I spent Independence Day enjoying my country’s natural beauty at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Later in the evening I enjoyed watching the firework display coming from the county fairgrounds. It was fun being in Montana for the Fourth as they allow much more kinds of firecrackers than Minnesota does, and you can [...]
Archive for the ‘Politics/Culture’ Category
Independence from Politics
Posted in Civil Liberties, Holidays, Politics/Culture on July 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
On the Value of Democracy
Posted in Ethics, Pagan Community, Politics/Culture, tagged democracy, leadership, politics on June 18, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Democracy, the revolutionary idea of choosing ones’ own leaders as a community, originated in polytheistic societies. The most obvious of course being Athens, Greece but Iceland had the Althing, and the Founding Fathers of the United States took inspiration from the Iroquois Confederacy in forming a system of government and writing the Constitution. Now, technically, [...]
Flag Day and Patriotism
Posted in Holidays, Politics/Culture on June 14, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Today is Flag Day here in the United States. So, what does that have to do with Paganism? Well, I am part of a small movement called Religio Americana or American Paganism which grew out of a discussion on the Beliefnet Hellenismos & Religio Romana forum sometime around 2002. Erik Dutton and some others were [...]
The Culture of Halloween
Posted in Celtic/Druid, Christianity, Holidays, Popular Culture, Religious Right, tagged American culture, children, consumerism, Halloween, Samhain, sexuality on November 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In the past 20 years so there have some changes in the culture of Halloween in the United States. Likewise celebration of the holiday has spread to parts of the world where it was previously unknown. I am interested in exploring this and wondering how this may affect its older cousin, Samhain. I do observe [...]
Eternal Vigilance
Posted in Civil Liberties on April 9, 2007 | 1 Comment »
This weekend we are Blogging Against Theocracy.
I have to concur with Jason Pizl-Waters that while we aren’t quite on the verge of theocracy- religion established formally in government but we are far from having a perfect separation of church and state. Our country was founded upon high ideals, and we’ve never quite lived up [...]
The Patriot Act (response to Khepri)
Posted in Civil Liberties on June 24, 2006 | Leave a Comment »
A reader commented on "Why This Blog?" and rather astutely challenged my assertions. For some reason, WordPress seems to have hidden the comment, though you can read it by clicking on "Comments" . So I will respond here.
In my post I called Bush supporters fools, but it seems I too have been rather foolish- I've [...]
