Culture

Brendan Myers: fact & fiction

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Philosopher, musician, writer, game designer, professor and Pagan, Dr. Brendan Myers is a creative and prolific creator of words, thoughts and music. Deemed a “dangerous man” by the late, great Isaac Bonewits, Dr. Myers prolifically writes fiction and non-fiction with the passionate intensity of a true visionary. After growing up in the picturesque small town of Elora, Ontario, Myers went on to earn his PhD in philosophy from the National University of Ireland, Galway. This launched his professional career as a professor of philosophy, leading him to teach in six different institutions in both Canada and Europe. This summer, Dr. Myers accomplished a rare feat.

Culture

Canada: Canadians in Print

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For many pagans, books are the gateway to knowledge. They are our first teachers of magic and offer a new world of esoteric lore and knowledge. If you enter the home of just about any modern pagan you will no doubt find a bookshelf (or many bookshelves!) piled high with books written by English authors such as Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente or the Farrars. There will no doubt be more than a few by high profile American writers, names like Margot Adler, Isaac Bonewits and Scott Cunningham or maybe the more contemporary Orion Foxwood or Christopher Penczack. Both Britain and the United States both have successful and high profile publishers of pagan books, Minnesota based Llewellyn Worldwide LTD.

Canada

Canadian supreme court hears religious freedom case

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In Canada’s Quebec Province, there has been an on-going debate over the teaching of a government mandated Ethics and Religious Culture Program (Programme Éthique et culture religieuse.) The ERC school curriculum was created and implemented in 2008 by former premier Jean Charest. Since that point it has caused multiple controversies and court cases which have now taken the debate to the steps of Canada’s highest court. According to this mandate all Quebec schools, private and public, must teach a prescribed Ethics and Religious Culture curriculum or an equivalent. The province’s website explains:
For the purposes of this program, instruction in ethics is aimed at developing an understanding of ethical questions that allows students to make judicious choices based on knowledge of the values and references present in society. The objective is not to propose or impose moral rules, nor to study philosophical doctrines and systems in an exhaustive manner.

Canada

The Quebec Values Charter: religious freedom or “militant secularism”

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On September 17 a Mcgill University student released a video taken of a man and woman engaged in a heated argument on a crowded public bus. According to a Huffington Post report, the argument began when the woman who was wearing a hijab boarded the bus.  Almost immediately the man began to harass her, demanding that she “remove her headscarf or return to her country.”  The unpleasantries continued for almost ten minutes. The man accused her of being associated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and “criticiz[ed] the lack of Muslim integration into society.” In his “rant,” he said that Quebec’s Premier, Pauline Marois, would make her remove that “hat.”

The altercation on the bus is not an isolated incident. CTV, local Canadian television, reports that “more victims are coming forward” and the victims are not always individuals. On September 2 the Mosque in Saguenay was attacked and allegedly sprayed with pigs blood.