UNITING PEOPLE TO PROTECT THE PLANET Earth Hour 2012: Saturday 31st March, 8:30PM
Earth Hour is a unique opportunity for you to become more sustainable and do something positive for the environment. It’s been the source of inspiration for millions of people taking steps towards a cleaner, safer future. It’s not just about saving energy for one hour, it’s about going Beyond the Hour with lasting, behaviour-changing actions for a sustainable planet.
Call for PNG to repeal sorcery act after West Sepik deaths Papua New Guinea’s Constitutional and Law Reform Commission says it wants the Sorcery Act repealed by the end of this year.
Last year, the Commission released a review of the Act, after an increase in the number of false accusations of sorcery were slammed by human rights groups.
But it’s making headlines again as six people accused of sorcery or witchcraft were killed in West Sepik Province by people who had taken the law into their own hands. Read full story from radioaustralia.net.au
Pagan mom challenges Bible giveaway at North Carolina school WEAVERVILLE, N.C. – A pagan mother’s challenge to the distribution of donated Bibles at a local school has prompted the Buncombe County Board of Education to reevaluate its policies regarding religious texts.
Ginger Strivelli, who practices Witchcraft, a form of Paganism, said she was upset when her 12-year-old son [who did not wish to be photographed for this article] came home from North Windy Ridge intermediate school with a Bible.
Witchcraft trial hears how tortured boy drowned A teenage boy allegedly tortured and killed because his attackers believed he was practising witchcraft struggled to get out of the bath where he was drowned but had no strength left, a court has heard.
The Old Bailey watched video footage of police interviews with the brother of 15-year-old Kristy Bamu – who cannot be named for legal reasons – carried out the day after Kristy was allegedly killed by Eric Bikubi and Magalie Bamu, both 28, because they believed he was a sorcerer.
DC Pagan Community Center Launch (Source: FireFlyAcadamy)
Moss Has Cloned Itself for 50,000 Years, Study Says A moss spreading throughout the Hawaiian Islands (map) appears to be an ancient clone that has copied itself for some 50,000 years—and may be one of the oldest multicellular organisms on Earth, a new study suggests.
The peat moss Sphagnum palustre is found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but the moss living in Hawaii appears to reproduce only through cloning, without the need for sex or production of spores. Read full story from nationalgeographic.com
Retrospective: BBC’s ‘A Ghost Story For Christmas’ Britain’s adoption of Halloween as a season for all things ghoulish is a relatively recent phenomena, gathering momentum by minute gradations, but still is somewhat fleeting compared to the glorious renditions accorded to that season by our friends in the U. S. of A. This has little to do with any discontent at larkish shenanigans generally, nor prudishness at a festival so rooted in things Pagan, naught a scintilla with disinterest in all things macabrely malignant. It has simply to do with the fact that for Brits, Christmas – with its long, dark nights – has long been established as the time for fear and it’s been that way multos annos. In terms of what we would today consider popular culture, the man most directly responsible for this unlikely paradigm is a chap known in his own lifetime, affectionately, as ‘Boz’. Mr. Charles Dickens, like many a Victorian, was obsessed with the supernatural. As editor of ‘All the Year Round’, one of Victoriana’s most popular ’zines, he published not only his own unheimlich offerings, but a plethora of others by some of the best in the genre. The most important of these, by far, was Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. But the techniques Le Fanu pioneered – the slow escalation of narrative, the meticulous use of suggestion, the excessive under-statement, the well-used psychological underpinnings, the almost obsessive use of folklore would prove far less important in his own lifetime than they were to become to his most renowned protégé – M.R. James, who always placed Le Fanu “absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories”. Read full story from brutalashell.com
Harry Potter tour hopes to cast spell on UK Muggles As all good students of the Harry Potter saga know well, Muggles are not usually allowed at Hogwarts school of witchcraft of wizardry. However, a new exhibition will soon give those not gifted with magical powers the chance to see some of the famous Potter film sets, such as the Great Hall and Dumbledore’s office, for themselves. Read full story from guardian.co.uk
The Biggest Logic Fails in The Vampire Diaries Season 3, Episode 2: “The Hybrid” The Vampire Diaries is a show where witches can bring back people from the dead, vampires kiss humans instead of ripping their throats out, and werewolves have silky smooth chests when they haven’t transformed. And we accept all of this without the blink of the eye. Yet it’s the little things that make us scoff and say, “that would never happen.” Check out the biggest logic fails from Season 3, Episode 2, “The Hybrid.” Read full story from wetpaint.com
New Creepier ‘Apollo 18′ Trailer (Source: Screen Junkies)
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.
Real witches cry foul at portrayal on “True Blood” (Reuters) - Critics of bloody violence and excessive sex on TV have long had HBO’s vampire drama “True Blood” in their cross hairs, but now the popular series has another group of wary citizens – witches, real ones.
The series’ fourth season has focused on Marnie Stonebrook (Fiona Shaw), a seemingly harmless medium and leader of a Wiccan group who becomes the physical conduit for Antonia, a long dead witch who is hellbent on vengeance against vampires who persecuted and burned her at the stake.