story from rt.com

Whales return to New York City: Massive mammals appearing again in seas near city; draws sightseers
Whales, dolphins and seals have made a triumphant return to the waters just outside New York Harbor – and the comeback has even sparked whale and seal-watching tours.

Tom Paladino, captain of two ferry boats from the Rockaways, says pods of aquatic mammals off the city’s coast have “increased tenfold.”

“We used to see 10 whales a year – now we see 100,” he said. “We saw dolphins almost on a daily basis between June and September.” Read full story from nydailynews.com

The Muslim Brotherhood may gain power in Egypt by default
The spread of the contagion of protest across north Africa, from Tunisia to Egypt and beyond, has not just been exhilarating, it has also given the lie to the myth that people in Muslim countries have a different mindset to those in the west, and that democracy and secularism are western concepts alien to the political culture of Egypt or Jordan or Yemen. What the demonstrators in Cairo and Tunis have been demanding is not an Islamic state, but a more open, democratic society, with freedom of expression and the protection of individual liberties.

For many, however, the worry remains that the fall of Hosni Mubarak may lead not to a secular, democratic Egypt but to one in thrall to the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood; the fear, in other words, that Egypt in 2011 could go the way of Iran in 1979. The outcome of change – especially change as dramatic and anarchic as in Egypt – can never be certain. It could be that the Muslim Brotherhood grasps the reins of power in a post-Mubarak Egypt. But if it does so, it is as likely to have been because of the bad faith of secular politicians as of popular support for Islamism. Read full story from guardian.co.uk

‘Ghost Hunters International’s’ Kris Williams Compares Foreign and Domestic Haunts
As the newest member of Syfy’s  “Ghost Hunters International” team, Kris Williams is among the few paranormal investigators qualified to answer the question of whether stories of hauntings are alike or different in North America and other parts of the world.

She says, “There is a difference in that there is so much history overseas.”  With the domestic version of “Ghost Hunters,” “The 1700s seemed old.  But, well, for example we walked into a castle in Germany and asked how old it was, and they very matter-of-factly said it was built in 1190.  Also, you hear more stories of torture.”  Ew.

Williams says the team has been exploring stories of hauntings that date back to World War II and World War I as well.  Next Wednesday’s (2/2) show has the team “at a fort in Serbia that dates back to the late 1600s, but there was a settlement at the same location that goes back thousands of years.  There were some battles.  There was an execution wall where they’d line up prisoners.  It was creepy.  People felt like they were being watched.  There were lights and apparitions.” Read full story from bethsmithhollywood.com

Jeffs’ pre-trial hearing scheduled for today
Leader of breakaway church accused of sex assault, bigamy
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Warren Jeffs, the leader of the FLDS, is scheduled for a pretrial hearing today as his trial date for sexual assault is less than a month from now.

Jeffs is charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and bigamy.

“Pretrial motions will be heard beginning at 9 a.m. in preparation for trial scheduled for Feb. 21,” said Jerry Strickland, spokesman for the state attorney general’s office.

The venue of the trial has not been determined.

Jeffs has undergone five pretrial hearings since November, when he arrived to Texas. Read full story from gosangelo.com

Great Pyramid has two secret chambers: French architect
A French architect campaigning for a new exploration of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza said on Thursday that the edifice may contain two chambers housing funereal furniture.

Jean-Pierre Houdin — who was rebuffed three years ago by Egypt in his appeal for a probe into how the Pyramid was built — said 3-D simulation and data from a US egyptologist, Bob Brier, pointed to two secret chambers in the heart of the structure.

The rooms would have housed furniture for use in the afterlife by the pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops in Greek, he told a press conference.

“I am convinced there are antechambers in this pyramid. What I want is to find them,” he said.

In March 2007, Houdin advanced the theory that the Great Pyramid had been built inside-out using an internal spiral ramp, as opposed to an external ramp as had long been suggested. Read full story from physorg.com

Tools Suggest Earlier Human Exit From Africa
A cache of stone tools found on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula has reopened the critical question of when and how modern humans escaped from their ancestral homeland in eastern Africa.

The present view, based on both archaeological and genetic evidence, holds that modern humans, although they first emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago, were hemmed in by deserts and other human species like Neanderthals and did not escape to the rest of the world until some 50,000 years ago.

An archaeological team led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann of the University of Tübingen in Germany now reports the discovery of stone tools 127,000 years old from a site called Jebel Faya in what is now the United Arab Emirates, just south of the entrance to the Persian Gulf. If the new tools were made by modern humans, as the researchers assert, then modern humans got out of Africa much earlier than believed. Read full story from nytimes.com

Did Vikings navigate by polarized light?
A Viking legend tells of a glowing “sunstone” that, when held up to the sky, revealed the position of the sun even on a cloudy day. It sounds like magic, but scientists measuring the properties of light in the sky say that polarizing crystals–which function in the same way as the mythical sunstone–could have helped ancient sailors to cross the northern Atlantic. A review of their evidence was published January 31 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

The Vikings, seafarers from Scandinavia who traveled widely and settled in swathes of Northern Europe, the British Isles and the northern Atlantic from around 750 to 1050 AD, were skilled navigators, able to cross thousands of kilometers of open sea between Norway, Iceland and Greenland. Perpetual daylight during the summer sailing season in the far north would have prevented them from using the stars as a guide to their positions, and the magnetic compass had yet to be introduced in Europe–in any case, it would have been of limited use so close to the North Pole. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Is UFO orb over Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem a context communication by ET?
A second independent video and news report emerged today on January 30, 2011 confirming the authenticity of the UFO orb over Mount Zion and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem at 1 AM on the morning of January 28, 2011.

On January 28, 2011 at 1 AM, a UFO orb appeared over the Mount Zion and the Dome of the Rock-Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  A video of the UFO orb states, “Two men capture a film of what might be one of the most interesting UFO clips ever caught.

“Witnesses noticed the large oval shaped UFO suspended on the night skyline. At about one minute into the clip the UFO descends almost to ground level directly over the Dome of the Rock-Temple Mount. The oval UFO hovers there for a short while, flashes lights into surrounding buildings then shoots upwards at an incredible speed.  Witnesses were totally taken back and amazed at what they had just seen.” Read full story from examiner.com

Ancient Treasures Looted, Destroyed in Egypt’s Chaos
Archaeologist Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, reports that several of the country’s museums have been attacked by looters taking advantage of the political turmoil in the country. Read full story from nationalgeographic.com

Video appears to show police using CS spray on protester
Video footage has emerged that appears to show the moment a police officer used CS spray on protesters at Sunday’s UK Uncut protest.

Hundreds of people staged sit-ins at high street stores around the country as part of a day of action designed to highlight companies it says are avoiding millions of pounds in tax.

In London, protesters successfully forced a Boots (one of the companies campaigners accuse of tax avoidance) branch in Oxford Street to close when police tried to arrest a woman for pushing a leaflet through the store’s doors. Read full story from guardian.co.uk