Freelancers, Move to the Library!

An op-ed piece in Sunday’s Denver Post made an interesting suggestion. People who work—or want to look like they are working—in coffee shops ought to move to their public libraries instead.

Then coffee shops could go back to being coffee shops—places of intellectual ferment and conversation, instead of solo customers taking up a booth or table while they stare into their screens.

And libraries would have a new clientele of media-savvy communicators to lobby for them.

Cafes have always served as venues for contemplation and composition, though historically conversation has shared an equally prominent place at the table. But with the increasing availability of cheap and free wireless access in cafes, and the recession-laden economy rendering private work spaces less affordable, the cafe has become an obvious alternative for virtual workers. The phenomenon’s effect on cafe owners has been well-documented. There is a delicate balance between filling seats, particularly during daytime hours, and the cafe’s need to turn a profit through a steady turnover of customers.

The ubiquitousness of technology has had consequences far beyond the complex relationship between cafe owners and their customers in-residence. It has perceptibly drained cafes of a more traditional social atmosphere for engaged, dynamic and discursive exchanges. Stephen Miller, author of Conversation: A History of a Declining Art, has documented the fall and labeled those de rigeur accoutrements of modern living — the cellphone and the iPod — as “conversation avoidance mechanisms” or worse, “a distraction that undermines conversation.”

A few years ago, my university library installed a coffee bar and wireless Internet—the latter part of a campus-wide project. It was like civilization!

Now the building is gutted for remodeling, but I expect to see the coffee bar back.

Some public libraries have added coffee bars. More of them should.

BeliefNet Article Looks at Wiccan Chaplain’s Lawsuit

As mentioned here previously and at The Wild Hunt, Patrick McCollum, volunteer Wiccan prison chaplain in California, has sued the state to overturn a policy of hiring paid chaplains only from certain religions.

A new article at BeliefNet summarizes the case. Excerpts:

Supported by interfaith scholars and church-state separationists, the Rev. Patrick McCollum argues that the state policy has the “pernicious effect” of depriving inmates of other religious backgrounds from getting the services they need and deserve.

The court challenge began when McCollum, 59, a prominent leader in Wiccan and correctional circles, applied and was rejected for a full-time position as a chaplain in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“When I got to the personnel office, they refused to give me an application to apply for a state job because they knew that I was a Wiccan,” said McCollum, director of Our Lady of the Wells Church in Moraga, Calif., and leader of the National Correctional Chaplaincy Directors Association.

“They never reviewed my qualifications.

 Religious-studies professor and lawyer Barbara McGraw responds to an amicus brief in the case–from a conservative Christian group supporting the state’s position–here:

In other words, genuine Christianity supports religious rights for all. Christianity was not at the founding, nor is it now a monolithic “ism” that justifies the domination and suppression of others–not even Wiccan/Pagans.

An amici curiae brief on McCollum’s side filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Anti-Defamation League, and other groups is also available (PDF file).

Is Your Tuesday Fat or with Pancakes?

Venetian Carnival reveler taking a cappuccino break.

It’s that fat Tuesday again, and Boston.com offers a selection of Carnival pictures from around the world.

This one comes from Venice. “But Italian Catholicism always had a strong pagan residue in its cult of the saints as well as in its vaguely erotic sadomasochistic imagery,” says the expert on all things Catholic and small-p pagan.

Seen any Lizard People Lately?

Readers in Los Angeles: the lizard people have been quiet lately, but you should still be on your guard. Helpful information is available

I’m Glad That is Settled

From my current reading, Essentials of Fire Fighting:

As you look at the world around you, the physical materials you see are called matter. It is said [passive voice!] that matter is the “stuff” that makes up our universe.

Sheesh.

Maybe instead of being a volunteer firefighter I should be editing the textbooks.

Anyway, got to study for the test on Saturday.

Air Force Academy "Turns Back Time"

Back on January 27th, I mentioned that the US Air Force Academy, located near Colorado Springs, had created a ritual space for followers of Pagan religions.

Jason Pitzl-Waters has been keeping up on various reactions, including some form of magic performed by (presumably) evangelical Christians, who think that putting two large crossed bits of lumber on the circle will somehow negate it. (My first thought: firewood!)

At least one writer to the Colorado Springs Gazette accuses the Air Force of romanticizing druids who performed human sacrifice.

It is shocking to contemplate a revival of druidic sacrifice. Can you imagine the Air Force procurement process for victims? Would there be a no-bid process or would there be competitive bidding?

Who is Your Ancient Philosopher?

I took the quiz and came up with Epicurus, who is truly “the most misunderstood philosopher of antiquity.”   Watch a short video about him.

Take the My Philosophy Guru test yourself!

A Vodou Resource Site

Lots of talk about Vodou lately here among the polytheists (and among those who “view with alarm“).

Christopher Chase, the Pomegranate’s reviews editor, offers this link to a sort of portal site on Vodou. Reviews editors are like that.

Magical Dolls and Missionary Board Games

From Publishers Weekly, a short review of a new book co-authored by Nikki Bado-Fralick, my co-editor in the Pagan Studies book series (This book is not a part of that series, however!)

Toying with God: The World of Religious Games and Dolls by Nikki Bado-Fralick and Rebecca Sachs Norris, Baylor Univ.

For Bado-Fralick and Sachs Norris (religious studies professors at Iowa State University and Merrimack College, respectively), religious games and dolls are charged with “the magic of childhood combined with the mystery of religion.”

The authors brilliantly use their subject to reveal a complex interplay between worship and the workings of popular culture. A detour into ancient divination practices using dice, magical dolls, and sports as ritual shows these items to be anything but superficial, and raises a central question: why do religious playthings often evoke feelings of unease?

Like the religious toys it analyses, this book is at once fun and serious business. Dolls like Buddy Christ and Nunzilla or unwinnable Buddhist board games may produce a few perplexed laughs, but a game like Missionary Conquest, won by setting up the most global missions, has an undeniably colonialist edge.

The authors also use toys and dolls to explore consumerism, feminism, politics, and the nature of ritual and play. In this readable and fresh look at religious culture, the authors are critical and respectful. They’d rather cast dice than throw stones.

Don’t Visualize, Organize!

That is the takeaway message from Barbara Ehrenreich’s new book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

Like much of Ehrenreich’s writing, it is fueled by righteous anger.

First, as a breast cancer patient, she is disgusted by the happy-face positive thinking of what she calls “pink ribbon culture”:

The cheerfulness of breast cancer culture goes beyond mere absence of anger to what looks, all too often, like a positive embrace of the disease  (27).

From there it’s often into the “motivational” business culture that routes laid-off employees into seminars where they learn to be “a brand called you.”

And there is “prosperity theology” in the churches, a/k/a “God wants you to be rich,” and “positive psychology” for the non-churchgoing.

Not to mention the “prices will always go up” thinking that contributed to the recent real-estate bubble!

And in Ehrenreich’s view, it’s 99 percent bullshit, a new synthetic Big Pharma opiate of the masses that prevents people from clearly seeing their economic and political quandaries.

She does give some space to a fairly mainstream history of creative visualization (or whatever you want to call it) via New Thought, Christian Science, and so on.

Reading Bright-sided as an adherent of a magical religion, I obviously have some disagreements with Ehrenreich’s wholesale condemnation.  These things work, sometimes with unexpected results–hence the old admonition to be careful what you ask for.

So where do we draw the line between possible and not possible? I do think that “visualize world peace” is a fruitless task, although one may act in a peaceful manner. And whatever you seek under the idea that “thoughts are things” has to be backed up and affirmed by tangible actions.