Category Archives: Politics

Let the Sunshine In!

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It’s Sunshine Week — the  national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.

Today I received this from the EFF:

Over the past two and a half years, EFF has filed hundreds of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and made thousands of pages of once-secret documents available to the public on our website. When the government dragged its feet or tried to deny our requests, we filed lawsuits to hold it accountable. As a result, we’ve shed light on many controversial government initiatives, including:

  • The Department of Homeland Security’s internal policies on searching travelers at the U.S. border;
  • Details about invasive government data-mining efforts like the Automated Targeting System and ADVISE; and
  • The FBI‘s misuse of National Security Letters to silence and investigate individuals.

These victories would not have been possible without the support of people like you. As we celebrate Sunshine Week, please support EFF in our efforts to make government more transparent:

http://action.eff.org/FOIA

Donate to EFF this week, and help us shine a light on government secrets. It’s time to make open government a reality!

Also today, the EFF launched a search tool to examine thousands of government documents. “The new search capability enables visitors to EFF’s website to conduct keyword searches across the universe of government documents obtained by EFF, maximizing the value of the documents.” (From the press release.)

If you can spare the cash, give some to them. In either case, pass the word.

Earth Hour

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Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, the idea behind Earth Hour is to show how even a small conservation effort — like giving up just 60 minutes of lights — can have a big impact when a lot of people do it. The “official” action is to shut off your lights for an hour starting at 8:30pm, local time.

I’m planning to turn everything electric off. Of course, I’m also going to be out of town for the weekend (wedding in Cleveland, OH and not coincidentally raising Daystar to his 3rd*). But at 8:30pm I’ll be in a hotel room, and I intend to turn everything I can off. J. and I will just sit in the dark and giggle for awhile. (It’s a good thing he still finds me charming.)

You can pledge to participate on the Earth Hour site, either as an individual or as a group. Seattle is a participant, as are many cities in the US.

Goals for 2009

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Each year at my birthday, I set aside time to review my accomplishments of the past year and set goals for the coming year. Then I give myself until the end of the calendar year to make adjustments to my goals. I’ve been writing this post for about two months now, time to publish it . . . (I can, occasionally, get so caught up in the organizing /to do list making that I never actualyl get to the projects themselves.)

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Getting My Ire Up: The Mentalist

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Sent to CBS.com (my thanks to Jason at The Wild Hunt for pointing this out to me):

The episode of The Mentalist that aired on January 13th was profoundly insulting to me and to anyone who identifies as a witch, or Wiccan. We have spent decades attempting to explain to frightened and superstitious outsiders that: a) we are not crazy for our belief in a power greater than ourselves with the ability to interact directly in the physical world; b) we are not delusional about our belief in our ability to take personal control of our reality; c) our fundamental precept to harm none and a general agreement that it is our responsibility to better ourselves and our community by living as ethical beings.

Your writers clearly read a few essays and cobbled together a few terms in the creation of the character Tamzin Dove and in doing so did a grave disservice to a thriving, well-adjusted and non-violent religion: Wicca. Would it have been appropriate for her character to have been a Seventh Day Adventist? A Mormon? A Buddhist? Perhaps then the plot would have revolved more aruond the fact that she was a psychologically damaged individual rather than a witch.

It’s a shame, because in general The Mentalist is an amusing show with good writing and I have been enjoying it. Your writers need to learn respect.

Want to share your opinion with them? Here’s the link: http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.php

NeoPagans and Marriage

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I’m interested in writing an essay about NeoPagans and their view of marriage and I need your help. I’m looking for anecdotes and experiences from people who are married, handfasted (or the equivalent of ‘joined but not according to the State’), and/or performed such ceremonies.

  • Did you get legally joined as well as go through the religious ceremony?
  • What genders are you and your spouse?
  • Why marriage/handfasting/joining?

Please feel free to tell me more, but the above are the key points I’m looking at for now. I am perfectly prepared to keep everything shared with me strictly anonymous and confidential; if you are comfortable with me using you/your story as an example please let me know that (otherwise, stories will be altered to make a point and not break confidentiality). Responses via the ‘comments’ feature on this blog are great, or you can write to me directly at lisa*@*cybercoven.org (remove the spambot-foiling *)

Share this message far and wide — I want to hear from as diverse a group of NeoPagans as possible.

DeBeers Says Parody is Illegal?

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Sad but true. But you need to know the whole story. First of all, go here (before it’s taken down!) www.nytimes-se.com and enjoy one of the most brilliant spoofs I’ve ever seen or heard of.

deBeers — you know, the diamond people — is threatening the Swiss-based domain registrar, Joker.com, with expensive lawsuits unless they disable the spoof website. The threatened charge? Trademark infringement. *

Our favorite Net Freedom Fighters, the EFF, have taken on the case and are arguing (persuasively) that there is ample US protection for the registrar.

History shows that parody is one of the most basic levels of free speech — if you can’t make fun of something then you can’t speak freely at all. Dictators usually kill the comics first, after all.

* Please note that I am not, not, NOT taking any potshots at DeBeers. It almost hurts to not say anything snarky about their destructive business methods, their lack of morals, or their ability to look innocent while wringing bloody hands.

Heartsick: Prop. 8 passed

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UPDATE: Although the news media is announcing that Prop 8 passed, apparently as many as 2 million more votes (absentee) still need to be counted.

This is an oportunity to make magic. If you believe in human rights, please send a little energy (or a lot, as you see fit) to work some juju and see this rude, nasty, discriminatory proposition rejected. Every vote counts, and magic works best behind the scene.

Pass this along. Spread the word. Send the energy.

 

Apparently California has approved the ban on same-sex marriages. To paraphrase what one person said, so eloquently: The rights of farm animals were protected and the rights of humans rejected.

Maybe its time we came at this from the other direction? Maybe its time to make marriage the truly religious sacrament that the supporters of male-female only people make it out to be. Eliminate all benefits: visitation rigths, taxes, automatically benefiting from the partner’s death . . . all of it.

That would go a long way towards healing the discrimination. Because it is discrimination. And it stinks.