Wiccans and other Pagans

Why do Wiccans and other Pagans often let themselves get caught up in purely Abrahamic ways of thinking about the world, focusing on afterlifes and salvation, for example.

My cockatoo is *that* smart.

We bought tri-colored pasta, and he's learned that if he picks the green, yellow or red one when I say he gets three. It took 20 minutes for him to figure this out.

Outrage addicts and their cut and paste nonsense.

[For the purpose of this post, where I have waxed idiomatic I have attempted to provide a link to a definition of said idiom.]

The Letterman-Palin nonsense and a post on my local pagans elist got me thinking about outrage addicts and the difference between them and Lokisghodi, modern sibyls, contrarians, devil's advocates and other people who find themselves dedicated, for whatever reason, to seeing the "other hand" in any conversation.

An outrage addict [literally: One who has an addiction to feeling outrage about something, anything...] has to react to any statement, even those posted in the first person singular by using logical permutations outside the capacity of most people, largely turning those "I" statements into claims of moral superiority or some other thing they clearly are not to any reasonable person.

A joke about Palin's "daughter" getting "knocked up," is seen by the majority of people as being about the Palin that got knocked up. Outrage addicts, like the Palins, turn this into a rant about child sexual abuse, which no reasonable person would've seen coming, but since we all think child sexual abuse is bad (and so we should) the outrage addicts feel vindicated, because the deserved laughter at their escapades becomes argumentum ad numerum about child sexual abuse. "The majority stands with me, and the majority is right."

The simplest way to vent one's outrage addiction and feel that you're comfortably in the numerum is to quote a bunch of websites and get very 'inside baseball' about some point of the 'offending' post, allegedly making you look very smart, but to those of us who've been around teh internets for a while makes you look like you're a newbie who just discovered google. Usually you have to take one point of your 'opponent's' statement, no matter how tangential, and literally pile on the facts about that tangent. The more paragraphs and links you can post, the more likely that people reading it will have their eyes glaze over and you can feel that you're in the numerum because no one is going to argue with you...because they really don't care...

The flaw in this if you are said outrage addict isn't that you are posting mounds of data no one really cares about, but the simple fact that you're considering the other guy your opponent. It's actually very unlikely the poor sap you're going all numerum against is considering you an 'opponent,' in the first place, and if he's smart, he's going to react to your outrage by giving you an apology you don't deserve. If he's extra-clever, or perhaps an Amber DRP player, you may get what appears to be an apology, but is in fact a recognition that you have an ego problem and you need soothing: "You seem really unhappy about this, I'm sorry if I've done anything to upset you." = You are a nut, you win, your cock is big, have an internet! (please go away!)

Unlike our outrage addicts, an other-hander is going to take the statements of *everyone* and wonder at the broader implications thereof. If, for example, you claim any given fact is belived by *all* people, your other-hander, for whatver reason, is going to wax Socratic at you and ask if it's truely *everyone* who thinks whatever you're claiming they do. The way to deal with these people (who are usually more involved in keeping themselves honest than everyone else and are only expecting you to try to meet some minor level of standard of honesty) is not to award them one internet, or to try to show them the size of your google-cock by cutting and pasting, but to go "you know, probably not everyone, but it seems like everyone to me," (and in the future, stick to saying things like 'it seems like a majority of people I meet") and recognise that they really are teaching you a lesson...and themselves a lesson. You've just had your sloppy thinking fixed!

An outrage addict, however, can *never* back down once they feel their imagined google cock-size has been challenged. They will have to respond even to an "I'm sorry" with a last word. Their "test" isn't complete until the teacher has placed a scratch-and-sniff sticker on the paper telling them they've done berry good. Unfortunately for you, if you're caught in this situation, their 'berry good' is you going away for a while.

If you are really into truth, the temptation to respond to their last word is huge. You want to slam the hell out of their immature little egos, and make them go away instead. At this point, you've moved away from being contrarian, or a truth-speaker, and become a troll baiter. If you can't avoid responding, try this one: "I can't help but feel I have done something to threaten or upset you. Perhaps you can email me privately and we can attempt to resolve this difficulty. I hate to waste valuable [list, forum, web] space with a conversation that's really only between two (or three, or four) people." Now if they continue you just go straight to the list or forum mods, or repeat the request to go private. Remember, they need to feel that they are in the numerum, so privacy is terrifying.... they lose their majority that way!

DO NOT RESPOND in anger...at this point your outrage addict has gone into full blown troll mode. Do not give them something to latch on to so they can feel oppressed...it will make them more and more insane. If you're fortunate, like Letterman, the insanity will cause them to explode in a fit of pique and lose all credibility, making your humor about them poignant as long as you drop it within a few days (its probably okay to gloat a little.) If you're not, you should probably take a vacation from the forum or list. If their gauntlet goes unanswered for a few days some trollbait is going to pick it up, and the outrage addict is going to eventually piss everyone off enough that you're going to be seen as a hero for challenging them before anyone else did.

Remember that the outrage addict will only get their kicks by seeing those they've decided are opponents removed from lists or forums, or leave in disgust...so don't give the mods a reason to kick you...it just makes the addicts worse.

We let him stay up late....

He normally goes to bed at 9pm, sharp. If he hears Rachel Maddow and he's not covered for the night he yells at me. He sleeps very little at night, spending most of the night beak-grinding in happiness and...ahem... probably doing the same thing any other 20 year old male does alone after the lights are off. He was not covered at his previous home, and he *loves* his cage cover. I guess, since he's a little agoraphobic, that he feels very safe under the navy blue semi-transparent cloth...he can see us, but we can't see him....
Since we slept in, we let him stay up, and got the "angry ruffled feathers." Which isn't really angry, it's more like....well, bitchy.

I'm just saying

Labgrrl Chicken Satay

This is what we had for dinner:

1.5lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs.
1/4 cup shredded coconut.
1 [3inch long, 1 inch wide] piece of ginger, shredded
2tbsp crunchy high-end peanut butter (a non-sugary one.)
3 tbsp peanut oil
3 tbsp thai fish sauce or nam pla, or garum, if in ancient Rome.
zest of one small organic lime
Juice of same lime
1 (1/4-pint) jar of my homemade thai sweet chili sauce (based on the hot and sweet sauce in the Ball big book of preserving..a little hotter...more garlic...)

dash sea salt
dash freshly grated pepper
dash cinnamon
Baby yellow crookneck and marrow squash from the garden
Skewers

Place everything but the chicken, veggies and dashes in a big bowl and squish around. Add chicken. Let sit at least 6 hours.
Place chicken on skewers with pieces of veggies.
Pour remnants of bowl over them.

Place on a grill (we used a foreman grill for 10 minutes) until cooked through. Add dashes right before removing.

Serve on skewers, with dipping sauce of your choice or plain.

This would also be excellent bun-style. To do that, serve cold over cold rice vermicelli noodles to which you've added a dash of fish sauce, a dash of sweet chili sauce, matchstick carrots and cucumbers, broken peanuts and a leaf lettuce leaf that you've layered with thai or opal basil and fresh mint, rolled up and sliced into thin segments like a huge chiffonade. The magic of bun is that it will cool you off on a hot day.

..in which labgrrl sounds sensitive and gentle.

I think my biggest fear is that I will write a book no one is capable of understanding. Not by virtue of being poorly written, but by virtue of being so specialized in knowledge that most people get to chapter three and put it down because it's more than they can handle.

Sales of my last book, The Circle, Cubed, are very high. HOWEVER, feedback about it is non-existent.

I really do worry I've finally done it. I wish someone who'd read it would send me an email in which they provided substantive feedback: I liked it because X, I hated it because Y.

I feel like I'm speaking into a microphone echoing in an empty stadium.

Dispatch from the rest of America.

Dear Sarah Palin:


Any questions?

Why do I know snow?
Because, dearie, I'm from Syracuse, and we pwn Alaska in snow every year.

Average snowfall by cities: I'm from #1, and live in #9. (7-9 are all basically the same city...Buffalo and two burbs.) #10 is a 20 minute drive. #4 is basically where my wife is from.

The phrase "X machine" where X is a noun means a machine that makes X.
Copy machine-makes copies.
Coffee machine-makes coffee.
Snow machine-makes snow.

By the way, this is the nearest city to where my parents are from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswego,_New_York that "some winters over 300 inches" line is not a joke.

Wiccan Ethics And The Wiccan Rede

Read the whole thing here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bos/bos661.htm

Wiccan Ethics And The Wiccan Rede
By: David Piper, Sat 21 May 94 12:16

Part I: What Sayeth The Rede?
=====================

The "archaically worded" construction "An it harm none, do what ye
will," rendered into modern English is literally, "if it doesn't harm
anyone, do what you want."

Many modern Wiccans "reverse" the construction, however, taking the
first part and putting it after the second to read: "Do what ye will an
it harm none," or in modern English "Do what you want if it doesn't harm
anyone."

Many people give the word "an" or "if" a value of "so long as" - which
is acceptable substitution, because it doesn't alter the meaning of the
Rede itself. However they then proceed to read "so long as" as "only
if," and that is *completely different*, because the Rede has ceased to
be a "wise counsel" [anyone checked the meaning of "rede" in the
dictionary lately?] and become an injunction: prohibitive commandment,
rather than permissive advice.

In other words, the original archaic construction actually says "if it
is not going to hurt anyone, it is ok to do" - this is *not* the same as
"if it hurts anyone it is *not* ok to do."

What is the significance of the change? A larger one than you might
see, at first glance.

The "actual construction Rede," or AC Rede, says it is ok to do
something that won't harm anyone, but it *does not say anything* about
those things which do cause harm, except to set an ethical standard of
harmlessness as the criteria to judge by.

The "modern reconstruction Rede" or MR Rede, explicitly says that any
and all actions that cause harm are forbidden.

The two constructions do *not* mean the same thing at all. And it
should be obvious that this has implications on our thinking, and
discussions of the possibility of "obeying" the Rede.

Most of you will have heard or read, as I have, people saying the Rede
is something to strive to live by, even though mundane reality makes it
very difficult, if not impossible, to do so to the letter. *This is
only true of the MR Rede, not the AC Rede!* As examples, they cite
situations such as self-defense; *this violates the MR Rede*. Period.
But it does *not* violate the AC Rede. Period.

Earlier, I stated that the AC Rede does not rule on actions that do
cause harm - and this is true. It only rules on those actions which do
not, by saying that they are acceptable. This is relevant to "victi-
mless crimes" for example - civil "crimes" may in fact be "ethical," by
the judgment of the AC Rede.

What the AC Rede *does* do, in terms of actions that cause harm, is
state an ethical value by which an individual must judge the results of
her/his actions before acting. In other words, by stating that a
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harmless action is ethical, the AC Rede sets harmlessness as the
criteria for evaluation. Acting to prevent greater harm - but in the
process causing lesser harm - may then be ethical, if there is no
harmless, or more harmless, method of preventing that greater harm -
because *not* acting to prevent harm is to *cause* it, by an act of
*omission* rather than *commission*.

In short the difference between the AC Rede, and the MR Rede, is that
the AC Rede is a perfectly-obeyable ethical standard, but the MR Rede is
not, as so many people have pointed out. Do we take as our ethical
standard a "counsel" which *can* be obeyed, or one which *necessitates
rationalizing in some instances*? Which is truer to the Wicca, and to
the *real* Rede?

"rede: n. [Middle English rede

Bachmann is a meme.

Apologies to my tweeple who've read this crap before:

"Bachmann should be new verb: to say stuff that's uberloony. You know, like "schizophrenic" without insulting schizophrenics."

""Man, look at that naked guy bachmanning on the corner about the world ending. Should we call an ambulance or the cops?"

"I think that Weatherbug has been bachmanned all day, it keeps saying it is storming here, and it's sunny."

To bachmann: I bachmann. You bachmann. He/She/it bachmanns. We bachmann. They bachmann. All of them bachmann.

Past tense: bachmanned Future tense: ...will bachmann. Pluperfect: had bachmanned. Can be substituted with "went mad"

I think I need to have a gay abortion to celebrate http://bit.ly/C0gsT Sally Kern's Bachmanning in Oklahoma.