Selkie

What Mark said, except the part about being 23. By comparison to all of you, I really am ready for the geriarics ward.

GenChris, my condolences

Keeyah and ACXchan, my best wishes to your canine companions. Keeyah, for what it's worth, I've had dogs live comfortably for years - even without medication - after developing heart murmurs.

pooka, love the hair.

sethos, a dog named Cartoon? Brilliant! I'm going to have to swipe that one for one of my own critters some day.

My world's been as turbulent as usual. My health continues to be problematic, and - humiliation of humiliations! - I'm now being sent to a doctor who works out of the geriatrics department to try to fix me. (Well, "fix" is a strong word - "make me more comfortable and halt further damage" is more what's in the cards). Now, it's not like I didn't know I had a seventy plus year old spine in a barely middle-aged body, but still... the geriatrics department? When the receptionist keeps looking at the nice little prescrption/referral form and repeatedly asking whether I'm sure this is the doctor I'm supposed to see (because, after all, I'm several decades younger than anyone else in the waiting room), you know you've stepped through the looking glass.

My significant other is taking the second half of the Bar Exam today, for what he says will be the final time. If he doesn't pass, he'll lose his job at which he's well-liked and happier than most. I've never wanted him to become a lawyer, but I want it to be something he has the option to walk away from rather then being forcfed out of, so I'm hoping against hope he passes this time. When he gets back from out of town, he and I are going to have a long dark night of the soul conversation that could have major repercussions for our relationship .... wish us both luck, will you all? Please?

I am seemingly the only person on the planet to have read:

La Pacifica, from Paradox Press. A shame, because it's a pretty good little noir.

The Israeli anthology Happy End (not to be confused with Dark Horse's "Happy End(ing)s") which contains a few good stories, one of which I outright love.

The early Dean Motter The Sacred and the Profane, which to this day I don't understand but which is probably deeply meaningful to someone more steeped in Christian theology than I am (which is harder to find than you'd expect).

Toadswort d'Amplestone, which has gorgeous illustrations and a Golem. What more can I ask for?

I am apparently one of the few people who has read:

Nathaniel Dusk, Private Investigator

The truly wonderful Yets!

Welcome, J! Where will you be attending school?

Christian, you were an "attributed Satanist" too? Cool. Good to hear I'm not the only one on this board. Let me guess: atheist = Satanist in the minds of whoever decided you were the latter? That's a major part of what did me in. That, and the Tardis key, which apparently was determined to be Satanic.

andy my Tardis key was homegrown (made in my shop class, in fact), but yes, that was essentially it. unbenknownst to me it so badly spooked the school administration that there were discussions at the district level about what to do about it. Probably - but not necessarily coincidentally - at about that time the self-described "good Catholic" parents of a close friend decided I was no longer suitable company for their daughter and no longer welcome in their home.

Thanks to both Selkie, Josh and The Question for interesting answers. I have to say that the figure of 45% of people in the US rejecting evolution boggles my mind, and scares me not just a little bit.

As well it should, Red. As well it should.

Just because I secretly enjoy striking fear into the hearts of those who live outside the U.S., I present this Web site, which provides gobs of statistics that should keep you awake in your bed at night.

I also have the feeling that there are colossal geographic differences here. I imagine the urbanized east and west coast of the US in general contain most of the "pro-evolution", "liberal" people, while the midwest and southern regions contain the most fundies? I'm guessing this coresponds pretty closely with the dem/rep divide, which again corresponds with slave state/no-slave state. Correct?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's certainly the popular conception, and it has some basis in reality. Speaking as someone in the urbanized Midwest, I can say the situation's pretty darn messy IRL. Religious conservatism is a lot more common in urbanized areas than one might expect - but that's a topic for a day when I have more time and energy.

So that's what I said in the past.  Now you are talking about static prevalence of rightist fundamentalist and reactionary religious thinking in America.  The fact that, not too many years ago, maybe 25 at the very most, a survey showed that 45% of Americans did NOT believe in the theory of evolution.

Just to follow up on this point, as of 2001 45% of Americans still reject human evolution, and 33% believe the Bible is literally word-for-word true.

Now about the American mainstream.  Fundamentalists and Mormons are a bi g minority, but the Protestant mainstream alone outnumbers them, and fundamentalist churches are never considered mainstream ones.

Part of the disagreement here may be definition of terms. Even a friend of mine who describes herself as being a fundamentalist can't precisely define the term. I also suspect a lot of people, myself included, wouldn't agree with separating "Mormons" from "Christians." I think most people would consider Mormonism a form of Christianity, albeit an unusual (and unusually successful) one. I agree Mormonism isn't fundamentalism, but I do see it as part of a larger conservative Christian belief system that's much more widespread in American than I'm led to believe it is elsewhere in the world.

Going further, I don't think this kind of thing would happen even in most places where there are large numbers of fundamentalists.  I only see it happening in VERY conservative communities where the religion of the bigots in question is by far in the majority of the population.  Maybe this does happen in urban school districts, but I seriously doubt it.

Look at the battles over creationism in textbooks in Kansas and Louisiana. Those are state-wide battles that the creationists have, or are close to, winning, and are far from being isolated communities. The smaller the community the more likely the attempts to impose religious doctrine are to succeed, but I think the impulse is present at almost every level.

A great example, albeit not an educational one per se, happened in a wealthy town adjacent to where I live (and wer're talking Chicago suburbs here, not the rural south). In those "innocent" days long before September 11th, a protestant congregation sold its church property to a group of Muslims who were going to convert it to a mosque. The hue and cry was astounding, and the city government did everything legally within its power to prevent the conversion. I don't recall the precise spurious arguments for why having a mosque there was such a terrible idea, although I vaguely think they centered around vague issues like "traffic control." No one could quite explain why the mosque was going to cause so many more problems than a Christian church would have....There was a case a few years ago where something similar happened when a Christian youth camp was converted to a Pagan one, and efforts were made to strip it of all sorts of tax exemptions available to religious organizations.

However, maybe these things are happening quietly in many places, and/or are being doing more artfully and less witlessly than in this case.  Every cabal of discriminating bigots isn't this inept, and as the article said, in some places, nobody wants to talk about it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As I mentioned earlier, I agree that it's unusual for an individual teacher to be fired, because these sorts of battles are more likely to be fought at the level of textbooks and district curriculums, but I'm quite sure it happens. If you guys ever want a "funny" story, ask me about the charges of Satanism I withstood because I wore a Tardis key around my neck at school....

Red, I don't think my original post was as clear as it should have been, so here's another stab that will (I think) reconcile what Josh and I said. If you're interested in digging up statistics regarding just how conservative American religion is, I strongly suggest a visit to the Pew Forum.

Suspecting a teacher is a witch based on her drinking coffee and celebrating Halloween is definitely fringe. If, as another article I read on the case suggests, she was really fired because she was one of the lone females among the faculty, that would still be pretty fringe in a public school position up through high school. (Higher education is a whole other story). Firing someone because she's believed to be a witch would be a damn risky proposition, and is also probably a rare, fringe phenomenon. Paganism in general, and Wicca in particular, is one of the fastest growing religious movements in the U.S., and is composed largely of a group of smart, educated people spoiling for lawsuits over religious freedom.

If that sounds like a diss, please believe me it's not. One of my closest friends is pagan, and he's much less diplomatic about what I just said. Although IANA pagan I regularly use a pagan web site to keep abreast of the latest religious freedom issues because they're much more attuned to those issues than, say, the atheists are. If there's one religious group one does not want to piss off it's the pagans, and the school board had to know that. The fact that the teacher was not actually pagan is irrelevant - they apparently believed she was, and should have known of the potential legal pitfalls of what they were about to do. Assuming the facts and motivations provided in the article were accurate - and that's always a big leap of faith - I suspect the school board felt arrogant enough they could get away with it given the lack of religious diversity in the state. The U.S. is overwhelmingly Christian, but it's rare for one specific church to exert so much control over a large area.

What is distressingly common are the sentiments of the parents that they don't want their children exposed to secular ideas or opposing religious points of view. The battles are more commonly fought over the content of textbooks and coursework rather than the employment of individual teachers, although the latter certainly isn't unheard of. The specific flashpoints vary depending on the denomination and region in question, but the impulse to use the schools to enforce a particular strain of conservative Christianity (and it's always conservative Christianity) is extremely common in the U.S. The efforts are rarely successful enough to get a particular teacher fired, as in the Utah case, but it's not for lack of trying. What usually hangs up the process are the fights amongst the similar but not identical conservative groups trying to enforce their particular agendas. While they fight over the details of their agenda, life continues as before.

Red, what frightens me is that these parents aren't at all "far out" by mainstream American standards. The only difference between Utah and any other state is that one specific church has managed to grab control. The same impulses seem to be present everywhere, but no one group has managed to consolidate power and exert the level of control that all the others are seeking.

Should you ever desire some fascinating reading on the history of Utah and the origins of Mormonism, I highly recommend Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven. I don't find his chapters regarding the murders to be all that compelling by true crime standards, but all the rest makes for some gripping (even if probably not fully objective) reading.

Coffee, witchcraft, and religious discrimination in Utah public schools.

Gotta love it when a parent “was concerned that some thoughts from the world would enter into the child’s classroom.” :o

Pooka, I'm so sorry about the theft of your plants. What is it with all the thefts and assorted mayhem being inflicted on members of this board? The thieves didn't do anything to your kittens, right? Right?

My life continues to delve further into the strange, with no end in sight. Currently I'm trying to determine what factors make a grave marker distinctive *as* a grave marker (aside from the name and dates of the deceased). Although my hands still aren't up to sculpting, I'm absurdly inspired to do some gravestone jewelry to go with my Porcelain Plagues, which at present consist of representations of filoviruses, particularly Ebola, but which I hope to expand to include bubonic plague and other historical nasties.

Fortunately my mother has traveled all over the country photographing cemetaries, so I have lots of reference material. Trouble is, aside from the classic "tombstone" shape, which I find boring, it's hard to adapt many of the more interesting grave monuments into symbols that are instantly recognizable as such. I adore many of the gilded age mauseleums and monuments, but absent context many of them just look like random buildings or urns or whatnot.

Yes, this interest in macabre forms definitely reflects my mental state, which is further proof that one need not be a great artist to have Pretentious Arty Experiences.

"Breathtaker" was really good. I think I'd go so far as to say it's Marc Hempel's best work.

There was a Trade available through Vertigo, I know. Not sure if it's still available.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

"Breathtaker" is OOP, but readily available through places like Amazon and half.com. I think I paid around $3 + shipping for my copy.

Happy birthday, and many happy returns!

Good luck to those of you who are having a rough time of it, for whatever reason.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Right back at you, Josh. I know the feelings you describe all too well, and feel free to call on me any time, even if solely to vent.

If I weren't so insistent on the whole "Cremate me and scatter my ashes somewhere I've never been before" routine, I'd want my grave marker to read "Ooops". Because I'm sure that's what my last word will be.

My mother only half-jokingly insists on "She tried and tried and finally died."

What. The. Fuck. Why would you steal someone else's pet, you heartless fuck, to sell to a pet store?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Given that this comes one day after someone vandalized our cars (which just so happens to be the same day our neighbor went after some misbehaving teenagers), I have nightmare visions of what they're doing to him for kicks. I can only hope and pray he WAS stolen by a knowledgeable enthusiast, who would almost certainly sell him on the black market. Black market reptile dealers are generally very experienced keepers, so at least he'd have a fighting chance at survival. No area pet store, even the less than stellar ones, is likely to accept him even as a freebie.

He has jaws like nutcrackers and is very defensive with people he doesn't know, so I'm further crossing my fingers that he ripped the bloody hell out of whoever took him. I didn't see any blood in or around the cage, but it rained this morning so it could have been washed away.

I hate it here.

No, not Straight-to-Hell here. Realspace here.

Last night someone stole "The Ghost," my Solomon Island Skink, from our yard. The chances he escaped from his cage are slim to none, although I've checked in with the neighbors and am continuing to scour the surrounding area. Words cannot describe how sick at heart I feel over his theft. He's a beautiful sweet lizard with very special needs that few people can, or will, accomodate. I can only hope they DID know what they were stealing (he's quite valuable) so that at least he'll get proper care. He's lived with me more years than I care to count - closing in on a decade, if not more - and I can't imagine not waking up to him in the morning.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a performances by troupes of Taiko drummers and Kabuki dancers. If a lot more of the performers were enthusiastic beginners rather than seasoned pros, their shortcomings were more than compensated for by the experts. The Taiko drum teacher was particularly enjoyable; he was fast, fluid, clearly a master of his craft having a terrific time, and as much fun to watch as to listen to. I really hope the Japanese American cultural group that put on the performance - its first - continues with exhibitions of this nature. As much as I grumble about Chicago, living near it does have its advantages.

Today I freecycled an old computer, printer, and photocopier. Boy, can people make it difficult to give working equipment away! I'm hoping the next freecycled item, an aquarium stand, goes away a lot easier. There's really something to be said for dropping stuff off at the Salvation Army depot a few miles away; although one has to deal with a clearly unhappy monosyllabic teenager, the process goes a whole lot faster.

Have some great ideas for sculpted pins and toys, but my hands are killing me so I can't work on them (or finish that dratted gargoyle I mentioned upthread, for that matter). Grrr..... Anyone have a spare brain jar I can transplant my essential organs into?

In my part of the world the cops will take someone to jail every time there is abuse, culminating, I think, in more severe penalties. In other words, if the cops respond to an abuse call and there clearly was a fight, someone is going to jail that night, no ifs ands or buts.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

:o Wow. A five hour drive, more or less, really does separate two worlds, doesn't it?!

A fire salamander climbing a ladder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bravo, sethos! (on the others as well, of course)

A fire salamander climbing a ladder.

I wanted to sound you lot out and make sure I wasn't being some kind of 'look the other way' coward.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You're NOT being a look-the-other-way coward. I commend you for wanting to do something. I've been in a similar position more than once, and I know how those kinds of incidents can eat at the good people who are prevented from doing something. I should still have a stack of those t-shirts I designed around here somewhere....

If you can contact her, kindly offer to serve as a witness to what you heard. Otherwise, I doubt there's much you can do. I don't imagine the police would get involved on the basis of an overheard argument unless the wife files a complaint.

can I kill them, please?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Any judge or jury would rule your actions to be justifiable homicide. Blast away!

Er... sorry for the thread hijack!

Red, Bob is a six foot tall styrofoam generic vampire purchased at a mark-down sale last Halloween. Since then, he's become the family's holiday prop of choice for occasions ranging from St. Patrick's day to birthdays to Independence day. He's remarkably accomodating. (I'm still pissed at myself for missing Easter, because Bob in bunny ears would have been a scream). I've posted a few of his pictures here at STH before.

His day job is lurking in the shadows near a doorway to a storage room in the house. We hadn't *intended* to use him to terrify visitors and workmen - that was the only place we had room for a life-size vampire - but it's been a nice bonus. Well, aside from the nice contractor with the heart condition who nearly went into cardiac arrest for real.... :icon_cry:

Happy Independence day, everyone, with thanks for the well-wishes from across the pond and elsewhere.

It wouldn't be a holiday without a gratuitous appearance by Bob.

I so wanted to put a cup of "blood" labeled "Iraq" in his hands, but decided that it probably wasn't safe (for Bob) to do so. :ph34r: