Pagan prisoners and press prejudices
The Metro‘s news room yesterday must have echoed to the sound of the bottom of barrels being scraped, as the paper chose to put a story about the rights of Pagan prisoners on today’s front page (7 December).
Pagan prisoners are to be allowed four religious festivals off work each year, in a similar way to Jewish, Muslim or Christian prisoners. This is a welcome recognition of the right to freedom of religion. Many offenders have abused others’ freedom, but a civilised society responds by upholding human rights for all, not denying them. Read full story from ekklesia.com
Two maids jailed, to be lashed for sorcery
A Saudi court gave heavy jail sentences to two Indonesian housemaids and ordered them lashed 700 times with a whip on charges of practising witchcraft to extort money from their employers, a local daily reported on Monday.
The two maids, aged 33 and 25 years, had used clothes and other personal items to cast a spell on the man and his family in Riyadh since they started working for him nearly three years ago, ‘Alyoum’ newspaper said.
The court in the Saudi capital was told that the two maids used their magic skills to control the family’s life and drain their employer’s financial resources. Read full story from emirates247.com
The Hindu Kush-Himalayas Climate Impact Adaptation Assessment Programme will run for five years, carried out by Norway’s Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research, the U.N. Environment Programme and the Katmandu, Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
“The overarching theme is people plagued by either too much or too little water in these regions,” said Bjorn Brede Hansen, deputy director-general of the Section for Environment and Sustainable Development within Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “This is really the framework for everything — agriculture, livelihoods … [the role of] women.” Read full story from scientificamerican.com
Embattled N.Y. imam launches initiative to bridge discord New York (CNN) — The controversial head of a Muslim congregation in New York announced the launch of a “multinational, multifaith movement” meant to improve understanding and build trust between “people of all cultures and faith traditions,” according to a statement released Tuesday.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the public face of a recent political firestorm surrounding the construction of an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, is now spearheading what he calls the Cordoba Movement.
The initiative is meant to broaden his groups’ work in promoting religious tolerance and “expand learning among Muslims, Jews, Christians and people of all faiths,” the statement said.
“We must retake the discourse among religions and cultures from the hands of the extremists around the world who benefit from hatred and violence,” Rauf said in the statement. “We must stop this downward spiral of hatred, mistrust and misunderstanding if our world is to have a peaceful future.” Read full story from cnn.com
Divine dispatches: a religion roundup
Don’t know about divine dispatches but I could certainly do with some divine inspiration. Maybe it will bite me on the bum while I’m writing this. Am suffering from a terrible bout of existential angst.
✤ Retailers in Japan have pulled a Nazi costume from their stores following a complaint from a US-based Jewish group. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre wrote a letter asking the Don Quixote discount chain to remove the uniforms “replete with swastikas” from its shelves. Rabbi Abraham Cooper said: “I note also your corporate guidelines which states in part, ‘Besides following the law as a member of the corporate citizen, we believe taking social responsibility is true compliance … We do not accept any unreasonable requests from antisocial sources’.” The outfits consisted of a black jacket with a red swastika armband in a package featuring an illustration that resembled Adolf Hitler, while also carrying the phrase “Heil Hitler” in Japanese characters. The outfit cost £38 and was available in at least two stores in Tokyo.
The company making the product said it had never received a complaint in seven years. “This was meant purely as a joke, as something that would easily be recognisable. If we have complaints we will certainly stop sales,” said a spokesman for Aico. Read full story from guardian.co.uk
WSPA released a video on Monday that shows reindeer in distress when herded and transported, and while at the slaughterhouse.
“The film that we are showing is particularly shocking now that Christmas is upon us, but it clearly shows the cruel reality that reindeer are exposed to,” Roger Pettersson, secretary general of WSPA Sweden, said in a statement on Monday. Read full story from thelocal.se
Mum’s poltergeist fears
A YOUNG mum is calling in an exorcist amid fears she is sharing her new home with a poltergeist.
Student midwife Holly Taylor and her two-year-old daughter Willow will no longer sleep at the apartment in Pemberton town centre after a terrifying series of events.
And few people the 22-year-old has told are doubting her because many have witnessed ghostly goings-on too. Read full story from wigantoday.net
And though fewer of them are still with us, members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association don’t want to disband, association president Art Herriford tells the Associated Press. Read full story from npr.org
“Myself and others have found that we are sitting in silence and being forced to participate in religious practices that I/we do not agree with,” Valentich said in her letter she sent council members by e-mail Sunday evening. “I am asking that this practice stop or be replaced with a non-sectarian prayer so as not to promote Christianity over other religions or non-religion.”
In 2008, the Chillicothe City Council conducted brief discussions on the role prayer should play in its meetings after the city of Greenfield received letters from the American Civil Liberties Union asking its council stop prayer at its meetings. Read full story from chillicothegazette.com
Healing thyself: Does psychedelic therapy exploit the placebo effect?
My last post talked about the depressing lack of progress in treatments for depression and other common psychological disorders. Talking cures and antidepressants alike are subject to the “dodo effect,” which decrees that all therapies are roughly as effective—or ineffective—as one another. The dodo effect implies that treatments harness the placebo effect, the patient’s expectation of improvement. Claims that one therapy beats all the others often reflect researchers’ favoritism, called the “allegiance effect”.
After reading the post one of my smart-ass students asked, “What about psychedelic therapies? Are those subject to the dodo and allegiance effects, too?” Good questions. He knew that, although bashing conventional psycho-treatments, I’ve written positively about psychedelics’ therapeutic potential. Does my reporting reflect countercultural allegiance to psychedelics and distrust of clinical psychology, psychiatry and Big Pharma? Maybe a little. But I’ve also pointed out the risks of drugs such as DMT and LSD as well as the role of suggestion in shaping psychedelic trips. Read full story from scientificamerican.com
Volcanic Eruptions May Have Wiped Out Neandertals
A cave in the northern Caucasus Mountains may hold a key to the long-standing mystery of why the Neandertals, our closest relatives, went extinct. For nearly 300,000 years the heavy-browed, barrel-chested Neandertals presided over Eurasia, weathering glacial conditions more severe than any our own kind has ever faced. Then, starting around 40,000 years ago, their numbers began to decline. Shortly after 28,000 years ago, they were gone. Paleoanthropologists have been debating whether competition with incoming modern humans or the onset of rapidly oscillating climate was to blame for their demise. But new findings suggest that catastrophic volcanic eruptions may have doomed the Neandertals—and paved the way for modern humans to take their place.
Researchers led by Liubov Vitaliena Golovanova of the ANO Laboratory of Prehistory in Saint Petersburg studied the deposits in Mezmaiskaya cave, located in southwestern Russia. First discovered by archaeologists in 1987, the cave once sheltered Neandertals and, later, modern humans. Analyzing the various stratigraphic layers, the scientists found layers of volcanic ash that, based on the geochemical composition of the ashes, they attribute to eruptions that occurred in the Caucasus region around 40,000 years ago. Because the cave preserves a long record of Neandertal occupation preceding the ash layers but no traces of them afterward, the team surmises that the eruptions devastated the locals. Read full story from scientificamericans.com
The most intriguing of these questions is: Who owns the stuff of a religion? When my Christian and Jewish friends adopt and adapt yoga postures are they stealing something? Who owns Christmas? Who owns the Buddha? Who owns Jesus? Read full story from cnn.com
WRIGHT WAY: Holiday lights and ho, ho — huh?
When I was a child the most enchanting thing about Christmas was the colorful array of lights that decorated the holiday season. The appeal of a fluffy, jolly old man who lived at the North Pole knowing whether I was bad or good also brought a sense of wonder to my winter wonderland.
Those displays of holiday lights combined with someone coming down the chimney with a bag of toys, however, were not as fascinating as the origin of those Christmas lights and who initially was on the rooftops of primitive little children.
For example, in his book “4,000 Years of Christmas,” Earl W. Count said, “The bright fires, the giving of presents, the merrymaking, the feasting, the processions with their lights and song — all these and more began in Mesopotamia three centuries before Christ was born.” Read full story from clevelandbanner.com
Corals Reefs Will Be Wiped Out By 2050, Expert Says
First the news was that if we don’t change our habits around fishing, all the world’s fisheries will be wiped out by 2050. Now, experts guess that if we don’t significantly change our interaction with the ocean, coral reefs will be all but wiped out by that same time. J.E.N. Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, writes that human pollution of the water, as well as human-generated carbon dioxide emissions which are causing ocean acidification and rising ocean temperatures are rapidly killing off corals. He notes that without a radical change in our behaviors and priorities, we will be left with a bleak future for the oceans, and consequently, ourselves. Read full story from treehugger.com
A season for everyone
ST. GEORGE – Christmas may dominate the holiday schedule, but December is a special and spiritual month for many local residents, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Cedar City resident Melanie Cottam is clear evidence of that.
Though her Cedar City home is adorned with wreaths, candles and even a decorated tree, Cottam said she doesn’t focus her celebrations on Christmas each winter. As a pagan, she and her family observe a different December celebration. Read full story from thespectrum.com
It’s the “when” that we think of — seasons past, what’s to come.
But in astronomical terms, as Mr. Steele notes in his wonderful poem, the seasons also fall under the “where” category.
Where our Earth is tilted determines the seasons. At winter solstice, which this year occurs on the evening of Dec. 21, the axis of our planet is tilted the farthest away from the sun. Read full story from thechronicleharold.ca
Misconceptions about voodoo abound
It’s common for people familiar with Haiti to joke that 90 percent of the country’s inhabitants are practicing Catholics, 10 percent practice a Protestant faith and 100 percent practice voodoo.
But the truth is that “voodoo is a very important part of Haitian life. Americans often just dismiss it as superstition or witchcraft,” said University of Kentucky history professor Jeremy Popkin, who teaches a class called “Haiti in the Modern World.” “It is a religion with deep roots in the African beliefs that were brought by slaves” to the Caribbean nation.
Popkin’s class, which includes a section on the religion, grew out of interest in the country that followed the devastating earthquake in January. Popkin, who wrote a book about the 13-year-long Haitian revolution, said his class was formed in response to a talk about the country held on campus after the earthquake. Read full story from kentucky.com
Wooden cross work of vandals at Alaska store SOLDOTNA, Alaska – A store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs.
Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye’ Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap, the Peninsula Clarion reported. Read full story from adn.com
WikiLeaks to publish files on aliens, UFOs
LONDON: WikiLeaks will publish more secret US diplomatic files relating to aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), said the founder of the whistleblower website Julian Assange and claimed his life was at risk after the recent expose.
Assange revealed he would publish classified US files about aliens and UFOs.
According to the Daily Mail, none had so far satisfied the twin publishing criteria for WikiLeaks: that the documents are original and not self-authored. Read full story from indiatimes.com
Follow up: Does this answer the question of the ghost child?
After examining bobdezon’s modified photo above it all becomes quite clear….At least to me. Of course there are hard core believers out there that will never be convinced but it’s awfully hard to deny. Bea and Red are right in that it’s getting more and more difficult to pass an authentic picture. Sometimes technology can be a bad thing but it’s not going to stop anytime soon. However something tells me that if there ever was an authentic picture to come along there would be something about it that would indicate authenticity. Of course that’s just my opinion but we have to hold out some sort of hope. Read full story from ghosttheory.com
Fossil fish and space shuttle radar images have defined the bed and drainage channels of the long lost lake, which at times was larger than Lake Michigan, stretching as far as 250 miles west of the Nile in southwestern Egypt.
The discovery pushes back the origin of the “Gift of the Nile” floods to more than a quarter million years ago and paints a drastically different picture of Egypt’s environment than is seen today. It also explains the longstanding puzzle of the fossilized fish found in the desert — fish that are of the same kinds that live in today’s Nile River. Read full story from discovery.com
Atheist Ad Campaigns Are All the Rage
Atheists have been trying to get out their message, from city bus ads to the recent controversial billboard displayed at the Lincoln Tunnel which prompted a counter-billboard from the Catholic League. The latest: Co-opting rich billionaires into the act. Recently, the Illini Secular Student Alliance (ISSA), at the University of Illinois, launched a bus ad campaign to set the record straight when it comes to the charitable atheists of our world. Read full story from gothamist.com
Cancun talks start with a call to the gods
With United Nations climate negotiators facing an uphill battle to advance their goal of reducing emissions linked to global warming, it’s no surprise that the woman steering the talks appealed to a Mayan goddess Monday.
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to delegates gathered in Cancun, Mexico, noting that Ixchel was not only goddess of the moon, but also “the goddess of reason, creativity and weaving. May she inspire you — because today, you are gathered in Cancun to weave together the elements of a solid response to climate change, using both reason and creativity as your tools.” Read full story from washingtonpost.com
The report is the result of a large body of data collected by scientists along with indigenous Wapishana and Makushi Indians of Guyana who were trained to conduct wildlife population counts. Read full story from survivalinternational.org
Can Green Visionaries and Eco Realists Coexist?
When I wrote about the UK government’s apparent redefinition of ‘zero carbon homes’, an anonymous commenter noted how amusing it is “when governments figure out that it’s much harder to actually do something, than to say you’re going to do it.” And that got me thinking—given the urgency of climate change, peak oil and resource depletion, we need radical visions and bold plans to create a better world. But then we also need people who can actually help get us there. Unfortunately, being visionary and being realistic are often seen as mutually exclusive. Read full story from treehugger.com
Starry Starry Starry Night: Star Count May Triple
The universe may glitter with far more stars than even Carl Sagan imagined when he rhapsodized about billions upon billions. A new study suggests there are a mind-blowing 300 sextillion of them, or three times as many as scientists previously calculated. That is a 3 followed by 23 zeros. Or 3 trillion times 100 billion.
The estimate, contained in a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, is based on findings that there are many more red dwarf stars — the most common star in the universe — than once thought.
But the research goes deeper than that. The study by Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum and Harvard astrophysicist Charlie Conroy questions a key assumption that astronomers often use: that most galaxies have the same properties as our Milky Way. And that conclusion is deeply unsettling to astronomers who want a more orderly cosmos. Read full story from npr.org
It is wrong to deny that yoga has its origins in Hinduism
A 2002 survey of Americans showed that more than half the population expressed an interest in practicing yoga, and a 2004 news report claimed that there were nearly 15.5 million yoga practitioners in the country. Nearly 77% of the practitioners of yoga are women, and half of the yoga enthusiasts have a college degree.
In the small college at which I teach in rural Virginia, at which participation in at least one form of physical education is required, yoga classes are the first to fill up – not aerobic dance, not fitness walking, and certainly not weight-lifting. Yoga Journal, the most popular magazine for yoga enthusiasts, now has a paid circulation of 350,000 and a readership of more than 1,000,000. Yoga has indeed been embraced by Americans. Read full story from guardian.co.uk
Slainte! Ireland’s Viking Heritage
One day while searching for I can’t remember what in my foot-thick Webster’s, which has been my word go-to since high school, I stumbled upon a most interesting linguistic factoid. Every single question word in the English language (who, what, where, when, which, and why, plus whose, whither, whence, whom and even how) has a Viking origin. It makes sense.
Picture this: a Viking raiding ship has just dropped anchor and hordes of bloodthirsty marauders have come ashore. They chase down one poor fellow and bombard him with questions. Who are you? What place is this? Where is your leader? When did he leave? Which way did he go? Why won’t you tell us where the gold is? And the clincher: How many men are hiding in the forest?
It doesn’t take much to imagine the scene, especially since Hollywood has done us the favor of putting it up on the big screen countless times. Huge, helmeted Viking warriors wreaking havoc on a sleepy pastoral setting provide spectacular action footage and big box office returns. However, it was not so entertaining a scenario some twelve hundred years ago in Ireland. Read full story from irishcentral.com
The hidden cost of Christmas
In Bangkok the shopping centres already have their indoor and outdoor plastic Christmas pyramids out, the jingles emanate from the Starbucks and skywalks, strings of lights hang from the trees along walkways and windows of bakeries are spray-painted with counterfeit frost. Aggressive Christmas cheer, over a month early, is everywhere. The popularity of the Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus, though, is hard to reconcile with the fact that less that 1 percent of Thailand’s population is Christian – unless you consider that it has always been more of a cultural and seasonal celebration than a religious one, and that commercialisation and economic potential are business values that are easily globalised. And yet, beyond making tourists feel at home, what is the relevance of Christmas to Thailand? Read full story from bangkokpost.com
The Christian leaders had created the app to promote a document that urges opposition to abortion and gay marriage and support for religious liberty, among other positions. Read full story from cnn.com
Deep Water Corals Dead and Dying; Gulf Oil Spill to Blame (Video)
While the news coverage has died down, the lingering impacts on wildlife of the Deep Horizon oil spill are still being uncovered. That includes what’s going on far under the surface of the water to deep sea corals. Researchers from Penn State have discovered that seven miles southwest of the disastrous wellhead is a huge bed of dead and damaged corals, and it is suspected that the damage is thanks to the spill. Read full story from treehugger.com
Tibet and Buddhism: Dalai Lama won’t exit any time soon Dharamsala, Nov 26 (IANS) — In any case, the Tibetan spiritual leader is bound to discuss his retirement plan with the Tibetan parliament-in-exile which is based here, they say.
Tenzin Taklha, joint secretary at the Dalai Lama’s office, told IANS: “His Holiness only told (a) journalist that he is considering the feasibility of retirement from public life.”
According to Tibetan sources, the entire process of retirement for the Dalai Lama is likely to take around one year. Read full story from religion.info
Gary McCullough, director of Christian Newswire, says he is annoyed and bothered by the latest atheist attacks on Christmas and the story of Christ’s birth. He asserts that Christians have already won the culture war by using their principles to “co-opt” rituals and holidays in America and abroad.
“We take them over, we make them our own and we mock their pagan roots,” insisted McCullough. Read full story from christianpost.com
Seneca President Robert Odawi Porter has announced that the nation filed application documents with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Nov. 30 for the license to operate the Seneca Pumped Storage Project at Kinzua Dam.
Seneca will be competing for the permit against the current owner, FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron, Ohio. The current 50-year license to operate the pumped storage project expires in 2015. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
He passed away in June, and I know from working with other families that the first holidays after a death are often layered with sadness. Last year, I wrote a column about one of our final conversations with my dad while he was still lucid.
This year, remembering some of what he said has helped us through our grief. As I mourn him, all the things I’ve said to people as a pastor over the years are coming toward me, now. It’s strange and beautiful to be on the receiving end of comfort. Holidays are special markers in communities, large and small: who is still with us, how we have changed, where are we now, who we are becoming. Read full story from gloucestertimes.com
World AIDS Day 2010: Rates of new HIV infections are slowing, but what now?
Scores of cities and communities all over the world will dim the lights this December 1st to mark World AIDS Day as part of the Light for Rights campaign which focuses on human rights, HIV and AIDS.Significant progress has been made in advancing access to HIV prevention, treatment, support and care over the past ten years, but putting human rights approaches at the centre of the response is crucial to further progress. The 2010 Global Update on the AIDS Epidemic by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that in 2009 the pace of new infections had declined by almost 20% compared to 1999, but still outpaces treatment success by two to one. There are still major gaps in the implementation of human rights commitments at national and regional levels according to the report. For many people living with HIV – and the people most affected by it – human rights can help to guarantee access to health services, work, education and community participation. Read full story from worldaidscampaign.org
December Skies
This month we’ll lead off with news of a spectacular lunar eclipse that will be visible from all of North America during the night of Dec. 20-21. This is going to be a beauty with totality lasting for an hour and 12 minutes. We will be able to see the entire eclipse from beginning to end. Mark your calendars because this won’t happen again for North America until April 2014. Read full story from dchieftain.com
Answers In Genesis, which built and operates the religious-themed attraction, plans to build a full-scale wooden replica of Noah’s Ark based on biblical descriptions. Read full story from wlwt.com
What does it mean to be human?
Calling someone a “Neanderthal” in the heat of an argument may not be such an insult after all. Last May, scientists announced they had completed a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, and found evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, likely sometime 80,000 to 50,000 years ago when modern humans left Africa and ventured into Eurasia — Neanderthal territory. Those encounters left a mark in the modern gene pool: As much as 4 percent of the DNA in people with European or Asian ancestry may be Neanderthal DNA, the researchers reported in Science.
The discovery of our intimate history with Neanderthals received tremendous press last spring, but another implication of the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome also deserves attention, says the study’s lead author, Richard Green, a genome biologist now at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “The hope is to be able to use the Neanderthal [genome] to shine a flashlight on recent evolution in humans,” he says.
Until now, scientists had been limited to comparing human DNA to the DNA of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. It was impossible to know, however, when any detected difference arose in our evolutionary history: Did it occur right after the split with the chimp lineage (sometime about 8 million years ago), in australopithecines, in other now-extinct species in the genus Homo? Or is it a change only found in Homo sapiens? By comparing our genome to that of Neanderthals, researchers can now look for the genetic changes that make modern humans unique among all hominins. Read full story from earthmagazine.org
Olmecs to Toltecs: Great ancient civilizations of Mexico
It always strikes me when I travel in Mexico how many foreign visitors don’t know the Olmecs from the Toltecs, never mind the Totonacs. Most of what we’ve learned about Mexico’s ancient cultures begins and ends with the Aztecs and the Maya. Those justly renowned civilizations arose relatively late in the country’s history, building on traditions that came before and incorporating influences from other peoples near and far.
Mesoamerica at its height was home to more than 25 million people. The 280 languages still spoken in Mexico today show that despite shared traditions and influences, many distinct civilizations arose because of geography, climate and contact with other cultures. Read full story from sfgate.com
New York Catholics, furious about an atheist-sponsored billboard calling Christmas “a myth,” lashed out with a counter-attack today — a billboard of their own that defends the celebration of the birth of Christ.
The billboard erected by the Catholic League went up near the New York side of the Lincoln Tunnel, at Dyer Avenue and 31st Street, in a bid to offset the anti-Christmas billboard at the tunnel’s New Jersey entrance. Read full story from nypost.com
Seeking to detect mysterious, ultra-high-energy neutrinos from distant regions of space, a team of astronomers used the Moon as part of an innovative telescope system for the search. Their work gave new insight on the possible origin of the elusive subatomic particles and points the way to opening a new view of the Universe in the future. Read full story from redorbit.com
Radiation Rings Hint Universe Was Recycled Over and Over
Most cosmologists trace the birth of the universe to the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. But a new analysis of the relic radiation generated by that explosive event suggests the universe got its start eons earlier and has cycled through myriad episodes of birth and death, with the Big Bang merely the most recent in a series of starting guns.
That startling notion, proposed by theoretical physicist Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford in England and Vahe Gurzadyan of the Yerevan Physics Institute and Yerevan State University in Armenia, goes against the standard theory of cosmology known as inflation.
The researchers base their findings on circular patterns they discovered in the cosmic microwave background, the ubiquitous microwave glow left over from the Big Bang. The circular features indicate that the cosmos itself circles through epochs of endings and beginnings, Penrose and Gurzadyan assert. The researchers describe their controversial findings in an article posted at arXiv.org on November 17. Read full story from wired.com
Sacred run and sacred paddle provide solemn memorial for Massachusetts Natives
BOSTON – “I hope our ancestors regain some of their pride stripped from them here on this island that is now a sewer treatment plant for the City of Boston. I am honored they watched over us,” wrote Annawon Weeden, Wampanoag, who finished a 20-mile sacred paddle Oct. 30 to memorialize the internment of indigenous people on Deer Island in Boston Harbor in 1675 as well as the path they were forced to travel: 12 miles by roads, 20 miles by river to the open sea and then to barren Deer Island.
A cheer went up in the crowd of more than 150 people who had gathered in the meeting hall, the sacred paddlers’ destination, at the Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Facility, when they recognized that Troy Phillips, Nipmuc, had entered the room. “They’re here, they’re here,” was shouted by many for the people knew how dangerous the journey was for all the paddlers and runners and they had already waited several hours later than expected. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Nearly 160 women turned out for two events, the first all-day Women’s Forum, and an evening Women’s Caucus Reception where they decided to make issues affecting women and children a higher national priority.
“I’m so excited about the NCAI Women’s Caucus. Finally our women – the life givers, culture bearers and caregivers of our nations – have a national voice,” said Susan Masten, co-president of Women Empowering Women for Indian Nations, who co-chaired the caucus with NCAI Secretary Juana Majel Dixon. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Bizarre Insects Inspire Unintentionally Surreal Art
In the first half of the last century, a German blacksmith named Alfred Keller began crafting some of the most surrealistic, alien-seeming sculptures the world had ever seen — delicate works which took months to complete. These incredible creations, meticulous in detail, rivaled even the most imaginative pieces from contemporary artists — but they weren’t inspired by some absinth-induced vision or fit of madness. Indeed, Keller’s muse was nature itself — and these bugs are quite real.
As an employee of Berlin’s Natural History Museum, Keller was charged with creating lifelike models of insects to be placed on display — a challenge he took very, very seriously. The master artisan worked tirelessly fashioning his creepy, crawly creations from common materials, producing breathtaking works that did incredible justice to the real thing. Read full story from treehugger.com
The exhibition also includes a never before seen portrait of the author alongside belongings and literary work from her family – one of Britain’s most renowned literary dynasties. Read full story from dailymail.co.uk
Can Faith Slow Climate Change?
Give us all a reverence for the Earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others and to your honor and glory.
The prayer was recited regularly by a young Sally Bingham growing up in San Francisco.
Only years later, as an ordained Episcopal Church priest, did Bingham realize something was amiss with the childhood supplication. Read full story from scientificamerican.com
Headless Scorpio Seeking Answers
In a past life I was beheaded on the battlefield, and I’m unable to release my hatred towards the man who killed me. That’s the only professional explanation that I’ve received for my chronic upper back pain, and I’m not convinced of its validity. Thus far, my supernatural queries have failed to explain my life, yet I continue to consult the paranormal for answers.
The allure of the occult stems from my interest in explaining the vagaries of the world. My astrologist, Deb, who thankfully is also the chef at my fraternity house, attributes my fascination to the fact that I’m a Scorpio. She also tells me I should date a Pisces. Why a fish and a scorpion make a good combo is beyond me, but she’s my go-to gal for these matters. Read full story from cornellsun.com
Islands fear “end of history” due to climate changes
CANCUN, Mexico (Reuters) – Some low-lying island nations face the “end of history” due to rising sea levels unless the world takes stronger action to slow global warming, a spokesman said at U.N. climate talks on Monday.
Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives were most at risk, said Antonio Monteiro Lima, a delegate of Cape Verde who is vice-chair of the 43-member Alliance of Small Island States. Read full story from Scientificamerican.com
7 Herbal Remedies You Already Have in Your Kitchen (PHOTOS)
Many people have asked me if I eat differently since writing “Ancient Wisdom, Modern Kitchen: Recipes from the East for Health, Healing, and Long Life” with Chinese medicine experts Yuan Wang, L.Ac., and Warren Sheir, L.Ac. The answer is “Yes, but not always in the way you might imagine.”
Some formerly exotic foods have become familiar (Lotus root? Bring it on!), but a larger shift involves the way I look at many of the ingredients that were already on my kitchen shelf.
Here are seven familiar foods and spices that I have come to appreciate for their therapeutic properties in the 3000-year-old East Asian tradition of treating — and preventing — physical ailments through diet. Read full story from huffingtonpost.com
For all the awe-inspiring wonder of the standing stones at Stonehenge no one has ever worked out how our ancient ancestors were able to heave boulders weighing many tonnes over such huge distances.
But now an engineer and former BBC presenter believes he has come up with a theory which explains how the giant stones were moved.
Garry Lavin believes that the engineers who built Stonehenge used wicker basket-work to ‘roll’ the huge boulders all the way from Wales to their present location. Read full story from dailymail.co.uk
Judge issues permanent injunction on Oklahoma Sharia law ban
A federal judge in Oklahoma has issued an order putting on hold the certification of a ballot measure that forbids state courts from considering or using international laws, as well as Sharia, or Islamic law.
That permanent injunction will allow the judge more time to consider the constitutional issues raised by State Question 755, which was approved by voters earlier this month.
Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange had earlier issued a temporary restraining order in favor of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which had sued to nullify the law completely. Read full story from cnn.com
Gardens: Things to do in December
The leaves are down from the trees now, the light falling to earth for the first time in half a year. We have had frost, even in the microclimate of London, and there is no denying it, winter is with us. There’s a host of jobs to do now that the growing side of things is out of the way, but you need to be strategic over the next few months to work with the weather. Read full story from guardian.co.uk
Onondaga Nation faces new environmental threat: Fracking
NEDROW, N.Y. – The Onondaga, a member nation of the Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederacy and long leaders as healers of the environment face a new threat: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The technique, used for much of today’s natural gas extraction shoots chemicals mixed with millions of gallons of sand and water thousands of feet underground to break apart the rock, allowing more gas to escape and flow out of a well.
Complaints have soared as fracking has expanded across the country. “Every state where this is going on, people’s water is contaminated,” said Joseph Heath, general legal counsel to the Onondaga Nation. Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Meaning of winter solstice
The darkest, coldest time of the year is at once the most dreaded and the most hopeful.
It is the period when, throughout human history, people have feared the possibility that days might continue to get shorter, and nights longer, with the inevitable demise of life.
Indeed, light and life go together, as do darkness and death. To many people in various northern hemisphere cultures, this late-December period has been considered the most dangerous time of year. Indeed this is true, for until quite recently it was when food and fuel might run out with no means left for survival, and when unpredictable weather might bring dreadful results. Read full story from projo.com
Zodiac Zone: Meet Sagittarius
Nearly everyone knows a little something about astrology – even if it’s only where to find the daily horoscope section in the local newspaper. Whether you truly believe the stars control your destiny, think it’s all bunk, or just like to have fun with it, the 12 signs of the zodiac are part of our cultural heritage. Over the next year, the Farmers’ Almanac will introduce you to the facts and mythology behind each constellation in the traditional Western zodiac. This month, Sagittarius. Read full story from farmersalmanac.com
Have you ever heard that, or maybe even said it yourself? This expression is one we humans sometimes use to explain why we have done something wrong. It’s not only an attempt to explain our bad behavior, but is used on some occasions to even justify it.
Is that really the explanation for our wrongdoings, that we’re just human and therefore imperfect? Some who believe in God as their creator suggest that that is how God made them imperfect. But is God really the cause of our imperfection? Read full story from wickedlocal.com
Naz Humphreys, who is 5ft tall, had travelled to Hamilton from Auckland last Tuesday in the hope of securing an extra role on Peter Jackson’s forthcoming two-part adaptation of JRR Tolkien‘s classic fantasy tale. However, according to the Waikato Times, she was told after a three-hour wait that her skin tone made it unlikely she would be cast. Read full story from guardian.co.uk
Short Animated Films About Green Stuff (Videos) And the Oscar for Best Green Short Goes to…
One of the great things about the web is how inexpensive it now is to reach a lot of people. Not so long ago you would have needed to have access to either a printing press, a movie or television studio, or a radio station. Now, anybody can create a website and publish text, or use digital tools to create videos that can then be hosted on a variety of free sites (youtube, Vimeo, etc). Here’s a compilation of some great short animated films about green topics. Read full story from treehugger.com
Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight by Stimulus
In the name of job creation and clean energy, the Obama administration has doled out billions of dollars in stimulus money to some of the nation’s biggest polluters and granted them sweeping exemptions from the most basic form of environmental oversight, a Center for Public Integrity investigation has found.
The administration has awarded more than 179,000 “categorical exclusions” to stimulus projects funded by federal agencies, freeing those projects from review under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Coal-burning utilities like Westar Energy and Duke Energy, chemical manufacturer DuPont, and ethanol maker Didion Milling are among the firms with histories of serious environmental violations that have won blanket NEPA exemptions. Read full story from publicintegrity.com
The Pew survey’s release comes one day before the Pentagon is expected to release a report on how military personnel feel about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which bans openly gay troops for serving in the armed forces. Red full story from cnn.com
Where lucky suspected witches live in camps
From Accra, the capital to Hamile in the north, and from Aflao in the east to Elubo in the west, it looks like Ghanaians are becoming obsessed with witchcraft and this has taken a dangerous trend.
Whilst some Pentecostal churches claim they have to exorcises those who confess, in some traditional communities, especially in the north, these so called witches are isolated and made to live in camps. What is worrying is that, women are mainly those who are accused of witchcraft and made to suffer the consequences. Read full story from africareview.com
But not all is well with this iconic species, which has been in retreat from humans for decades. Now new thinking about the conservation and restoration of North America’s wild herds of caribou combines not only the latest western approach to science but also the tried-and-tested ancient knowledge and perspectives of indigenous cultures that co-existed so long and so successfully with these northern animals. Read full story from nationalgeographic.com
Navajo Nation urges US to adopt UN Declaration
ST. MICHAELS, Ariz. – The disparity in the government’s treatment of federally recognized and non-recognized tribes is not consistent with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Duane H. Yazzie, chairperson of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission said Oct. 15.
The “Declaration does not separate or categorize us and treat us differently based on the categories, like the U.S. does,” he said, citing Article 1 of the Declaration: “Indigenous peoples, whether individually or collectively shall enjoy their human rights.” Read full story from indiancountrytoda.com
The Corvallis teenager, accused of plotting to detonate a bomb during the annual tree-lighting ceremony in “Portland’s living room,” will make his first court appearance Monday morning in U.S. District Court in Portland. Read full story from oregonlive.com
Masters of Math, From Old Babylon
If the cost of digging a trench is 9 gin, and the trench has a length of 5 ninda and is one-half ninda deep, and if a worker’s daily load of earth costs 10 gin to move, and his daily wages are 6 se of silver, then how wide is the canal?
Or, a better question: if you were a tutor of Babylonian scribes some 4,000 years ago, holding a clay tablet on which this problem was incised with cuneiform indentations — the very tablet that can now be seen with 12 others from that Middle Eastern civilization at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World — what could you take for granted, and what would you need to explain to your students? In what way did you think about measures of time and space? How did you calculate? Did you believe numbers had an abstract existence, each with its own properties? Read full story from nytimes.com
How the Internet Changed Paganism
The Internet is a wonderful tool used by numerous people worldwide. Although some might not admit it, most people rely on the Internet for most things that they do. Now, how does this relate to Paganism, one might ask? Well it seems that the Internet has made information on Paganism and the various traditions that it encompasses (i.e. Druidism, Wicca, etc) more accessible to people now a days. There are many articles on Paganism available to read on the Internet (not all are good but there are many informative pieces out there) .
If it weren’t for the wonder that is the world wide Internet, I probably would not be on the spiritual path that I am today- I cannot say that for sure but it is improbable. To be honest, I can’t quite remember exactly how I ended up typing “Wicca” into the Google search engine on my laptop computer. However, what I do know is that for some reason I did and it led me to reading various articles on the religion, that I now call my own. It led me to discover that there is a spiritual path that seems to encompass basically everything that I believe- in terms of what the divine is. It felt to me like I finally had found the spiritual path that I was meant to be on. Many people will understand what I am saying by this; that something which had been missing was finally filled. In fact, Wicca helped me become a better person and Paganism in general, is something that I find myself feeling extremely passionate about. Read full story from witchvox.com
Istanbul Treats Its Famous and Beautiful Bosphorus Strait Like a Trash Can, Turkish NGO Says
From the deck of a boat bobbing on its surface, Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait seems to flow fresh and strong, breathing air and energy into the city it divides into two continents. When anchored in a secluded cove near the Black Sea end of the strait, it even feels clean enough to swim in. But what lies underneath the waves is apparently another matter altogether.
“Everywhere there are people, there is pollution,” Hakan Tiryaki, the head of the Underwater Cleaning Movement (STH), which works to raise awareness about aquatic pollution, told the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet. Members of the group have dived down to the seabed 250 times since 2005 and say the strait is full of garbage — from old furniture to boat parts, cleaning supplies to restaurant trash. And, of course, plenty of plastic bags. STH divers have removed more than 16,000 pieces of solid waste from just one part of the waterway. Read full story from treehugger.com
Wicken Traditions in Salem During Halloween
Halloween in Salem—the phrase generally conjures up images of reveling party-goers dressed as scantily as possible, roaming the streets for a night of fun and excess. Halloween is taken to the extreme here in Salem, as anyone who ventures downtown can confess. College students are especially revved up for Halloween, since their celebrating typically includes partying in costumes, stuffing their faces with candy, and generally having a good time.
For some of us, however, there is more to Halloween than ghosts and ghouls and sexy French maid costumes. To the Wiccan and Pagan community, Halloween is a sacred holiday which stems from the ancient Celtic New Year known as “Samhain” (pronounced “Sow-ain”). Samhain is traditionally celebrated as the end of the harvest season, and also as a time when the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. Read full story from salemstatelog.com
In Salem, Life After Halloween
It’s no surprise to Salem residents and to SSU students alike that the city of Salem is a madhouse in the days leading up to and on Halloween. However, now that the season has come and gone with Thanksgiving and Christmas on the horizon, what happens to all the businesses that thrive off their long-gone cash-cow month?
Since Salem’s 300th anniversary in 1992 of the Witch Hysteria, the city has seen a regular increase in the number of revelers out to enjoy the month-long Haunted Happenings celebrations.
According to Destination Salem, Salem’s tourist office, there has been a 12 percent increase in the number of visitors since last year, and it is estimated that the October season pumps approximately $9 million into the local economy. So what happens now to all our local tourist traps after Halloween? Read full story from salemstatelog.com
One scientist’s hobby: recreating the ice age
CHERSKY, Russia – Wild horses have returned to northern Siberia. So have musk oxen, hairy beasts that once shared this icy land with woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats. Moose and reindeer are here, and may one day be joined by Canadian bison and deer.
Later, the predators will come — Siberian tigers, wolves and maybe leopards.
Russian scientist Sergey Zimov is reintroducing these animals to the land where they once roamed in millions to demonstrate his theory that filling the vast emptiness of Siberia with grass-eating animals can slow global warming. Read full story from yahoo.com
Spanish woman claims ownership of the Sun
MADRID (AFP) – After billions of years the Sun finally has an owner — a woman from Spain’s soggy region of Galicia said Friday she had registered the star at a local notary public as being her property.
Angeles Duran, 49, told the online edition of daily El Mundo she took the step in September after reading about an American man who had registered himself as the owner of the moon and most planets in our Solar System. Read full story from yahoo.com
Christopher Hitchens vs. Tony Blair: the full transcript
You may need to set aside the rest of your Saturday to get through this, but here in full is the transcript of the long-anticipated Munk debate between Christopher Hitchens and former prime minister Tony Blair. The motion: “Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world”. No prizes for guessing who was arguing for and against.
The debate was hosted last night in Toronto, Canada before an audience of 2,600. Reports suggest that touts were selling tickets for up to five hundred Canadian dollars.
According to post-debate voting on the Munk debate website, Hitchens won the argument against the motion by 68 per cent to 32 per cent. A pre-debate poll showed that 57 per cent were against the motion and 22 per cent were for it — demonstrating, I guess, the impressive debating skills of both men. Red full story from newstatesman.com
My Take: How real interfaith dialogue works
I’ve thought for some time that if more Americans had personal contact, even friendships, with their fellow Americans who are Muslims there might be less mistrust and misunderstanding about the role Islam plays in their lives.
The years have convinced me that interfaith dialogue, particularly the one-on-one variety, is a more viable way to break down barriers between people than large-scale efforts. Read full story from cnn.com
“What Do You Ask a Shaman?” on November 30 “Why Shamanism Now?” Radio Show with Christina Pratt
(OPENPRESS) November 27, 2010 — Streaming live on the Co-Creator Radio Network (www.co-creatornetwork.com) on Tuesday, November 30, at 11 a.m. Pacific time/2 p.m. Eastern time, on her show “Why Shamanism Now?: A Practical Path to Authenticity,” shaman and founder of the Last Mask Center for Shamanic Healing Christina Pratt reviews some of the questions posed to her – questions like: Can shamanism help with mental illness? What about my depression? Am I cheating myself out of healing by taking my pharmaceuticals? Can you heal my father’s dementia? Does shamanic healing work long distance? How do I “pay the rent” with powerful psychoactive plants and stay in good relationship with the spirit world? Why does gratitude matter? Read full story from theopenpress.com
Snapshot of a Civilization in the Making
The eastern desert of Jordan is unforgiving, a lunar landscape that races 500 lonely miles from Amman to the outskirts of Baghdad. Along the main road, there are few signs of life: a dusty army base, a desert grouse, the bleached bones of a dead animal. Yet through the sandy silence, the wind carries whispers of luxury. About 50 miles from Amman stands a small, richly decorated bathhouse called Qusayr Amra. It is among the strangest, most spectacular examples of early Islamic art, a solitary monument to la dolce vita in this sun-scorched earth. At Qusayr Amra, we can catch a glimpse of Islamic high culture in the making. The picture that forms is surprising, to say the least. Read full story from wsj.com
White house confirms support of ‘clean Carcieri fix’
WASHINGTON – The White House has reiterated its support for a “Carcieri fix” – legislation confirming the federal government’s authority to take Indian land into trust for general purposes, while the Interior Department has distanced itself from a senator’s proposal that would virtually eliminate off reservation trust land for gaming.
“I think everyone in the administration that’s talked about it has made it very clear that we support the clean Carcieri fix,” White House spokesman Shin Inouye told Indian Country Today Nov. 23. “The president has said that, the Secretary (of Interior) has said that, we’ve said that in all our letters and testimony to Congress. Is there some confusion out there about our position?” Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Richard Preston, a landscape designer, has been the latest person to spot a mysterious shape that might be the Loch Ness monster and capture a series of images on camera. Read full story from stv.tv
There’s oxygen on Rhea, but aliens? Don’t hold your breath
On its journey around Saturn and its moons, the Cassini mission – jointly run by NASA and the European Space Agency – has made another breathtaking discovery. The findings, published in Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1198366), show that Rhea, the second biggest moon of the giant planet, has an atmosphere that is 70 per cent oxygen and 30 per cent carbon dioxide. This adds to the picture of Rhea that Cassini has already provided by imaging its craters and discovering its rings. Read full story from newscientist.com
Fun “green” projects from Marc de Vinck
We’ve done a lot of projects on MAKE over the years that use largely recycled or scrounged materials. As we continue our MAKE Green Projects Contest, we thought it’d be fun to feature some of them here. We figured we’d tag some of our own green! Read full stor from makezine.com
Towards a Spiritual future with Celtic beliefs:
In Ancient times, the ancestral races of many European nations today were known as ‘Celtics’ as they shared Iron Age inherent roots and they had many mythological belief’s with a touch of spirituality.
Literary Druids were Celtic priests and legend says that they were possessed by many magical powers.
As the Druidism movement was originally inspired by 17th, 18th, and 19th century Romantic movements, neo druids also developed fraternal organizations modeled on Free-masonry that employed the romantic figure of the British Druids and Bards as symbols of indigenous British spirituality. Read full story from dailymirror.lk
Man not denied chauffeur’s permit because he was a pagan
The man who claimed Vancouver police discriminated against him and refused to give him a chauffeur’s permit because he was a pagan whose sexual practices included bondage, domination, sadism and masochism has lost his appeal to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Peter Hayes had filed a complaint against the Vancouver Police Board and Const. Kevin Barker after Barker refused to give him the permit needed for his employment as a limousine driver in May 2005. Read full story from vancouversun.com
Why is Cthulhu on this 300-year-old gravestone? The Reverend Ichabod Wiswall (1637-1700) is a historical footnote. When he’s remembered, it’s for giving the first funeral sermon in America, in Duxbury, Massachusetts. So why is there a Lovecraftian cephalopod on his gravestone?
Wiswall was responsible, with the Reverend Increase Mather, for persuading Queen Mary to create the 1692 charter which united the colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay into the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which became the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Wiswall served the town of Duxbury as a minister for 24 years and is buried in Duxbury in the Myles Standish Burial Ground, supposedly the oldest continually maintained cemetery in the United States. Read full story from i09,com
The prayers went on forever. Actually, they lasted – usually – about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. It really did seem like they would never end, though.
And the worst part was that he knew what he was doing to us! He knew that it was torture – the smells, the sights, the waiting. He and grandma put all of the boiling meats and the red hot dogs and the sweets all on the little table with the yellow, vinyl table cloth on it – right there for all of us to see. We all knew that the potato salad was going to be good and mustardy, and we knew that we were gonna get some pop that was not warm Cragmont Cream Soda. And it was simply mean, what he was doing, gosh darn it – the smells were incredible! Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com
Deputy: Woman Advised To Leave Gun On Grave To “Clear Her Spirits” BOILING SPRINGS, S.C. –A gun was found sitting in a box on a grave in Boiling Springs after a woman says she was advised by a medium to leave something behind that was given to her by the deceased.
The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office says a .45 caliber pistol was found in a box sitting on a grave at Good Shepard Memorial Gardens Tuesday afternoon. Read full story from wspa.com
TIBET – CHINA Dalai Lama to retire in six months Dharamsala – The Dalai Lama plans to retire from political life over the next six months, a spokesman said today, thus reiterating what the leader of Tibetan Buddhism said two days ago in an interview with an Indian TV network.
The 76-year-old spiritual leader, who fled Chinese-occupied Tibet in 1959, wants to step down in order to return to his homeland as an ordinary citizen. The current 14th Dalai Lama, who wants to die on the “roof of the world”, is not likely to convince the Chinese to grant him this wish. Read full story from speroforum.com
Australian Poltergeist Video
GT reader David S. contacted us about a “ghost hunter” from Queensland Australia who is said to have captured some compelling evidence of poltergeist activity.
NQGHOSTHUNTER is the ghost hunter’s username on YouTube. His videos show some interesting and clear shots of objects being tossed around and moved by unseen forces….or strings.
Check out the first clip. In this clip, we see lights being flicked on and off and some basic object movement: Read full story from ghosttheory.com
China says it is world’s top greenhouse gas emitter
BEIJING (Reuters) – China acknowledged on Tuesday it is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases stoking global warming, confirming what scientists have said for years but defending its right to keep growing emissions.
China’s chief negotiator in international climate change talks, Xie Zhenhua, made the comment while spelling out his government’s position ahead of negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 over a new global pact to fight global warming. Read full story from scientificamerican.com
A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy One
We spend billions of dollars each year looking for happiness, hoping it might be bought, consumed, found, or flown to. Other, more contemplative cultures and traditions assure us that this is a waste of time (not to mention money). ‘Be present’ they urge. Live in the moment, and there you’ll find true contentment.
Sure enough, our most fulfilling experiences are typically those that engage us body and mind, and are unsullied by worry or regret. In these cases, a relationship between focus and happiness is easy to spot. But does this relationship hold in general, even for simple, everyday activities? Is a focused mind a happy mind? Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert decided to find out. Read full story from scientificamerican.com
“It was seen as an unnecessary celebration,” said historian Owen Muelder, director of the Galesburg Colony Underground Railroad Freedom Center at Knox and a former administrator at the college.
The college was established by Congregationalists and Presbyterians who followed strict religious practices and codes of behavior.“They did not want to in any way have celebrations at Christmas that had to do with pagan tradition,” Muelder said. “The founders of Knox College didn’t celebrate Christmas the way we do. They didn’t celebrate in any way other than recognition of Christ’s birth. No parties. No Christmas trees. Read full story from galesburg.com
“While our federal government is sitting on its hands, California is moving full speed ahead to a clean-energy future,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in his weekly address on November 19. “We are creating a consistent, long-term energy policy—something that has eluded Washington for decades. In fact, Washington should take a lesson from what is happening right now here in California.” Read full story from scientificamerican.com
Crazy Things You Didn’t Know You Could Compost (Plus, Some You Can’t), Holiday Edition
Fresh on the heels of the pizza box scandal, in which EcoSalon cleared up some mysteries with recyling, we’ve uncovered more items that you can’t compost — and some surprising ones you can. This being the holiday season, we enter a whole new level of composting controversy. Seriously, Santa, lay off the tinsel. Here’s how to navigate the festivities with an eye to the bin and the bucket. Read full story from treehugger.com
