For reading on last week’s train trip to Washington, D.C., I brought Steve Stirling’s The Protector’s War; it is the second of a post-apocalyptic trilogy, following Dies the Fire.

In the first book, set in the 1990s, some mysterious Change occurs and suddenly electricity does not flow, internal combustion engines do not combust, gunpowder will not explode, and even steam engines do not function well enough to be useful. One of the characters tries to explain it as a change in the laws governing the behavior of gases. That last is a bit of a stretch, since other sorts of machines, including pumps, do work, and wood-fueled fires do burn. But Stirling clearly wanted to write a Neo-Medieval tale, and so he bypasses any revival of the Age of Steam.

Within months of the Change, the end of civilization as we know it, the survivors have reverted to idealistic feudalism (the good guys) or despotic feudalism (the bad guys) or outright banditry (the enemies of both). Having a background in special operations (Green Berets, SAS) or the Society for Creative Anachronism seems to be helpful for survival as either good guy or bad guy, since large amounts of the books involved small-group tactics, covert operations, and combat with edged weapons. Having read all of Tolkien’s work twenty times can be a plus too. (The SCA must luv this series.)

Probably the main reason that review copies of parts two and three arrived in my mailbox is Sterling’s pride in creating the character of Juniper MacKenzie, folksinger and Wiccan high priestess, whose coven becomes the nucleus of “Clan Mackenzie,” a burgeoning tribe of small farmers and craftspeople who take their archery practice very seriously. The clan makes the “Old Religion” the dominate faith tradition of Oregon’s middle Willamette Valley—except for the monks at Mount Angel and a few other hold-outs.

Having Wiccan characters in a novel of alternative history is not exactly mainstreaming them—-and I could just as easily see a charismatic Protestant pastor organizing the Lord’s Army of kick-ass archers and pikemen—-but it does allow the books’ characters to bring a Pagan sensibility to this tale of war and survival.

In this second book of the series, which takes place nine after the Change, the older characters are looking at the older teens, who were little kids when civilization died, and then wondering about the next generation, who will never have known anything else, and how their worldview will be significantly different from that of the people who were adults during the Change.

I wonder if Stirling would have related that to one of the live issues within Pagan studies—-and the movement in general—-about how the religion(s) will change as more and more cradle Pagans and then their children come into them.

This story is funnier to me because I am blogging two blocks from the White House.

Could Aleister Crowley be George W. Bush’s grandfather?

More later: I am too busy at the American Academy of Religion meeting. My trip here was 48 hours of chaos, but it is all truly worth it to be with the Pagan Studies crowd.

UPDATE: I do not necessarily buy the Bush-Crowley connection, but as Eric Riley points out, it does put a different spin on creating your own reality.

Once again, the Japanese turn Western religious categories on their heads.

Omi Junko was surprised to find out that some of the Western priests were not genuine.

“If people are crying by the end of the wedding, I think I have done a good job.”

This won’t last, but CNN is polling viewers on whether the Veterans Administration should do the right thing and create a Wiccan grave/memorial marker.

So far the Yes votes are far ahead. I suspect that that is because Americans mostly think that (a) religion is a personal matter and (b) anyone who served in the military ought to get the religious marker of their choice.

Some background here and more current news here.

UPDATE: At GetReligion, they are wondering if the pentacle might be offensive to families of nearby-buried vets. I suppose the star of David and that atheistic atomic symbol are offensive too.

When Her Hidden Children came out last summer, I enjoyed about two months of happiness over that, but now it is time to get going on something else.

I started research for an historical novel, and I still mean to write it, once I figure out the rhythm of fiction-writing. Publication, if ever, would be a long way away, however.

And there was a plan for another scholarly book, but my editor at Rowman & Littlefield poured cold water on that idea, mainly because it sort of fell between two horses from a marketing perspective.

I have not abandoned the idea though, and I mean to talk with him at AAR-SBL next week.

That leaves some book reviews that I need to do for Nova Religio. As I tell my students, when you don’t have anything else going on, reviewing keeps your mind and your fingers moving.

If you came here for content today, then, there is not much to be found–unless you look at some of the excellent bloggers over on the right side of your screen.

I like living where I do. I like going down to the old schoolhouse to vote in a building where time seems to have stopped about 1950 (except in two classrooms that are now a library).

I like seeing the election judges whom I otherwise might meet only at the post office, since the cafe closed and I obviously don’t attend the community church.

“Hi, Irene. How’ve you been, Alden?”

But after today, no more.

We used to vote on paper ballots that were marked and then fed into a scanner. With three or four booths and only a couple of hundred voters in the precinct, lines were always short. Go in, get registration checked, vote, grab coffee and cookie, and out.

But this year the county went to electronic machines. The machine works great–but that is machine, singular. County funds are short. Our precinct gets one machine, and this year’s Colorado ballot is a long one crammed with referenda and initiatives.

Poll workers estimated 10 minutes per voter. I know that I was faster than that, but still, it was 8:20 a.m. and I was only voter number 12. (Polls open at 7 a.m., but they had some trouble getting the voting computer going, they said.)

M. stopped on her way to work mid-morning when the congestion was supposed to be less, and instead it was worse. She eventually gave up. Sorry, Congressman Salazar, that’s one less for you.

After today, I resolve to vote early at the courthouse or else by absentee ballot. I will miss Alden, Irene, and the free cookies. I will miss the little civic ritual of climbing the steps of the old schoolhouse, ready to commit democracy.

Cross-posted to Nature Blog.

I was half-listening to an ABC News story last night about Chinese billionaires (and now I cannot find any link on their site. Help!) that mentioned one man whose mansion had something like a mosaic of images of Mao Zedong.

The reporter seemed bemused, since Chairman Mao (1893-1976) was after all a Communist.

Coincidentally, I was reading Jordan Paper’s The Deities are Many: A Polytheistic Theology where he writes of visiting China in the late 1980s:

[At that time] a new deity of wealth was needed, one that would be effective in the new economy. Who was the most powerful dead not yet with a divine specialization? Why, Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) of course! Small icons of his image, with a plastic version of a Chinese gold ingot hanging from it, were on sale everywhere. They were variously hung, such as from automobile rear view mirrors, including government vehicles. When I asked a bureaucrat, a member of the Communist Party, why it was hanging there, the answer was succint: “Ta shi shen” (He’s a Deity.)

The old Greeks had a word for it.

Via law professor Ann Althouse, thoughts on a case with a Pagan twist, although she does not approach it that way.

I am waiting for the blogging devadasi to weigh in. If she does, I will link to her.

UPDATE: I knew that Kama would have something to say.