Scott
Chisholm Lamont, BSN, RN, CCRN, CFRN, ENC(C)
is a pediatric critical care nurse and flight
nurse with over 23 years of health care experience,
including 16 years as an RN. A graduate
of the Mount
Royal CollegeNursing
Program, he has completed formal education
in trauma and cardiovascular critical care,
and holds both adult and pediatric critical
care certification. He is currently on
leave from the University
of California, San FranciscoSchool
of Nursing, where he is a doctoral student
in the Department
of Community Health Systems under the advisement
of Dr.
Jean Ann Seago. During his break he is busily
trying to get papers written for his qualifying
exams in hopes of advancing to candidacy. His
research interest is system of care effects
on patient safety, particularly the relationship
between nurses' cognitive workload and threats
to patient safety.
Prior
to beginning his graduate studies, he practiced
in Albuquerque,
NM at the University
of New Mexico Health Sciences Center as
a Specialty Nurse III at the Children's
Hospital. After working for several
years in the PICU, he headed up the Pediatric
Pain Team and worked at the Children’s
Hospital Heart Center. He also held
a joint appointment at the College
of Nursing as an Adjunct Clinical Lecturer.
He is curently back at UNM
Hospitals, serving as the Emergency/Trauma
Clinical Educator and as a pediatric clinical
instructor for the College of Nursing, teaching
senior students on their complex client rotation.
While
attending UCSF full time, Scott lived on an
island in the Bay and served as an adjunct lecturer
and clinical instructor at Dominican
University of CaliforniaDepartment
of Nursing. He maintained a clinical practice
as a per diem pediatric palliative care nurse
for a home hospice program called Comfort
for Kids, based in Pleasant Hill, Contra
Costa County, CA.
Scott
Lamont is a published poet and author, including
works in anthologies, nursing text books, and
spoken word on radio. He holds credentials as
clergy through the Covenant
of the Goddess, is the High Priest of Circle
of the Winter Moon, and teaches leadership
topics such as conflict resolution and consensus
facilitation for Ardantane.
He lives in the high desert with his wife and
daughter, and the two cats that run their lives.
A bit more
about me:
In
case there are any doubts about my political
and philosophical inclinations, here I am with
my good friend Doug Haigh at one of the first
major peace marches in San Francisco in the
period leading up to the most recent invasion
of Iraq by the Bush dynasty. You can find my
signature on both the original and more
recent Not
In Our Name "STATEMENT
OF CONSCIENCE AGAINST WAR AND REPRESSION".
I'm proud to say that I'm not the only Lamont
on there, and the Lambs and Lamberts are septs
of and therefore also members of Clan
Lamont. I have also supported efforts to
have him tried for crimes against humanity,
and to protest his administration's manipulation
of science (strikingly similar to the manipulation
of inteligence before the war, don't you think?).
So yeah, I'm a pacifist. A tree-hugging, touchy-feely,
bleeding-heart queer-boy pacifist at that. I
would like people to follow the examples offered
by the likes of Ghandi, King, and even Lester
B. Pearson, who amongst other things created
the concept of the peacekeeping force and while
Prime Minister implemented the world's first
race-free, points-based immigration system.
Oh,
yes - I am Canadian.
I
try, within the constraints of time available
to me, to keep politically and socially active.
I am a member of the Canadian
Green Party, support organizations like
the Sierra
Club and the Bioneers,
participate in interfaith diologue as a member
of the Covenant
of the Goddess, advocate for queer
rights, and volunteer for many worthwhile
causes in the Albuquerque
area. Probably one of the most important things,
in my opinion, is to try and protect the environment
we live in and depend on. To that end, my wife
Shara and I are interested in sustainability
and restoration through practices like permaculture,
intentional
community in the form of ecovillages,
alternative
energy sources, decreasing the impact of
automobiles in our lives and upon our landscape,
and alternative
building methods that use natural or reclaimed
materials and merge old and new technologies,
such as Earthships,
cob,
and strawbale.
However,
my big thing is nursing, which sort of spills
over into everything else - you know, things
like healthy homes, healthy food, healthy societies,
healthy conflict resolution. I guess I find
it hard to believe that any good can come of
shooting others full of bullet holes (including
children who wind up as "collateral damage")
when I've treated people, including children,
who have been shot. I've seen the damage it
does, and how far the pain spreads.
Perhaps being enthusiastic about starting wars
is a family trait? I wonder if Jeb will want
a crack at Iraq too? Or perhaps the twins? Maybe
the Bushes should spend some time in the ER.
March
10, 2006: Based on a request for an inservice
at UNM Children's Hospital on Pagan faiths
and their spiritual needs, I've posted
a
teaching handout on the basics of modern
Paganism. It is focused on the needs
of the dying and their families, as it
was originally presented to the pediatric
hospice program, but I may modify it to
reflect Pagan beliefs about other life
transitions.
March
2, 2006: Due in part to a conflict that
has erupted in the Albuquerque area Pagan
community, I have posted some new pages
in my spiritual section of this site,
in hopes that they might be a resource
not only to folks in my community, but
in communities anywhere that experience
conflicts. First, I've started a page
with some thoughts, tidbits, and essays
on community and how to support peaceful
and inclusive spiritual communities. Second,
I have posted a model
of communication styles based on the five
sacred elements of creation that I
developed with my friend Tehom for a course
last year.
September
16, 2005: I've posted some presentations
I've given on various nursing topics.
You can find the links here
under "Latest Pages Added" for
the nursing section.
May
26, 2005: The vastly delayed first edition
of my
nursing podcast is up and available.
The server the audio files are stored
on is a little twitchy at the moment (but
free, so within my budget), so if you
can't get the .mp3 to load right away,
try again in a few minutes.
(I've updated this link to reflect that
it now has it's own website)
May
5, 2005: I have posted an
essay on the concept of professional autonomy.
This was a concept analysis I wrote for
one of my doctoral courses on nursing
theory. It needs re-writing, but I thought
that it was still worth sharing even though
it is a work in progress.
Apr
28, 2005: I
have posted an
advice sheet I created for my students
on how to effectively study for and write
exams. I hope anyone who is faced
with writing exams finds it useful (and
it is certainly the time of year that
many are faced with exams!). I am also
working on developing a page about nursing
documentation and standardized nursing
classification language.
Apr
18, 2005: I
have posted the
graduation speech I made on behalf
of the RN to BSN grads at the UNM
College of Nursing December 2001 ceremony.
I think it has some points worth thinking
about regarding the challenges facing
nursing and nurses over the next decade.
I have also started work on the page that
will be hosting the very first nursing
podcast available on the web: The
Nursing Station. I will post here
when the first edition is ready to download.
Dec 21,
2004: Some of my published nursing poetry is up along
with a couple of related links in my
poetry section. I've also started to work on my
spirituality page, mainly getting some links up
and my clergy profile from the Witches
Voice.
Dec 1,
2004: I've posted a beginning page on consensus
process and my interest and involvement in it.
More to come.
Coming Soon:
Dec 7,
2004: I will be posting some information on nurse-patient
ratios that I found in my meta-analysis class last
quarter - look here for a note when it is up.
Wingnut
Site of the Week:
Just because
there are so many strange and tortured websites out
there, offered by people who seem to be able to merge
hysteria, misinformation, and mean-spiritedness into
incoherent, steaming piles of HTML, it seemed only
reasonable (and amusing) to offer you a link to whatever
site has caught my eye each week.
Here is
a site that delights in telling you all the reasons
you (yes, you!) will be going to HELL. I've got a
long list of them, it seems. Queers are at the top
of the list (of course), followed closely by Pagans.
Strangely enough, no mention of those who eat shellfish
or wear cotton/polyester blends. Does, however, include
a long list of descriptions and visions of HELL. I'm
not too worried, though, since I have a
way out.
What
can I say? It starts off like this: "At the command
of OUR BELOVED HEAVENLY FATHER, I, Tom Wells, loving
and obedient child of GOD, am running for Florida's
First Congressional seat in the United States House
of Representatives", and elsewhere details
who may NOT donate money to the party (hint: don't
be a fag).
Oh, yes,
white supremacy by any other name smells thusly rank.
If you're not convinced, check out their status as
a signatory to the "New
Orleans Protocol", authored by none other
than David Duke. Say no more.
This site
seems to be aimed at saving "our" children
from sex education, the "radical homosexual agenda"
(we also have a secret handshake, but I'm not allowed
to show it to you), and Islam, not necessarily in
that order. Of particular note, the author spends
plenty of time detailing the various horrible things
that the Koran says people should do, yet neglects
to mention similar exhortations in other sacred texts
(like the Bible). She also loves them gays, but despises
everything about them, and doesn't want children imitating
their behaviour - missing the obvious point that religion
itself is a behaviour, open to the exact same kind
of criticism. I certainly don't want my daughter imitating
this author.
Well,
not exactly. It really started
off as a critique of the lack of comprehensive
coverage in an MSM article on Wicca, which
is hardly surprising, since that is the focus
of the website (their slogan is "the press
just doesn't get religion"). Daniel
Pulliam, the writer of the post is a journalist
and Christian, and says in his profile that
he wants to adhere to fair treatment of all
subjects in his pieces. However, early on in
the post he pulls
a Bush and says of Wicca "if you can
call it a religion", wondering what could
possibly lead to the persecution some modern
Pagans have experienced. The core of his piece
is really asking what Wicca is, what the fuss
is all about, why doesn't the article being
critiqued have any real content about what it
is that Pagans believe and how they practice
their faith. Good questions, but not phrased
in the most positive manner.
Jason
Pitzl-Waters, Judy
Harrow, and Chas
Clifton all chime in under the comments
section with some excellent points. They also
recommend some really great books, including
some that I have read or recently purchased.
One of the more interesting threads in the comments
is whether or not Wicca or Paganism have "dogma"
- the answer I think boils down to some people
who adhere to these faiths have adopted dogmatic
stances on certain theological points, but the
faiths themselves are decentralized, and in
the broadest sense do not have a dogmatic theo/thealogy
nor a vehicle by which to promulgate it.
Here
is a little video of Wiccan images that was
posted with the article - I'm not really sure
why, unless it is because it really doesn't
say that much about what Wicca is or how its
adherents practice, which is kind of the theme
of the post. Jason points out in
a post on his blog that what Dan seems to
be looking for is the controversy - the 'wacky'
elements of Wicca - and perhaps the video is
supposed to point towards that.
On
a side note, GR also posts what I can only call
an
apologetic's approach to the Haggard thing.
Sorry, but hypocrisy is the name for loudly
and publicly condemning a group that you secretly
belong too. Offer him compassion and try to
understand how deeply conflicted he must be?
Sure, but it is still hypocrisy.
BTW
- if you would love to see some other charming
Bush quotes, click
here.
The
purpose
of this blog is to post interesting, day to
day tidbits that touch upon at least one of
the eclectic topics of my pages, ranging from
nursing to politics. I will try to avoid those
traps of the blogosphere, where this becomes
either part of an echo chamber or the posts
are so self-involved that they aren't worth
your time to read. Mainly, I am hoping to get
people to think a little, maybe challenge some
assumptions. I will also try to watch my spelling
while I'm at it.
Comments?
Thoughts? Rants about my rants? You can use
the convenient comment tabs found at the top
of each item, and I promise to read them and
to leave them up for others to read (within
reason, of course - plain old flames are boring,
and I'm not going to waste server space on them).
If you just want to say something to me, you
can e-mail
me.
Tonight
the girls and I were off to Spiral
Scouts, which meets at the local UU church.
Spiral Scouts is the alternative to traditional
scouting for children belonging to minority
religions, particularly Earth centered faiths.
I was a Boy
Scout when I lived in Montreal as a kid,
believe it or not, and really enjoyed it, but
of course now would be banned for being Pagan
and queer.
They
were working on painting the sculptures they
made the week before as part of their work for
their Art badge. I snapped a shot with my Treo
while they were setting up to do their thing
(Micaela is on the left, Rhiannon, my Goddess-daughter
is on the right). Very cute, and they are getting
quite creative with their use of colour.
If
you are interested, check out SacredSpiralKids,
a nice website with "free activities for
Pagan and Earth Spiritual children, homeschoolers,
organizers, and teachers".
The
NY Times headline reads "Studies
Find Danger to Forests In Thinning Without Burning",
and the story is basicaly that Bush's "Healthy
Forests Initiative" thinning plan (which
timber companies loved) leaves too much brush
and deadfall on the ground, resulting in hotter,
more destructive fires. This is according to
two separate U.S. Forest Service studies. So,
a policy leading to more threats to lives and
property. Hmmmm, that sounds familiar.....
Follow-up on the "Great Debate" -
audio and video posted.
So
the video and audio of my debate with an evangelical
pastor last month are now online. I actually
found these links about a week ago, and just
have not had the time to write what I wanted
to write and get it posted. I am still working
on a piece reflecting on my experience of the
interaction and my impression of one of the
major differences in spiritual approach between
Pagans (as I have come to understand them) and
evangelical Christians (as I am coming, in an
admittedly limited way, to understand them),
which will be entitled "Faith and Certainty"
- this will be linked to the post as soon as
I have it done and posted.
In
relation to my
earlier post on the debate, I now feel better
about my performance, although it is still ironic
to note how little of it was about Hallowe'en,
which was the supposed topic. Scott
Richards posted about the debate on his blog
(the site does not use permalinks, nor does
it have the capability for trackback and comments
- if you have something to say to him on the
subject, you'll
have to e-mail him directly) - scroll through
his October archives to find the entry for 10/27/06.
My
only beef with the whole thing, really, is the
over-the-top headline they used: War
of the World Views. Why did
they choose to cast this in the light of "civilizations
in collision" and the world in flames?
The Pagans certainly have no interest in creating
or perpetuating any conflict with other belief
systems, and I find the easy use of war as an
analogy or framework very disturbing, particularly
coming from a faith that follows the "Prince
of Peace". When Scott posted about the
audio file coming available, he linked to the
news
headlines of KNKT, one of at least 2 radio
stations sponsored by Calvary
of Albuquerque. I'm not sure how long it
will be posted there, so I thought that I would
post it here for posterity:
Opposing
world views clashed - in a very civilized
manner - on the UNM campus recently. Pastor
Scott Richards from Tucson Arizona and Scott
Lamont, High Priest of the Circle of the
Winter Moon, presented the different views
and philosophies behind Christianity and
Paganism. It was an enlightening hour of
debate; one that provided a lot of food
for thought for everyone in the room. Who
won the debate? Well, it wasn't so much
about winning as it was about Truth. Listen
for yourself.
Part
of the deal was going to be that the unanswered
questions were going to be sent to myself and
Scott, so that we could respond in writing,
and then those were going to be posted somewhere
online. That hasn't happened yet, and the person
I asked about it hasn't gotten back to me with
an answer. I'll post again if I hear more. Regarding
the "winning vs. Truth" bit in their
post about the debate, well, that is going to
be part of what I tackle in my upcoming post,
so stay tuned.
"Christ
Weary of Election Prayers" reads the
headline. What follows is a colourfully worded
rant about the Family Research Council's "Super-Duper
Prayer Team", which of course the Rude
One belongs to "under a nom de rude".
I like his closing suggesting that the religious
Right is beseeching a "micromanaging God
". My favourite old (and probably mangled)
quote is that "the Goddess does not take
sides in political debates or interspecies warfare".
She/He/It doesn't sweat the small stuff, and
we probably shouldn't either.
I
have to admit that I stayed out way too late
dancing at our annual SWEFA
Witches’ Ball last night. Then some
of us came back to our place and hot tubbed
until well after 2am. Add my sleep deprivation
from the night before (our covenSamhain,
which went until well into the night, followed
by Micaela getting up at something horrible
like 7am), and I am wiped. Today was our nephew
Cameron’s birthday party, and we did fondue
and a beer tasting. Some of the beer was really
good too – a new one by Unibroue
from Quebec (Don
de Dieu) that I have seen but not tried
before, some good beers by Rogue
including their tasty IPA,
and an excellent Trapist style called Trappistes
Rochefort.
The
joy of working for a modern and open environment
like UNM
Hospitals is that you get to take the day
off for religious observances without a hassle
- Shara and I are both home getting ready for
our personal Samhain
ritual, which will take place this evening after
the girl is off to bed. We don't hold our coven
Samhain until the end of the week (not everyone
gets to take the actual date off work, so we
must bow to the mundane when picking dates for
celebration - technically, if you go by the
Celtic Lunar calendar, Samhain isn't until the
eve of the full moon anyway, which is Nov 5th).
M.
Macha Nightmare sent me another great link,
this time to a San
Francisco Chronicle story on the famous
Spiral
Dance sponsored by Reclaiming
that takes place in the city by the Bay every
year. To quote Macha: "This has some photos
of Lauren Raine’s glorious goddess masks".
Thanks Macha, and a tip of the pointy hat to
you.
That’s
really what it comes down to when faced with
the problems of environmental degradation.A
WaPo article today stated that “Unchecked
global warming will devastate the world economy
on the scale of the world wars and the Great
Depression, a major British report said Monday”.
The report, which was commissioned by British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, appears to be his
"latest effort to enlist President Bush"
to the cause of addressing human activity influenced
climate change. “The author of the British
report, Sir Nicholas Stern, a senior government
economist, said that acting now to cut greenhouse
gas emissions would cost about 1 percent of
global GDP each year.”
Yet, Bush’s cronies continue to ignore
the science behind environmental protection,
and don’t even bother to be nice about
it: Another
WaPo article reports that “A senior
Bush political appointee at the Interior Department
has rejected staff scientists' recommendations
to protect imperiled animals and plants under
the Endangered Species Act at least six times
in the past three years, documents show. In
addition, staff complaints that their scientific
findings were frequently overruled or disparaged
at the behest of landowners or industry have
led the agency's inspector general to look into
the role of Julie MacDonald, who has been deputy
assistant secretary of the interior for fish
and wildlife and parks since 2004, in decisions
on protecting endangered species.” Documents
obtained through the Freedom of Information
Act revealed that MacDonald “mocked rank-and-file
employees' recommendations” and the documents
were “spiced by her mocking comments on
their work and their frequently expressed resentment”.
How charming - must be a Cheney protege.
What is the cost to the economy, and the environment
upon which it depends, when we wipe out a species?
We may not find out until it is too late. What
is clear is that the choices we make in the
forms of political and regulatory decisions
will have a lasting impact on the world our
children with live in.
Our own choices in things as simple as how we
travel will also have an impact on the state
of the world. The
NY Times reports that some companies are
trying to cash in on consumer awareness of how
their personal choices impact climate change:
“Eurostar, which runs the high-speed train
service linking London to Paris and Brussels
via the Channel Tunnel, has started running
ads in travel trade publications asserting that
a journey produces only one-tenth the carbon
dioxide emissions of a comparable flight.”
Once again, which politicians we support will
influence how likely it is that people perceive
a reasonable personal choice to exist, as all
forms of travel have some level of subsidy to
them. Airports, sea ports, roads, all infrastructure
involving travel are subsidized in many different
ways, yet rail is often the most targeted for
reduction. I remember when VIA cut its Calgary
to Vancouver service. It used to be almost as
cheap as the bus to get from Banff to Calgary,
and they had food service. It was often not
convenient in terms of timing, but the train
station was more conveniently located in downtown
Calgary. As the government cut subsidies, choices
became more limited.
"Humans
are ‘bankrupting' the environment"
cries a Globe and Mail headline. "The world's
natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate
unprecedented in human history, and it's the
first-world behemoths doing most of the damage.
An international report compiled by the World
Wildlife Fund has studied the impact of each
nation on the environment as well as changes
in the world's biodiversity. Both parts of the
report deliver bad news. Despite having enough
natural resources to be an “ecological
debtor,” Canada came fourth on the list
of nations putting the heaviest burden on the
environment. The only countries with a worse
ecological footprint — the per capita
measurement of a nation's ecological impact
— were the United Arab Emirates, thanks
almost entirely to its carbon dioxide emissions
from fossil fuels, the United States and Finland."
The
NDP tables a bill to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
“The Prime Minister's Clean Air Act is
dead in the water,” Mr. Layton said at
a press conference in Ottawa Tuesday. “With
it, pollution will go up, not down.”
So
here's the deal with preschoolers and the time
change: They don’t care about the clock.
The girl was up early, and I mean early even
with the 'fall back' taken into account. We
had forgotten completely about it, at least
until I turned on Shara's machine to scan the
news. At least we had plenty of time to get
ready for the Silver
Moon Health Services Annual General Meeting,
which we hosted here and Shara facilitated.
She is a very good Formal
Consensus facilitator. Now the girl is off
with her 'Unca' Tristan so that we have the
night off. We spent the day cleaning the house,
dealing with files, and buying paint for the
walls - can you tell we are married with small
child? At least we got to watch an episode of
'Battlestar
Galactica' tonight (we are enjoying it hugely)
before posting a quick note on the way to bed.
Our
bedroom - 3, with one a double, then the mini
one beside Shara's side of the bed.
Living room - 3, one being a built in wall unit
and the other some huge IKEA monstrosity.
Dining room & Kitchen - we used to have
a big one, now the books are scattered on various
shelves and the top of one wine rack.
Micaela's room - one, already hideously overcrowded.
Temple room - one, underfillled.
My office - 3 plus a half wall hanging set,
completely stuffed.
Storage unit - 3 destroyed in the move, with
boxes full of books longing for a home.
Yeah,
that article pretty much nailed it. We are at
about 15 shelves full, almost but not quite
as bad as the person interviewed who had 19.
So,
with much effort I have finally gotten my RSS
feed fixed. It has taken a long time because
when I screwed it up (remember, I'm coding this
stuff all by hand, no fancy software to help
me out), I just didn't have the time to go redo
it. So I would post, and that would take my
free time, and so the feed would get further
and further behind, until it became an unreasonably
big job to deal with. Well, I finally dealt
with it.
I'm
also trying to get listed on more directories.
Today I listed myself on Directory
2.0 with the following tags: Politics, Religion,
Queer, Opinion, Healthcare, Nursing, Environmentalism,
Wicca, Pagan, & Poetry. It has to be reviewed
by a human before showing in their listing.
Sigh. It takes too bloody long to find all these
listing sites and then get added.
While
I'm in whining mode, this has been a clunky
from the get-go, so my 10 am post got up at
about 8 pm. I really have to invest in some
software to help this process along. Either
that, or hire someone to code for me (yeah,
and win the lotto while I'm at it...).
I
use queer a lot because as Callie says
in the post: "queer connotates challenging
or questioning the status quo. In that
sense, anyone can be 'queer.'" I
have many friends in the Radical Faery
community, and would say I am at the fringe
of that group (amusingly enough, I'm way
too straight to be fae, where I once thought
that I was, as on poster above put it,
from Pluto), and that is a group that
delights in being queer. It includes many
under a big umbrella, so in my posts I
will often refer to 'queer rights' or
'queer folk'.
If
precision is needed, then I say I'm bi
and polyamourous,
which interestingly enough buys me more
conflict from within the queer community
than without. I've gotten the whole 'fence-sitter',
'you-just-haven't-found-the-right-man',
'that's-wussy' load of flak from folks
who ironically are seeking tolerance for
themselves and their friends, and the
idea that you can have a committed relationship
to more than one person just seems to
send some of the 'family' right off the
deep end. I suspect it is because so many
have bought so deeply into the straight
world's dream of 'committed monogamous
relationships for everyone' that anyone
who doesn't play along becomes a threat
to their aspirations of normalcy. Like,
who the fuck really wants to be normal?
Have you noticed how not nice, not to
mention not fun the "normal"
people are?
Needless
to say, someone
almost immediately took umbrage to my suggestion
that some queer folk might have bought too deeply
into the straight world's purported norms. I'll
fire something back. Like I said it is an interesting
discussion - why not toss in your $0.02?
BTW
- did you know this was the symbol for
polyamory?
I
have posted nothing this week, despite the many
things that I would like to write about, because
I have been so busy between work, home, and
preparing for a debate. We (that being the local
Pagan community) were invited to participate
in a debate regarding Hallowe'en on the UNM
campus, hosted by The
City on a Hill (which is in the old Lobo
Theatre on Central) and the local Calvary
Church, to be broadcast on an evangelical
Christian radio station (M88),
as part of a series they were doing called "War
of the World Views:Civilizations in Collision".
Let's just say that the title didn't inspire
confidence on the part of my fellows.
I
came to be involved in this debate in a roundabout
kind of way. When I sent a note to Dave Bruskas,
who is the pastor at City on a Hill, I said
that "I am intrigued by the offer for interfaith
dialogue regarding one of my faith's most important
spiritual celebrations (namely Samhain), and
its secular cultural counterpart (namely Hallowe'en)."
In the end, I was chosen by both my fellow Pagans
and the organizers to be the person representing
Paganism in the discussion, which the organizers
stated was intended to be a respectful debate
that explores the conflicts in our society between
different faiths. They were not really asking
for a debate, per se, but do want to compare
where there is common ground, and where there
are irreconcilable differences. They were very
up front about most of their community being
unfamiliar with Paganism in all its forms, so
my plan was to touch upon the basics, including
the wide diversity of paths and traditions in
our community. In the end, it turned out that
although the timing was structured like a debate,
the tone was very much a discussion, but I found
myself ill-prepared for the timing aspect. I
didn't have a short, meaningful, pithy intro
to Paganism which would help those with no prior
exposure make sense of our world view, and therefore
make sense of our celebrations and why honouring
the dead is important to us. My opening was
not very clean and crisp.
I
did prepare as well as I could, reading the
blog and listening to the podcast of Scott Richards,
the Tucson based pastor who presented the Christian
view of Hallowe'en (you
can find his site here). I would describe
him as very Evangelical, with advice given to
his readers and listeners based on Biblical
passages interpreted as the inerrant word of
ol' YWH, but delivered with compassion. I re-read
everything in the house on Samhain traditions
and how they relate to Hallowe'en. I read Christian
apologetics sites. I asked for advice and support
and made sure that I grounded and centered before
the event. In the end, I am not a preacher (in
our faith, we do not preach, we do spiritual
work together, which is not the same and certainly
not as verbal), and he is. I think that he worked
with the audience more effectively, and not
just because it was really his audience.
A
handful of my community members (including my
lovely wife and Priestess Shara) showed up as
support folks, who sat scattered amongst the
rather large group (I would say about 100).
My request of the Gods had been that I channel
the wisdom of Athena, rather than the sharp
edge of Aries' wit that occasionally rolls off
my tongue. The majority of the talk was an interplay
between Richards and myself, with some written
questions from the audience at the end. We didn't
have time to deal with all the questions, so
the organizers offered to e-mail them to both
Richards and myself, then post our responses
along with an MP3 of the discussion (I will
post links when they become available). Overall,
I thought it went well, and it was certainly
very civil, with the opportunity to speak with
members of the audience one-on-one afterwards.
There
was a second program that evening, from 7-9pm,
also open to the public at the old Lobo Theatre.
The same pastor spoke, but in a lecture format.
We (that being the Pagans) were still welcome
to attend, and so I showed. Despite being Richards
offering a couple of opportunities to address
what he was saying or what questions the audience
asked, I demurred, in part because it felt intrusive
to me to insert myself into their event, in
part because I wasn't sure how to do it effectively.
Once again, I did get to chat with folks afterwards,
and have respectful dialogue with them while
and modeling religious tolerance. They were
very polite and welcoming.
I
think that it was a worthwhile effort and experience,
if only because it shows that our growing and
maturing Pagan community needs a coordinated
speaker's bureau and we (the Pagan clergy) all
need to attend some courses on media relations
and interfaith communication. Perhaps some courses
could be developed that we could offer through
Ardantane
- I'm sure my wife would be good at it (her
background is in communications) if only we
could find some free time.
By
Athena and Hecate, what
a great and useful site! There are some
folks out there in the political realm who deserve
a metaphorical spear run through them, and this
is the site willing to oblige. Worthwhile links,
funny videos, and my personal source of all
of Keith
Olbermann's latest smackdowns of Bush and
his cabal. For example, check out this post:
"Olbermann:
'Why does habeas corpus hate America'? ".
Bill
of Rights? We don't need no stinkin' Bill
of Rights....
Having
spent the afternoon taking a class on the ins
and outs of pronouncing someone dead in their
home, I have been officially deputized as a
Deputy Medical Investigator Designate by the
New
Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator
(OMI). It is for registered nurses who take
care of people under home care or hospice (the
employing agency actually has to have a contract
with OMI to be able to get their staff RNs deputized).
When I moved back from California I did not
know that I would have to meet this requirement
as part of working for our local pediatric home
hospice program (UNMH's
Mariposa program). When I worked for Comfort
for Kids, we were just authorized to go
to the house (or if we were already there when
they died) and pronounce them dead. The only
variations were regarding how the county wanted
it reported to the coroner (California is a
coroner state, so is Texas - that is a whole
other topic). Here, nurses can legally pronounce
death in the hospital or nursing home in which
they work within their employer's protocol,
because those facilities have a different reporting
relationship with OMI, whereas the home is in
the community, so deaths get called to 911.
Needless to say, the field investigators have
plenty to do without responding to all expected
as well as unexpected deaths. Hence, the training
program. I even get a photo ID in case the cops
challenge me in the home if they show up and
find a corpse.
I
actually was not clear before on the difference
between the time of clinical death, determining
clinical death, and pronouncing a person legally
dead. The time of death on your death certificate
may not match the time you 'actually' died,
something that some of the nurses present said
really bothered some families, to the point
that they teach families that in advance so
they aren't surprised by it. You are not legally
dead until a duly authorized officer of the
state (such as myself, now) examines you and
declares you as such. It doesn't matter if perfectly
competent people correctly recognize you as
clinically dead, under the law, you ain't quite
dead yet. Physicians can declare someone in
their care dead. Investigators can. It is interesting
that in the hospital, the residents fill out
the death packet, and always ask the nurse what
the time of death was and document that - it
turns out that can really be the legal time
of death, rather than when the physician examined
the body. I'm going to have to go and re-read
the hospital policy on the whole thing. It is
very interesting though, that I have limited
jurisdiction. If I see you run over by a bus
in the street, I can determine that you are
DRT (dead right there), but it is not a legal
declaration until the investigator stops by.
Who knew?
20
Signs That, Sadly, You've Grown Up
1. Your house plants are alive, and you can't
smoke any of them.
2. Having sex in a twin bed is out of the question.
3. You keep more food than beer in the fridge.
4. 6:00 AM is when you get up, not when you
go to bed.
5. You hear your favorite song on an elevator.
I
remember my struggles with coming out all too
well. Many, if not most of the queer folk I
know faced challenges, and it is my fervent
hope that future generations will not face the
pain and social challenges that so many of us
did. I managed to get through my process at
a respectably young age (fumbling through my
early twenties, and finally telling my parents
at 29 – lousy year, 29, Saturn return
and all that, 30 was much better), which meant
that I could loosen up and enjoy life and love.
Tully
posted a very long recollection of his coming
out process which I read with great interest.
It was painfully familiar to read about the
schoolyard taunts and bullying, right down to
the differences between how the boys and the
girls went about their cruelty (boys will beat
you up, even physically humiliate you to show
how much stronger than you they are, but girls
will fillet your soul).
I’ve
been so busy that I haven’t had a chance
to send my little fax of congratulations to
Paul Weyrich for earning my nomination as “National
Asshole of the Week”. So in celebration
of this most auspicious day, I sent it. Here
is the text:
My fax
to Weyrich:
Paul
M. Weyrich
Chairman and CEO
Free Congress Foundation
Re:
Your NPR interview regarding the Foley
scandal
Just
a quick note to let you know that I am
one of those people to whom reporter Michele
Norris referred to when she said: “Now,
before we go on, I think I can say, Mr.
Weyrich, that there quite a few people
who would take exception to the statement
that homosexuals are preoccupied with
sex”.
While
I got the part that you don’t care
who takes exception because in your opinion
your rather nasty statement is true, you
are not going to be able to back your
slander up in any reasonable scientific
way, which means that you are denigrating
a wide swath of the public in a very public
way, supported by nothing more than your
own bigotry. In response: “I am
freely exercising what is left of my rights
under the First Amendment and proclaiming
that in my constitutionally protected
opinion Paul M. Weyrich should be nominated
as National @$$#01& of the Week for
intimating that gays are sex obsessed
fiends who should not be trusted with
children, even at a policy level”.
If
we don’t currently have such a national
honor to bestow upon you, I hope someone
comes up with it soon so that you may
enjoy being the first recipient.
In
the meantime, I hope that you are having
a lovely National Coming Out Day.
Sincerely,
Scott Chisholm Lamont
If
you’re wondering why the ‘Asshole’
is changed to symbols, if I remember correctly
you are not supposed to use profanity in a fax
because it is carried over the phone line and
is therefore subject to FCC rules. I don’t
think they enforce them anymore, but it would
be in character for this jerk to try pushing
for charges because I cussed at him.
If
you are interested in his version of why he
called for Hasert’s resignation, then
changed his mind, he
released a statement detailing the whole thing
yesterday. Note the part where he almost
got the Speaker into a wreck as he was driving
his car while talking to Weyrich on the phone.
Alice Miles writes in
an op-ed for the Times of London that
"the 43rd President of the United States
of America has squandered the political authority
of a great country. Never mind whether world
leaders still feel the need to check in with
the US; ordinary people no longer expect from
Washington international leadership of any
use. So spent is the authority of the United
States that even a foreign affairs ingénue
such as myself recognises that there is little
constructive it can do any more. So it doesn't
really matter what the President thinks."
I
hope at some point Americans wake up and realize
they have to live with the whole world, and
it matters what the world thinks of them. That
includes what the world thinks of the politicians
Americans pick to represent them.
My issue with the whole thing has less to do
with Harper following through on a promise made
in the last election (we expect promises kept,
don’t we?) than with the proposed
bill expanding “religious freedom”
to discriminate against GLBTIQ folks, including
on housing, employment, and the ability of marriage
commissioners or Justices of the Peace to refuse
to perform civil wedding ceremonies for same-sex
couples based on personal beliefs. I’m
sorry, but if you work as a public official,
you have to provide that public service to all
of the public who seek it. If that is intolerable,
you need to find another line of work.
"We
will make you successful, as long as
you don't mind me grabbing your [deleted]
once in a while."
-- Congressman
Mark Foley, IM-ing a
Congressional page.
Posted on Slate – Doonesbury’s
“Say What?” item
Yeah,
back to the Foley thing. It isn’t quite
dead yet.
Who’s
lying about what they knew when? It’s
almost impossible to tell, not just because
most of the lips moving belong to pols and their
operatives. People's lives and careers are at
stake as this becomes more overblown, and our
society tends to teach people to value self-protection
over telling the truth (it's a fear thing).
In fact, as Rebecca
Hartong points out, people
will even spout galling untruths in hopes
that accountability will not fall to them or
that which supports them (read: I'm Republican,
so I will protect the party to get re-elected,
same goes for the other parties, unfortunately).
Rebecca also posted
a nice response to
Weyrich's charge that gays are "obsessed
with sex", including useful links.
Kate
Wood over at Kate’s
Ramblings points out what should be the
obvious: this
is not a case of pedophilia. You might expect
people commenting on news sites and blogs to
misuse the term, but it seems pretty pathetic
that so many MSM outlets do so too.
Thankfully,
some sensible heads in the media are able to
make this distinction between pedophilia and
“virtual pederasty”. In the TNR
Online, Kevin Arnovitz laments the “conflation
act” of The
Wall Street Journal editorial page, amongst
others, where the purported warning signs of
Foley’s indiscretions were not his reported
behaviour with male pages, but the very possibility
that he was gay, “as
if Foley's presumed orientation were somehow
evidence that he would hit on 16-year-old employees.”
Just as I’ve said here before, Arnovitz
states: “Never mind that both academics
and gay organizations have to constantly reiterate
the stats, that 90.9 percent of all sexual assault
victims under the age of 17 are female”,
citing a 2000 Department of Justice report.
That puts a big wooden stake into the heart
of Tony
Perkins’s bald-faced lie that the number
of boys sexually abused in the general population
is proportionately larger than the estimated
number of gay and bisexual men in the population
(thanks to Rod
McCullom for the link), especially when
one takes into account that true pedophiles
likely don’t differentiate between male
and female victims – what attracts them
is pre-pubescence, not gender. Arnovitz then
laments the reactionary possibilities: “Anti-gay
Internet legislation will surface on the floor
of the Capitol before investigators have a chance
to sponge off Foley's keyboard. Access to gay
chat sites will be so guarded that they'll cease
to offer any allure for users” which he
finds concerning as “gay chat is an important
resource that was crucial in opening up the
closet--in allowing kids and young gay men who
wouldn't otherwise be comfortable coming out
to hear themselves think with a sympathetic
audience and to put themselves in conversations
that otherwise would be unavailable to them”.
"There
is something deeply sick about a Republican
elite that is comfortable around gay people,
dependent on gay people, staffed by gay people--and
yet also rests on brutal exploitation of homophobia
to win elections at the base. These public
homophobes, just like the ones in the Vatican,
may even tolerate gay misbehavior more readily
than adjusted gay people do. If you treat
gay sex in any form as a shameful secret to
keep concealed, the line between adult, consensual
contact and the sexual exploitation of the
young may not seem so stark. That's how someone
like Speaker Dennis Hastert could have chosen
not to know: He was already choosing not to
know Foley was gay. In this way, Hastert is
a milquetoast, secular version of Cardinal
Bernard Law."
Sullivan
is certainly kinder to the Log Cabin in his
article than I was.
At
least there is some good news in all of this:
It looks like the GOP might auger in the November,
based
on the most recent polls. Unless, of course,
they abandon the “S.S.
Hasert”.
Didn't
have a chance to post anything yesterday, as
Shara and I attended a seminar on spirituality
and health sponsored by Presbyterian
Health Services Department of Chaplaincy Services.
Entitled "Suffering with Life-Limiting
Illnesses: The Compassionate Response",
it featured Dr. April Volk and Beth Corbin-Hsi,
RN, the latter of whom is co-author of a book
called "Closing
the Chart: A Dying Physician Examines Family,
Faith, and Medicine". I spoke to Dr.
Volk about a small text file I put together
to carry on my PDA as a guide to performing
a spiritual assessment, and will post a link
to that on my spirituality
page. Well done seminar, overall, but Shara
and I agreed along with a colleague of mine
that it didn't achieve the depth that we were
hoping for. After that I had to blast back to
the office, get a few things done, then up to
Placitas for our coven's
full moon celebration. I think I fell into bed
at midnight.
Today
our friends Dee and Ezra and their daughter
(our Goddess-daughter) Rhiannon are over for
a visit. The girls are playing (and sometimes
fighting) while Shara and Dee do some tie-dye.
A nice, creative outlet, certainly good for
the spirit. They ordered a whole kit of stuff
from Dharma
Trading a while back, and have done several
projects since.
On
the subject of entertainment (not the creative
type), our TV is hooked to nothing but the DVD
player. We only watch shows that we can get
through Netflix
(and not bloody often, anymore - remember that
I have a preschooler). Shara has just put Battlestar
Galactica on our list now that we have gone
through all the episodes of Queer as Folk (site
used to be here, but I guess Showtime doesn't
have a sense of preserving the past...). I'm
grumpy that the series is done, I was enjoying
it. However, one must move on. Yahoo!
Buzz Log certainly thinks that it is both cool
and hot - their statement about how popular
the show is in searches is borne out by Technorati
showing it in the top five tags. I used
to enjoy the old series, with Lorne Greene,
so I am looking forward to this. I hope it is
as engaging and fresh as Firefly
was (at least the SciFi channel has a sense
of history).
Well,
here I was yesterday,
saying how I had decided to fly against my better
judgment and post something (indirectly) on
the Foley scandal. It was prompted by the outrageous
slander heaped on the gay population at large
by Paul
M. Weyrich. Now that I’ve put myself
on that slippery slope, I am going to risk sliding
feet first into the abyss. This morning, on
NPR
(can you tell what I listen to at the beginning
and end of the workday?), I did a double take
when I heard the real news imitate the fake.
Last night I posted the link
that Stupid
Evil Bastard provided to Jon
Stewart’s opening salvo on this sordid
subject, where faux-Washington-reporter John
Oliver intoned that “the Democrats
were going to be held accountable”. This
morning, it was announced that Dennis Hasert
was blaming the media and the Democrats for
the unfolding crisis. Presumably, now that his
conduct is under scrutiny, the preferred course
of action is to deflect attention and point
the finger. (Couldn’t find the audio newsclip
that announced this, but thankfully George
Will caught it and commented).
So
bad behaviour is followed by bad behaviour:
Sexual harassment of underage subordinates leads
to blame shifting and ducking accountability.
I think that the public is disappointed, but
unfortunately they are used to being disappointed
by politicians. As the NY
Times editorial states, no one is surprised
by the scandals elected officials are caught
in, and are not likely to make anywhere near
as big a deal about them, even when they involve
highly unacceptable actions. It’s the
media and the other politicians who make a fuss.
The media ought to – that is their job,
to inform the public (preferably with dispassion
and intelligence). I wish they did a better
job, mainly through more vigorous investigation
and keeping focused for more than 72 hours so
things don’t disappear into the memory
hole that should not be forgotten. The politicians
predictably do – they are generally more
interested in maneuvering for advantage and
therefore power than they are in actually dealing
with the issues at hand. My disappointment with
the public is that they don’t get scandalized
about the failure of accountability, which both
this Congress and this administration seem to
be displaying to the maximum possible degree.
BTW
– Pat
Robertson has of course chimed in to gay
bash, asking: "Is it a coincidence that
90 percent of the victims of the priests and
the other folks who abuse those altar boys and
others, 90 percent of the victims were boys,
90 percent of the perpetrators were men?"
(he is quoted in the NY Times piece linked above).
Earth to Pat: most sexual harassment and assault
is committed by men, period. Mostly by straight
men, not too surprising as most men are straight.
As for the priests diddling altar boys, do you
suppose it might have something to do with having
only males involved at that level in the church
that created a primarily homosexual opportunity
for impropriety?
That
was going to be all I wrote for the day until
I heard this quote on NPR
while driving home:
"Weyrich:
It has been known for many years that
Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals
tend to be preoccupied with sex - the
idea that he should be continued, or should
have been continued as chairman on the
Committee for Missing and Exploited Children,
given their knowledge of that is just
outrageous.
Norris:
Now, before we go on, I think I can say,
Mr. Weyrich, that there quite a few people
who would take exception to the statement
that homosexuals are preoccupied with
sex.
Weyrich:
Well, I don't care whether they take exception
to it - it happens to be true.
Norris:
That is your opinion.
Weyrich:
Well, it's not my opinion, it's the opinion
of many psychologists and psychiatrists
who have to deal with them."
Well,
what else can I say but 'wow'? All that the
Washington
Post managed to catch was him sounding outraged
about the possibility that Foley maintained
the chairmanship of his committee on exploited
children if people knew he was being inappropriate
with pages -- they missed the real why. Now
that he's aired his dirty laundry on national
radio, we can all nod sagely, remembering how
rampantly homophobic the religious right (which
controls the Republican Party) really is. Jon
Stewart nailed it (again), and thanks
to Stupid Evil Bastard for this link. Watch
it, laugh like hell (I did), but catch the part
where good ol' Newt equates an adult in a position
of power sending suggestive messages to an underage
subordinate with normal gay behaviour. They
actually wonder why queers in this country think
they are bigots!
As
for Weyrich: Gays obsessed about sex? Like,
compared to whom? To Clinton? To the straight,
married guy who apparently was
planning a mass rape of schoolgirls before
his murder spree? How about this - he is obsessed
about sex because he is a repressed queer who
was molested as a teen and is now living surround
by the enemy - Republican members of Congress
and their staff, most of whom probably hate
fags on principle. Plus, the Republican leaders
have not exactly been modeling accountability,
clear thinking, and competence lately, have
they? Not to drag out the tired old Colonel
Sanders thing, but what the hell is Foley doing
in the Republican
Party in the first place? Is this finally
going to lead to the Log
Cabin Republicans disbanding? Not likely
- they are "outraged",
but it looks they are going to stick with the
party that is "securing a future of peace"
by attacking a country that was no direct threat
to the nation but
is now a hotbed of terrorism in training.
Guess irony is lost on conservative queers.
Anyhow,
this led me to a change of plans. Unlike Bush
and his bully-boys, I am willing to change plans
when the situation calls for it. I wasn't going
to post on Foley at all. My plan as a queer
person was to avoid it like the plague, it was
so distasteful - we all knew that it would provide
more fuel for those who despise our existence
to burn us at the stake (listen
to Marc Acito's opinion on the matter -
I completely agree with him). That said, I am
on to Plan B: I am freely exercising what is
left of my rights under the First
Amendment and proclaiming that in my constitutionally
protected opinion Paul
M. Weyrich should be nominated as National
Asshole of the Week for intimating that gays
are sex obsessed fiends who should not be trusted
with children, even at a policy level. I am
going to fax a copy of this nomination to the
Free
Congress Research and Education Foundation,
of which he is president and CEO, so they are
aware that at least one person in this country
finds there leader's public spouting of bigoted
opinion stated as fact reprehensible. If you'd
like to read more about He-Who-Can-Be-Likened-To-A-Smelly-Sphincter,
click
here. If you would like to support this
nomination, leave a comment.
I've
written about this before, but here I go
again: I'm pretty concerned that the US (and
therefore world) economy is going to take a
big hit soon. This
op-ed piece by Professor Joseph Stiglitz
about the trade imbalance between the US and
China, and the uselessness of the International
Monetary Fund in dealing with it because the
US has veto power (surprise, right?) is enough
to make anyone sweat. Add the
housing market 'correction' which has fueled
the US economy lately, and may get much worse
(not that the Fed will say that), and the looming
potential for peak oil, and I smell a trifecta.
*
updated Oct 10 - external link added *
See
this
editorial in the NY Times, which states
the US is pretty much guaranteed to get poorer,
as "for the first time in at least 90 years,
the United States is now paying noticeably more
to foreign creditors than it receives from its
investments abroad".
So
a good friend at work sent me this funny regarding
Advance
Directives:
I,
__________________________, being of sound
mind and body, do not wish to be kept alive
indefinitely by artificial means. Under no
circumstances should my fate be put in the
hands of pinhead politicians who couldn't
pass ninth-grade biology if their lives depended
on it, or lawyers / doctors interested in
simply running up the bills. If a reasonable
amount of time passes and I fail to ask for
at least one of the following:
______ Glass of wine
______ Margarita
______ Martini
______ Cold Beer
______ Chicken fried steak and cream gravy
______ Mexican food
______ French fries
______ Pizza
______ Bowl of ice cream
______ Cup of tea
______ Chocolate
______ All of the above,
it
should be presumed that I won't ever get better.
When
such a determination is reached, I hereby
instruct my appointed person and attending
physicians to pull the plug, reel in the tubes
and call it a day.
Don’t
laugh, but when I filled out my but I really
did put the politician bit down in my advance
directive. Seriously.
When
I was admitted
to UCSF for meningitis, it was right around
the time of the Shiavo
thing, so I made sure that I printed and filled
out the damn form, including a specific clause
that no politicians or reporters were to have
access to me or interfere with my care in any
way. Didn't think of calling them pinheads though.
I should have.
And
on a completely different note: I finally realized
this morning that if you have a beard, you have
doubled your chances of a bad hair day (unless
you are bald with a beard).
It's a sick, sick, sick world (or at least a
sick species).
I
don’t know which is sicker – rounding
up and shooting Amish schoolgirls or dumping
toxic waste on a village of innocents in poverty
stricken Africa (with death and blistered
infants resulting) because you don’t want
to pony up the cash to dispose of it properly.
I’m going to go with the latter, as it
was done by a group of comfortable, well-paid
business people from the so-called developed
world acting on behalf of a multinational firm,
as opposed to someone angry and unhinged enough
that other people’s lives cease to mean
anything to him. But it’s a tough call.
However, just so that you know what is really
important to some people, it is neither of these
things – it is the
possibility that a grade 5 student may have
seen a nude representation in an art museum
while on a previously approved school field
trip. An abstract figure at that. Yes, this
is shit-storm worthy, and they are firing the
28-year veteran teacher for it! That’ll
show her, exposing children to art museums where
naked bodies might be lurking around any corner.
At least we know that they have their priorities
straight in Texas (come on, you knew it HAD
to be in Texas).
Just
back from our local Mabon celebration, the annual
Magickal
Mountain Mabon hosted by Chamisa
Local Council of the Covenant
of the Goddess. What a great time! It is
usually a lot of work for me, in part because
not only do I help set up and run the Healer’s
Tent (a service provided by Silver
Moon Health Services), but just the work
of packing up the camping stuff, organizing
meals, hauling it all up to the hills with the
kid, then doing it all in reverse. This time,
Shara and Micaela day-tripped, and I stayed
on a cot in the Healer’s Tent. It sure
made breaking things down easier.
I
miss being in the mountains more, and just having
calmer days where it doesn’t feel like
you have a million things to do and no time
to breath.
Just
in case you have been living under a rock, the
world is going to run out of oil at some point.
Before that point, the world is going to want
to consume oil faster than it can be produced,
leading to conflict and price increases - this
has been called Peak
Oil. When is still an open question. The
pessimists say this year, if it didn't already
happen last year, the optimists (which
include the US Government) say around 2036,
or 2061, or some such later year. Some argue
it depends on how quickly more difficult to
extract sources of oil come on-line, like tar
sands and shale. But the end result is going
to be we will all drive our cars a lot less,
even
if we do cool retrofits to our cars (which
we should, and which I am considering for my
beloved Toyota truck Epona). No matter how you
slice it, we
will have to make huge adaptations in our lives.
Now,
I don't think that is a bad thing. Cars have
taken over our lives - the landscape is dominated
by them. Once upon a time, the garage was set
back from the street, or even off an alley,
now it is not just at the front of the house
- it IS the front of the house. I think it is
ugly as hell. Freeways kill untold numbers of
animals, cyclists and pedestrians, who are keeping
the air clean and our health care costs down
by staying active, take their lives in their
hands when they interface with traffic. A more
human centered community would keep cars at
the periphery. I once suggested that Calgary
solve the downtown traffic problems by having
extensive parking in a ring around the city
core, and make everyone except delivery vehicles
get out and walk, bike, or take transit. When
I ran for Mayor of Banff
I suggested marketing a vehicle free downtown,
complete with a pedestrian mall on the main
streets downtown and shuttles bringing people
in from the edge, like some European towns have
done. Nobody took my advice, needless to say.
Business owners are convinced that people have
to be able to get everywhere in their cars or
the economy will collapse. I pointed out that
people IN cars don't spend money, people on
foot spend money. Deaf ears - cars are just
too entrenched in our North American culture
and landscape.
So this is why I found this
NY Times article on biking thing in the Netherlands
so interesting. They have made really huge strides
in turning the streets over to bikes, have an
amazing selection of bikes (including trikes
and recumbents, both of which I think I would
find way more comfortable, and probably don't
have the
impotence issue associated with a traditional
saddle). Here in the US, I've seen cargo
carriers that extend your bike by a couple of
feet, and other
workhorse additions. For tooling around
here at home, now that my own two bikes are
in such awful shape (they need rebuilds), I
have a tiny used electric scooter. It only goes
about 8 miles an hour tops, and about 11 or
12 miles range (13 kph with max range 19km),
and struggles on hills. They have really
improved the technology of these scooters
in the past couple of years, and I am interested
in getting a faster one. I am also interested
in what it would take to design a custom recumbent
seating scooter like some of the more innovative
bikes now out there, with some kind of generating
mechanism built in, either energy return like
the hybrid cars have, or maybe pedals to a generator
that tops up the battery, so you can ride it
like an exercise bike while it tools along on
power. It
certainly looks like the options are opening
up.
There
has been a lot of stuff on global warming in
the papers lately (or
as Lovelock calls it, “global heating”),
including an
unfortunate piece by Margaret Wente in the
Globe and Mail about the need for adaptation,
rather than change. I say unfortunate because
there is a strong element of truth to what she
says. She's not the only one saying it, have
a look at this
piece in the Economist. Pragmatics aside,
it is still morally reprehensible for us to
do nothing with the glib excuse that it would
do not good anyway, so why change or sacrifice?
We might adapt as a species, even if the worst
case suggested by Lovelock comes to pass and
we all wind up living in the extreme north or
south of the planet, but most species will not
have that option, and will therefore pay the
price for our stupidity and greed.
*
updated Oct 2 - external link added *
The
Lovelock interview in the NY Times (A CONVERSATION
WITH JAMES E. LOVELOCK; Updating Prescriptions
for Avoiding Worldwide Catastrophe) is now only
available through their Times Select option
(see
abstract here) unless you have access through
a library database. Is it just me, or do they
roll these things over to paid mode a little
quickly?
Interestingly,
Helen
Caldicott has chimed in on this piece, questioning
his support for nuclear energy. It is in the
letters section, scroll down to "The Cost
of Nuclear Energy"
And
if your interested in Lovelock's book "The
Revenge of Gaia", you
can order it here.
Needless
to say, the news has been drenched with “Eau
d’ 9/11”. I could do without the
yammering of the politicians, most of whom I
have less and less use for (keep to mind this
is coming from someone who has been a politician),
but have been very moved by the remembrances
of those who lost someone in the attacks. I
remember exactly where I was when I heard –
at home in the South Valley, getting ready for
work. Shara called me, as she had gone into
work early, and said that there was something
horrible on the radio about a plane crashing
into the World Trade Center. On my way to the
hospital I was listening to The Peak, which
we typically did back then (we only listened
to NPR
when the alarm went off, then to music on the
drive – I’ve long since given up
on commercial radio and just listen to NPR or
the local classics station), and they were playing
no music, just a running discussion about what
was unfolding on their TV in the studio. I was
just pulling onto Isleta to head for the freeway
when they said something along the line of “Oh
my God, the South Tower just collapsed”.
As a flight nurse, I tend to be attuned to air
traffic, and instantly noticed the two lines
of aircraft as far at the eye could see, off
to the west and south-west, heading for both
of the Sunport’s main runways. I recall
how eerie it was once all those ships had returned
safely to ground, to see no contrails in the
sky, and hear no engines drone overhead, for
days. It didn’t take the hospital long
to go on full alert, we were told we may not
be going home at all, and that we were preparing
for up to a quarter-million casualties. They
projected that if it was that bad, the trauma
system would be overwhelmed east of the Mississippi
and all the major trauma centers in the west
would have to accept patients. We couldn’t
get enough news, in part because in the peds
areas we tried to keep the news off the TVs
in favour of the usual cartoons. We waited all
day for the C-9
Nightingales to come winging our way with
their cargos of injured, but they never came.
Eventually, it became obvious they would not
be coming, and we were all allowed to come home
as the hospital stood down. It is tough to express
how anxiously we awaited to help, and how relieved
we were that the awful projections did not come
to pass, yet how helpless and useless that there
was going to be nothing we could do to help.
I’ve struggled to write a poem on this,
and had to set it aside a while ago. Perhaps
I’ll take it up again, now that some time
has passed.
Blessings
to you and yours, wherever you may be, and may
any pain you have carried as a result of that
terrible day be eased.
Today
was a busy day for me in my priest hat. We held
our annual Pagan
Pride Day (part of an
international movement) here in Albuquerque,
an all-day event in Bataan Park on Lomas. Very
ably organized by Michelle Cassena and sponsored
by Coyote
Willow CUUPS, it was easily the largest
we’ve ever had, with many games, displays,
vendors, and workshops. I had to get Silver
Moon Health Services gear to the park first
thing in the am, set up our first aid station,
then perform the opening ritual with Shara,
Tristan & Billy (our community’s May
couple this year) and the rest of my coven.
After that I had to practice my speech for the
UNM
Children’s Hospital memorial and dash
off to the Newman Center on campus. Mariposa
coordinated the organization of the memorial,
which is to remember the approximately 188 children
who have died over the past 2 years while in
our care, and they invited me to speak, which
I was quite honoured to do (and a little nervous
about, too). If you would like to see a copy
of the text of my homily, it
is posted here. It was a lovely service,
led by Rev. Marie Stockton, our chaplain, and
culminated with a release of doves in the courtyard
of the Center as “Amazing Grace”
was piped and sung. Then after a bite at the
reception to ground, it was back to the park
to perform the closing ritual, which included
blessing the huge pile of non-perishable food
we collected for the Unitarian
Church Food Bank. And the predicted rain
did not come. All in all, a beautiful, full
day.
While
visiting my folks in Calgary, we spent today
bopping around town on public transit checking
our the local metaphysical stores. We happened
into one called The
Witchery, and found out that a friend of
the owner runs a webstreaming podcast called
"Witchcraft
Radio". When we mentioned where we
were from, and our work with organizations like
Covenant
of the Goddess, Silver
Moon Health Services, and Ardantane,
the next thing we knew were were invited to
be interviewed as soon as the store closed for
the night. You
can listen to this episode of the program here.
If
you have been following the "DaVinci Code"
thing, or gone to see the movie, you might be
interested in this
facinating interview with a real Gnostic
Christian. I found it facinating, and it reminds
me of a book I read a while ago called "Jesus
and the Lost Goddess".
Here
are two of my favourite quotes: "Our view
is of the cosmic Christ -- we very much accept
all wisdom traditions", and "Gnostics
believe that the real problem isn't sin -- it's
ignorance . . . [W]e also believe that everyone
has the potential for gnosis. Everyone has a
spark of the true light or the divine in them.
The whole point for Gnosticism is to help reveal
that spark so that a person recognizes it inside
of himself or herself."
How
refreshing! Not to mention congruent with Pagan
teachings.
We
can at least hope so. Amnesty International
announced that the number of state sanctioned
executions fell by more than a third in 2005
compared to 2004, according to a
Globe and Mail report. It is a very positive
trend, IMHO, although of course there are those
who would vehemently disagree and say that A.I.
and myself were trampling on the victims of
crime to coddle criminals. Horsecrap. The death
penalty is not a deterrent to violent crime,
it sets an appalling example of how little a
human life is considered to be worth (in a policy
context, no less), and results in 'civilized'
governments participating in exactly the kind
of violence the people they represent ostensibly
abhor.
Unfortunately,
some
of the Globe readers took the opportunity to
play "holier than thou" with our US
neighbours. The very
first commenter stated: "So...who leads
the world in executions of it's own citizens?
China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United States.
So somebody explain the difference to me between
the values of Americans and the values of the
people from these countries because it's not
apparent to me." I felt that was ignorant
hyperbole, and so
replied: "I would say that the difference
is that in the US, you generally have to kill
someone to get the death penalty. In Saudi Arabia,
you get your head chopped off (literally, if
you would like video, rent Moore's "Fahrenheit
9/11") for being gay, amongst other
things."
So,
here is a great
article in the Globe and Mail about horse
logging and how it limits the damage done to
the forest, including by reducing the need for
road building. They are being hampered by an
overly warm winter (gee, I wonder where that
came from?), and by having to pay the same stumpage
fees as mechanized logging. As the Greens
have said for many years, if we are going to
subsidize things, it should be the practices
that are the most sustainable, not the least.
Mechanized logging ought to pay the full price
their methods cost the environment, including
not only replanting, but also protection and
repair of streams, and road removal.
So,
it looks like the hiatus is over. I won't have
the time to keep up with my blog like I did
when I was in school full time and so had a
very flexible schedule, but I am going to try
to put something up once a week or so. I am
going to focus more on improving and expanding
the pages on this site - as I mentioned yesterday,
I have tons of stuff I would like to post, it's
just a matter of finding the time to format
it, set the links, an hit 'upload'. I also want
to get back to my
nursing podcast, which has been just as
neglected. We'll see how it goes.
However,
I can guarantee that nothing is going up this
w/e, as I am up in the Jemez Mountains at the
Ardantane
campus, teaching a class on mindful communication.
I'm hoping for a good turnout, in light of the
recent spate of unhappy e-mails on a couple
of the local e-lists, but we'll see.
Well,
I've been out of circulation for a long time.
When I took my LOA from UCSF
and moved back to Albuquerque, I had thought
that I would at least keep up with my blog,
and perhaps post the odd thing on my other pages
(it's not like I haven't been writing stuff
to post, I have a list a mile long), but there
is just never any time, it seems, to actually
sit down, put it on a page, and upload it.
Tonight
the fire is under my butt, as it were. We are
having a little meltdown in our little New Mexico
pagan community, and it has myself and my lovely
wife/priestess distressed. Bad vibes, negative
communication, sniping, gnashing of teeth and
beating of chests, people backing out (or running,
in some cases). Ironically, I'm teaching some
communication courses for Ardantane,
including one this coming w/e called "Mindful,
Magickal Communication". Talk about timing.
So I had Shara post on one involved group's
list site that I would put a bunch of communication
info on my website tonight, under the spiritual
section. Mainly stuff from the classes I've
been developing, and a model for Pagan communication
styles based on the five sacred elements, that
my friend Tehom (of Our
Lady of the Woods) and I put together for
CoG's
last Merry Meet. If you are interested, feel
free to have
a look.
Meantime,
I will try to keep up with this, and get some
of the other things posted that I have wanted
to, like more stuff on concept analysis (BIG
source of web search referrals).
I'm
trying out this website counter from Free
Web Counters Online.
It is set to unique visitors, rather than hits, which is
the more rigourous measure.
The advert link at the bottom is part of the package. Sorry
for the consumerism - they have to pay for the bandwidth,
eh? Shop4Shoes.com
Questions and comments for the
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