30 Nov 2003
Does Race Exist?

Fascinating bit on race and the human diaspora out of Africa in Scientific American this month: Does Race Exist?

[via MyAppleMenu Reader]

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High Art

I normally don't post stuff from the Times, because it'll cost you a buck to read it in a couple of weeks, but this one's an exception.

This is passing for high art - fans love it and critics rave. The article proudly trumpets a line from a hit off her "dazzling CD":

"Jiggle, jiggle, jangle/ Watch how my gluteus dangle."


Need I say more?

How to Be a Pop Star Using the Missy Method. The counterintuitive career path of Missy Elliott, who just released another dazzling CD, is starting to look like the conventional wisdom. By Kelefa Sanneh. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

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29 Nov 2003
2004 WCER Congress in Athens

When I win the lottery tonight I'm buying tickets to Athens ...

7th World Congress of Ethnic Religions

The World Congress Of Ethnic Religions (W.C.E.R.) invites you to attend its 7th International Congress, which will be held in Athens, Greece on June «2004». This congress will be organized locally by the Supreme Council of the Gentile Hellenes (Y.S.E.E.) on behalf of the W.C.E.R.

Following the success of the previous congresses, all held in Lithuania, the 2004 Athenean congress will allow W.C.E.R. members from various countries to address topics of concern about their Ethnic Religions, Traditions and Ways. A full day meeting will be held in the first day of the congress on the subject of "The High Values Of The pre-Christian Ethnic Religions", and also interesting subjects will be discussed concerning the future of Ethnic Religions facing the modern Globalization and Monotheist dominance.

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28 Nov 2003
Heartless Heathens

OK, now my blood pressure is really up!

I'm not much of one for "pagan unity" ... I don't feel that heathens have much in common with wiccans (in fact, I cordially despise wiccans) and don't see too many opportunities to work together religiously with such folks.

Working together politically is another matter - on occassion things do come up which are so patently offensive to non-monotheist religions that they practically demand a response from all off us.

The press release reproduced below from the The Pagan Unity Campaign highlights one such example:

Date: Nov. 26th, 2003

Subject: Offensive bigoted prejudicial quote by James Towey on

behalf of the White House.

Contact: Ginger (828) 230-1273

James Towey the White House Deputy Assistant to the President and

Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives hosted a Q

and A session on Whitehouse.gov web site today, and amazingly

answered a thoughtful question for a PUC staffer, with this idiotic

bigoted reply:

---------Quoted from www.whitehouse.gov--11/26/2003---

Colby, from Centralia MO writes:
Do you feel that Pagan faith based groups should be given the same

considerations as any other group that seeks aid?

Jim Towey:

I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan

group that cares for the poor! Once you make it clear to any

applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be

used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping

the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn

to it.

-------------------------end of quote--------------------------------

The Pagan Community needs to make the administration aware that not

only do members of minority faiths have "loving hearts" But that we

in fact DON"T EVER try to promote ideology like the Christian faiths

who base their whole religions on 'saving' others. We also need to

snow under this man's office with introductions of the varied and

numerous Pagan faith-based groups that of course "care for the poor."

PUC encourages all Pagans to send him Yule cards this Yuletide

season, along with PUC. Together we shall try to educate this man

who is supposed to be a religious expert for the current administration, about the various Faiths who have followers in Lady Liberty's land!!!

Address your cards, letters, telephone calls, and faxes to him at:

Jim Towey, Director
The White House
Washington, DC 20502
(202) 456-6708 (phone)
(202) 456-7019 (fax)
www.fbci.gov

He probably hasn't "run into a pagan faith-based group yet" because most of us are not busily sucking cash from government coffers to serve our pet projects, unlike a great many Christian/Muslim/Jewish groups. We're too tied up doing things to help our communities to worry about getting paid for it.

We generally don't have "professional" clergy - folks who suck blood and money from their "flock" for a living. Few heathen groups have bothered to get the requisite 501(c)(3) status to even do tax exempt fund raising.

This obviously means we don't have "loving hearts" and that we couldn't care less about out communities. BULLSHIT!

This is truely an outrage: I personally served on the board of directors for the Hamilton County, Indiana chapter of the American Red Cross for two years while godhi of Ravenswood. The kindred itself collected and donated food and supplies for their relief efforts. I know of a great many heathen groups who participate as full members of their respective communities in charity work.

But apparently, we don't have "loving hearts" and are only interested in promoting our "ideology". Somebody needs to tell this idiot that it's the monotheist groups who have the "Great Commission" and the One True Way who are the ones interested in spreading their ideology!

There's a letter on the way to this bozo from me, and also one to his boss. Not that I think it'll do much good, but I'm not gonna sit on my hands on this one.

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27 Nov 2003
A Hof in Iceland

Pagan Temple in Akranes?

Members of the ‘Ásatrú’ (pagan) religious group have expressed their

interest in raising a temple in Akranes (southwest Iceland) for their own worship. Temples to worship the ancient Norse gods have not been

constructed in Iceland for a thousand years. Artist Haukur Halldórsson

came up with the idea of the temple and has already made a model of it. It is circular, with symbols from Eddic poetry on doors and walls.

According to the Akranes Town Council, a formal application for the temple has not been received, but the matter has been discussed and has received a positive response.

[Original source is unknown - I cribbed it from a post to a Heathen email list (and the poster is usually a very reliable source, but there are no "real" news refs that I can find. I'll keep my eyes open, though!]

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Marija Gimbutas Must Be Spinning in Her Grave

Indo-European languages came from Turkey

Evolutionary biologists have waded into the stormy debate over when and where Indo-European languages originated.

...

Their findings were reported in today's issue of the journal Nature and support the theory that Indo-European languages arose around this time among farming communities in Anatolia, now known as Turkey.

Marija Gimbutas must be spinning in her grave ....

[from ABC Science Online via rougeclassicism]

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Saving Hoosier Jobs

There's a bit more to this than meets the CNet eye ... the savings to the state from outsourcing this would have been minimal at best, but the real problem was that the bidding was set up to essentially force the work overseas. Local firms were just chopped off at the knees, despite (as rumor has it) two bids that were actually lower than the "winner". The investigation into how this came about is just getting underway - I wouldn't be surprised to see some conflict of interest somewhere along the line.

It didn't help, politically, that the systems to be outsourced were for unemployment insurance!

But hey - somebody local is gonna get some work! And around here, that's a good thing!

Indiana nixes offshore deal to protect jobs. The state of Indiana calls off a contract for software development it awarded to a foreign company, in a move the state says is aimed at safeguarding local jobs. [CNET News.com - Front Door]

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Indiana Does it Right

The Register gets letters ....

Why Indiana and New Jersey were right. The smart money stays at home
[The Register]

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Just what the world needs

Just what the world needs ....

Big Mouth Billy Bass Videoconferencing [Slashdot]

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26 Nov 2003
RIAA Loonies

Just what the copyright police need - an exemption from the law that the rest of us mere mortals have to live by.... ye gads, have these people no shame?

MPAA, RIAA seek permanent antitrust exemption. Get out of jail free [The Register]

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Happy SPAM

Sometimes a headline says it all ....

Spammers Pleased with 'Anti'-Spam Act [Slashdot]

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25 Nov 2003
Massa in De Cold Cold Ground

Indeed, as the Slashdot poster says, "political correctness run amok"!

L.A. County Bans Use Of "Master/Slave" Term [Slashdot]

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24 Nov 2003
Patented Poetry

Ray Kurzweil is a respected computer scientist, philosopher and futurist. He should know better:

On Nov. 11, Mr. Kurzweil and John Keklak, an engineer, received patent No. 6,647,395, covering what Mr. Kurzweil calls a cybernetic poet. Essentially, it is software that allows a computer to create poetry by imitating but not plagiarizing the styles and vocabularies of human poets.

Kurzweil should know the debilitating effects of such patents on innovation and software in general - he, of all people, should understand how intricately our future is bound up in the freedom to think. His contributing to the IP madness is nothing short of appalling - I have purchased my last Kurzweil book.

It's not like this is anything new, either: there was RACTER, of course, and a specific poetry system called JABBER (not related to the IM software): UBUWEB:: The Language of Poetry

[From The New York Times]

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Rune Readings

I don't do runes very often ... but not because I don't think they're useful. Rather. I think they can be overused, and often are.

I've given much thought to the runes over the years - for those of my readers who are not heathen, suffice it to say that despite popular opinion to the contrary runes are not a system of divination. They don't "predict" the future, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling snake oil. Nothing can tell you the future - not holy books, card decks, dropped stones or symbols carved in wood. No one knows what will be. Forget it - "divination", as conceived of in the popular mind, is hokum.

So why the Hel would any serious, sober minded engineering type monkey about with a bunch of carved slips of wood if they don't predict the future? Because I believe that they show you something far more important that what will be - I believe they show you what was, what is and, consequently, what may be.

Runes tell you the past.

I've my own little theory about how this works. It really has little to do with gods. Notice that, in our lore, Odin "won" the runes, and the gods are often said to "consult" them ... to me, this says that the runes are natural phenomena - or rather, they're reflective of natural phenomena - the sum of the events, word and deed, that have been laid into the Well.

There's not enough space to expand on this here - I've been thinking a lot about this for a while, and it will be expanded into an essay, and I'll link it here when it's complete.

For now, however, I'll make do with recording the "reading" I drew tonight. Call it what you will - it seems at once accurate, daunting and hopeful.

Fehu

PerthroWunjo

Reading from left to right, from Urd's domain (the past - "fate") comes Fehu, wealth. From Verdandi's realm (the present - "necessity") comes Perthro - the dice cup. And Skuld (the future - "being") shows forth Wunjo - joy.

In truth, I have enjoyed wealth in the [recent] past - suffice it to say that while there have been times in my life when I have been "dirt poor" the last two decades have not been among them.

The present - what more accurate symbol than the dice cup? Truely I face a bewildering array of chance, fate and hard work in the weeks and months ahead, regarding the farm, my career and the determination of how the remainder of my time in Midgard will play out.

But the future shows joy - and that is hopeful. Not guaranteed, not determined, not "ordained" - only possible. But oft when one faces a dark night, hope is the commodity in shortest supply and deepest need.

I got a recharge in my hope batteries from a set of simple carved staves.

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23 Nov 2003
Some things you just never forget

Just as an historical aside, 40 years ago today, at slightly past noon, I was sitting in a doctors office. My mom was very worried - the preliminary diagnosis was nephritis - a variety of lupus. In 1963 it was a death sentence.

The radio stopped playing an an announcer said the president had been shot and killed in Dallas. All the adults started crying: I remember asking my mom where Dallas was...

Some things you just never forget.

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