Tag Archives: blogging

Publisher Drops Suits Against Blogging Librarian

A  university librarian who described Edwin Mellen Press on his blog as “dubious” and as offering “second-class scholarship” was sued in turn by the press, but the lawsuit has now been dropped.

The lawsuits inspired scholars from around North America to rally behind Askey. Created by Martha Reineke, a professor of religion at the University of Northern Iowa, a petition demanding EMP to drop its lawsuits had garnered more than 3,100 names as of Monday morning.

EMP told CBC Hamilton on Monday that it “has discontinued the court case against McMaster University and Dale Askey.”

In a statement, the company added: “financial pressure of the social media campaign and press on authors is severe. EMP is a small company. Therefore [it] must choose to focus its resources on its business and serving its authors.”

The key words appear to have been “social media campaign.” In the relatively small world of academic publishing, it got results.

I notice that Mellen’s website describes them as a “non-subsidy academic publisher.” That was not always my impression, but OK. Another page, however, states “The Edwin Mellen Press refuses to write, rewrite, or revise any author’s text.” Not hiring copy editors saves money!

UPDATE: See comments.

Around the Pagan Blogosphere

• I too am one who is uncomfortable with the word “faith” in Paganism because of the baggage that it carries. When I worked on a couple of collaborative projects with Evan John Jones, he sometimes spoke of the “Old Faith,” which always jarred me, even though I think that for him it was simply a synonym for “religion.” The Allergic Pagan” starts with the same discomfort and ends up defining four styles of Paganism/nature religion, which might be useful categories.

• Sam Webster starts a new blog with an opening post: “Welcome Thinking Pagans.”

• London blogger Ethan Doyle White has started a series of interviews at his blog Albion Calling.  The first one was with British scholar of esotericism Dave Evans. The newest one is with me.

• And have a look at my blogger sidebar. I try to keep all links up to date — if you encounter a dead link, let me know — and you do not have to give me money to be listed.

Weirdest Google Search String Yet

This brought a visitor to the blog: “grizzly bears knowing Jesus Christ is coming.”

The truth is that I did have Jesus Christ and a grizzly bear in one blog post.

Three Related Blog Posts

From Deborah Castellano, who also blogs at Charmed, I’m Sure: “The Art of Career Occultism.”‘

Let me ask you, how do you see a career occultist?  Do you see her as someone who gets up and does sun salutations, writing in her dream diary over herbal tea and an organic scone, sauntering through a field with an animal companion as she chooses herbs to harvest while wearing something fabulous and floaty, coming home to her gorgeous dedicated workshop for afternoon sketching for new designs?  Because . . .if so, you’re going to be greatly disappointed as to what’s actually the job.

From Heather Awen at Adventures in Animism: “Dancing in the Ashes of the New Age.”

A friend recently said to me that she’s going to go for it and do some really hard things to make her dreams of working to improve children’s lives a reality. She said that she had to believe the Goddess would provide for her. I used to believe that. I want to believe that, but I don’t anymore. I asked her to explain this, not to be a bitch, but because I was hoping she’d be able to convince me that the Goddess works this way. . . . .  How did the Goddess decide who to provide for? So why should I trust that “we always get what we need” when clearly the facts say that we don’t?

Both are about facing some facts of mundane life and a balance between willing, affirming, etc., and actually doing.

At Pantheon, Star Foster is talking about an ancient philosopher who could help sort these questions out: Epictetus.

So as I sit here worrying How am I to live? and How do I cope with this huge change in my life? I am finding my answers in Epictetus.

He lived from 55-135 CE. He was at first a slave — an educated slave, as some were, but still a slave. That ought to give him a certain amount of street cred, don’t you think, when it comes to knowing what you can change and what you cannot?

Blogging the Roman Way

 Make a desert and call it search engine-optimized blog content. (Tip of the bronze helmet to Retronaut.)

Pentagram Pizza for May 18th

• Twelve words for for bloggers, pointed towards people in the medical professions, but likely appropriate for academia as well.

• While we are in the workplace, some thoughts from a Psychology Today article on why “diversity training” is a waste of time. Or why good manners are better than rules enforced by bureaucratic idiots.

• More thoughts on cult-occult films of the 1960s, this time from Zan at The Juggler. I have a couple in my Netflix queue now.

Happy Birthday to Blog

It just hit me: Letter From Hardscrabble Creek celebrated (?) its ninth anniversary as a blog on the 7th. To be truthful, I forgot. So raise a glass—better late than never.

Here is where it started.

Babies, Bathwater, and the Reclaiming Community

Of all American Witchcraft traditions, Reclaiming seems to be the most prone to self-criticism. Perhaps that is because, as Anne Hill writes in her brief blog-memoir, The Baby and the Bathwater, there was always much conflict over different visions for Reclaiming.

What started with one foot in the Faery/Faerie/Feri Witchcraft tradition of Victor and Cora Anderson also co-existed with a social vision of growing organic vegetables in a solar-powered paradise fueled by consensus decision-making, pushing the boundaries of gender-theory and overcoming enemies with the power of  love and passion.

Hill, one of the original group’s long-term members, writes things that only an insider could say. The Baby and the Bathwater combines blog posts that she wrote from 2006 to 2010, including the comments that readers left on her Blog O’Gnosis.

We’ve seen good people come and go over the years, and have noticed that mostly the good people go after they realize that Reclaiming is a victim of its own idealism and there’s nowhere to “advance” once you have experience and skills. I said that I have been struggling to clarify my present-day involvement with Reclaiming, particularly trying to discern what is baby and what is bathwater and not throwing away that which is of lasting value.

My friend responded instantly: “But there is no baby in the bathwater,
and there never has been.” I was stunned at that, and have been thinking about it ever since. Can it be true that what started as a grand experiment in creating a spirituality that was Goddess-centered, egalitarian, politically and socially radical would have absolutely nothing to show for itself 25 years after the fact? Could it be that a community and religious movement which has been at the center of my identity for over two decades consisted all along of nothing but our intense willingness to believe our own promotional language?

The Baby and the Bathwoter sees an up side to Reclaiming too, as Hill visits groups seeded in other areas and savors their enthusiasm.  You can download the PDF file for $2.99.

Invocatio

Added to the blogroll, Sarah Veale’s blog on Western esotericism, Invocatio.

The Dangers of Pagan Blogging

I started blogging in 2003, but I had no idea that being a Pagan blogger was the “scariest job on earth.”

On a regular basis you will receive messages claiming someone in the Pagan community is a thief, a pervert, a pedophile, a drug addict, a rapist, a sexual harasser, and even a murderer. In hysterical language you be told of misdeeds so foul that you think you must have misread the e-mail.

Dear readers, you are letting me down. No one has denounced anyone to me lately as a pervert, murderer, etc. Where are the evildoers that I may blog about them?

(Really, don’t bother.)