The altar of the . . . intramural volleyball league?

Depending on your persuasion, the following announcement indicates the Paganization of an American university, a celebration of “diversity,” a violation of the separation of church [Aztec temple?] and state, “multiculturalism” run amok, or good clean fun.

The student activities board at a university that I know well is holding a Day of the Dead altar-building contest:

Day of the Dead in Mexico represents a mixture of Christian devotion and Pre-Hispanic traditions and beliefs. As a result of this mixture, the celebration comes to life as an unique Mexican tradition including an altar and offerings dedicated to the deceased.

The altar has four levels which are elements of nature — earth, wind, water, and fire. . . .

If your student club, campus organization, or office would like to participate in creating an altar, you MUST reserve a space at ***-****!

Altars must be completed and set up on Wednesday, November 2, no later than 11:30AM!

Please follow the guidelines below when creating your altar.

You may honor a one person or a group of persons (ex. Katrina victims)

There will be voting on site for the best altar! The winner will win $150 from the Student Activities Board!

The English Club officers have announced that they are sponsoring their traditional Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night party, complete with fireworks, so I doubt that they will be altar-building too.

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“Halloween Hoopla”

“What the f*** happened to Halloween?” rants Foamy the squirrel. (Link good until Nov. 3; then check the “Toons” page.)

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No costumes, please, we’re teaching to the test

Some Colorado “educators” are going to great lengths to show how hard they are working to raise standardized test scores. The latest gimmick at some schools is to ban school Halloween parties.

I think for the most part the real reason schools are doing away with Halloween during the day has to do with the disruption and the loss of instructional time,” agrees Mike Crawford, principal at Palmer Elementary in Denver.

The hallways at Palmer are decked with yarn-and-construction-paper witches and black bats carrying messages from second-graders on “What drives me batty.” But there will be no party; it will be business as usual.

Other schools keep the party but try to make it “educational.”

Carson [Elementary] holds a Literacy Day, this year on Friday rather than Monday, Oct. 31. Children get costumes and candy, but the catch is they must dress up as a character from a book and tote said book during the parade.

At least we are hearing less about it being an “occult holiday,” but one principal remembers that objection too:

As a veteran educator, he has been hearing Halloween objections, especially religious ones, since the early 1980s. But he says he must respect the [pro-Halloween] majority opinion in his school.

“We’re not worshiping anything,” he says. “We’re playing dress-up.”

And he dresses up right along with the kids. Too many of these principals seem to have forgotten that a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down, as the flying nanny sang.

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The right Halloween

It’s the season when people celebrate Halloween for all reasons, even the bloggers of “The Cotillion,” a sort of “Carnival of . . .” for social conservative female bloggers.

They have assembled a tasty selection of vintage artistic and cinematic images and an analysis of the Salem witch trials to serve their causes of trashing the “mainstream media,” the lifestyle left, and even Tom Cruise.

OK, I’m with them on the Tom Cruise part. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker’s critique of Katherine Hepburn at the start of the latter’s career, “He runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.”

Hurray for Piglet too.

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The day of the dead

We are approaching one festival where the Pagan and Catholic ritual calendars coincide, and the question of who borrowed from whom might even be more complex than we realize.

The Arizona Republic offers a guide to altars for the Day of the Dead / Día de los muertos.

I have my own take on putting up photos of the deceased: I like to wait a few years first. Does someone really need their sleeve tugged in the Otherworld right away?

Marigolds, champagne, whiskey, etc.–all fine.

(Via Relapsed Catholic.)

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Silly season roundup

Jason Pitz-Waters samples the Halloween-season coverage of Pagan religions. Check the last link in particular.

Writing on Paganism helps journalist earn award

Freelance writer and religion journalist Kimberly Winston won this year’s American Academy of Religion journalism award in the category of “news outlets with more than 100,000 circulation or on the Web.”

Her work has included writing on Wicca and Paganism, including a piece that I linked to earlier.

The AAR’s magazine notes, “Winston, from Pinole, California, submitted articles on a number of topics: the mainstreaming of Wicca, whether the the influence of the movie The Passion of the Christ was what was feared or hoped for; the campaigning politicians’ use of Puritan theology; the trend of modern pagans [sic] reviving ancient religions; and how non-Christians are fighting to save Christmas.”

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I still won’t shop there

Canadian journalist finds Wicca books on sale at Wal-Mart and views with alarm. (Link from Wren’s Nest.)

Somehow I connect this story with another of today’s headlines, about the continuing drop in major crime.

Despite variations on this news over the past couple of years, one of my evangelical Christian students wrote in a rough draft what must be a commonplace in her religious community: she wrote that crime is rising. If crime is rising, then it’s due to “taking God out of schools” and so forth.

But if crime is falling, what then? Whom do you blame?

Now it is true that Americans’ economic situation is generally worsening. Big corporations cut pensions that were supposed to be rock-solid (Delta, General Motors, many others). Health care gets more expensive. Inflation is rising (Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, etc.)

Somehow those declines are not easily blamed on “taking God out of the classroom.”

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Both product and producer

An interesting post on “creating a scholarly voice” from Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Sometimes something akin to “scholarly voice” is discussed in the context of the need for scholars to “brand” themselves. That is, it is thought that academics must develop and maintain a unique, immediately recognizable identity for themselves and their work. These two things–“themselves” and “their work”–become largely interchangeable in the branding process: Scholars are both product and producer.

All that is missing is the advice that I got from some more experienced writer at some point: “The first million words are just for practice.” Dang, I’ve used that phrase twice now.

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God hates Sweden plus various other countries

Pastor Fred Phelps, that prophet of the Lord, is branching out with new Web sites devoted to countries that his god hates, e.g., America, Sweden, Canada, Madagascar, Nepal. (OK, some of those links won’t work–yet.)

Here in Colorado we are blessed with occasional apparitions of Pastor Fred, probably because he can drive fast from Topeka to Colorado Springs without stopping to empty his bladder on unconsecrated ground.

By comparison, James Dobson looks like the Prince of Peace, while Ted Haggard is the Suffering Servant. Phelps makes them look good–it’s always handy to have some loony to perform that function for you.

But Phelps would probably be happier as a Wahabi Muslim, where he could get a job that fits his talents.

(Via Harry Hutton.)

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