Top Story: It looks like openly Pagan New York City councilman Dan Halloran has been vindicated in his recent clash with a parking enforcement agent. The NY Daily News reports that a judge threw out the $165 ticket written to him during his confrontation with traffic agent Daniel Chu, and that Chu has been disciplined and sent back to training.
“The lawmaker had tailed Chu after he saw the agent speed through a stop sign with his police lights flashing, he said. When Halloran stopped to snap photos of Chu parked illegally in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts in Whitestone, Queens, Chu hollered at him and wrote him a ticket for blocking a crosswalk. Chu was put on foot patrol and is required to undergo retraining at the Police Academy, which includes sensitivity training. He also faces several days’ docked pay, police sources said. After the Daily News ran a story on the confrontation last month, Halloran was bombarded with calls and e-mails from motorists claiming to have been wrongly ticketed by Chu. Complaints included the agent doling out tickets to a funeral procession, he said, adding that he is still calling for a review of every ticket the agent wrote.”
Considering how many New Yorkers feel about traffic agents, I’m sure Halloran has won himself a few new supporters from this little tempest in a tea-cup. But this doesn’t look like the end of troubles for the freshman council member, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) is calling for a federal investigation into the election that made Halloran a councilman, citing accusations of racial intimidation at the polls.
AALDEF told us their observers saw Asian-American voters and volunteers for Kim’s campaign harrassed and even assaulted by whites. The Halloran campaign countered that vanloads of Asian voters from outside the district were brought in to vote, and that voters were encouraged not to support him because of his pre-Christian pagan religious beliefs. Today, AALDEF is also claiming Korean-American voters also faced roadblocks to casting their ballots, thanks to the “racially discriminatory application of election procedures by New York City Board of Elections officials.”
I’m very certain there were racial tensions heightened during the campaign, and I don’t doubt that some thugs engaged in direct harassment of Asian voters, but there’s been no real proof that the Halloran campaign participated, encouraged, or benefited from such actions. Halloran, for his part, says he welcomes “any investigation to address election issues, especially voter fraud and electioneering inside the prohibited zones, as well as whether monitors followed the rules for avoiding voters entering polling sites before they voted.”
Another Pagan Music Festival: We have the music-focused Faerieworlds in Oregon, and the upcoming festival of Pagan Music That Doesn’t Suck in Missouri, and now Bangor Daily News reports that the Eastern Maine Pagan Pride Association will sponsor the state’s first pagan music festival.
“What makes a pagan song pagan is the lyrics rather than the kind of music or the instruments, according to Keri Alley, who helped organize the event. “Portland has held a pagan pride event, but this is the first event in the state devoted to pagan music,” she said recently. The performers will include Women with Wings, 1476, SadisTech, Lorelei Greenwood, Wolf Bone and Brite Phoenix. Members of Dark Follies, including Selcouth, are scheduled to perform. Brotha Luv, the host of WERU’s “Head Rush” show, will act as emcee.”
A sign that Pagan music’s time is soon arriving? Harbinger of a generational shift in Pagan-themed events? The most exciting thing about this show is that I haven’t heard of many of these bands, which points to a far larger underground of Pagan music-making than maybe any of us have anticipated. Artists at the festival include Lorelei Greenwood, Dark Follies, Women with Wings, 1476, SadisTech, and Wolf Bone.
Botanicas and Those Who Supply Them: Fascinating in-depth journalistic treatments of minority faiths, and the businesses that grow up around them, are truly rare. So I was very happy to see the Dallas Observer’s profile of Chango Botánica in Oak Cliff, and its resident folk healer (curandero) Francisco “Pancho” Diaz.
“You can’t take out the religious element from the botánicas,” says Northern Arizona University anthropology professor Robert Trotter, who has researched curanderismo, Mexican-American folk medicine. “But, if you were to do so, there would be a huge overlap between what they carry and many of the supplements and products sold at, say, a GNC or someplace like Whole Foods.”
Despite Chango Botanica’s popularity and success, its future is threatened by a cancer diagnosis for Pancho, and a planned rezoning and gentrification of the neighborhood that will drive up property values, and drive away the shop’s usual clientèle.
“Imagine one day you’re driving and you don’t see that lighthouse of beautiful saints from multiple faiths and beliefs, and you ask yourself, ‘What happened?’” Jorge says. “We are a fixture in this community and so is every other business on West Davis. It’s sad to see even one tire shop disappear. And if a tire shop can make me feel that way, think about Chango Botánica.”
The whole article is worth the read, and I encourage you to do so. Better yet, as evidence of the amount of research Daniel Rodrigue did for this piece, he presents a story thread that didn’t make it into the main article; a spotlight of the candle manufacturer that supplies many of the local botanicas. It, along with a slideshow of Chango Botanica’s back rooms give an engaging portrait of a thriving economy that many of us barely notice.
A New Training Program for Pagan Clergy: Pagan organization Earth Traditions, co-founded by Angie Buchanan and Drake Spaeth, has officially launched their new training program for Pagan clergy.
“Thank you for your interest in the Earth Traditions Ministry Training Program. This is not a Seminary, a program of magical instruction, or necessarily an ordination track. This is a practical certificated training program designed to provide Pagans who wish to be Ministers, (servants of the community) an array of tools and resources to inform and protect both the individual and the communities they serve.”
You can find an outline of their curriculum, here, and a list of instructors, here. I couldn’t find word on when their Fall semester begins or ends, but I’m sure interested parties can find out by contacting Earth Traditions. In other Pagan clergy/leader training news, the next National Pagan Leadership Skills Conference is coming up next week in Virginia, and Cherry Hill Seminary’s Fall registration is now open. It should be interesting to see how all these organizations, and others, rise to the challenge of providing leadership training to an ever-expanding modern Pagan community in the years to come.
A Ritual Death Results in Homicide Charge: A Santero in Puerto Rico, Jose Cadiz Tapia, has been charged with negligent homicide in the death of a woman who suffered extensive second-degree burns after he allegedly dropped a candle into an alcohol bath she was undergoing under his direction.
“Police consider 28-year-old Stephanie Rodriguez Pizarro’s death in July 2009 in a San Juan housing project to be an accident, and say she sought the treatment to help with marital and financial troubles. She died of second-degree burns over half her body. The healer, 46-year-old Jose Cadiz Tapia, was charged Tuesday following an investigation that took about a year to complete, police said. He faces six months to three years in prison if convicted.”
What is it with bizarre ritual deaths lately? Needless to say, if you are bathing in flammable liquid, do so well away from flames. If you do think alcohol baths and candles mix, be sure you really, really, trust the person holding the candles, and that you take precautions against an agonizing fiery death.
A Quick Final Note on Catholic Empathy: A Zambia chief is imprisoning “witches” in an illegal dungeon in his palace basement, and the Malole Catholic Church Parish Council has threatened to withhold holy communion from the chief (who apparently is nominally Catholic) if the practice continues. Good for the local Catholic Church, right? Well, apparently it’s snarky comedy gold for National Catholic Register blogger/commentator Pat Archbold.
“It seems the deal-breaker in this case is that the Chief’s sorcerer slammer does not provide adequate toilet facilities. Nothing will bring down the full wrath of the God and Amnesty International like not having adequate porta-potties in your own personal Azkaban. While sharia law may allow for attempted murders (or actual murders) on the cast of Harry Potter actresses, the Church still frowns upon such activity. Porta-potties or no porta-potties. Closer home, certain Catholic politicians who oppose the Church do not seem to be in any danger of being banned from Communion any time soon. Not that they are too worried about that anyway. Apparently in U.S, just as in Zambia, the witches are still free to receive communion.“
Yes, because voting the wrong way in a democracy is equatable to illegally imprisoning accused witches in your basement! Also note that he makes no mention of the hundreds of thousands killed, tortured, and abused because of witch-hysteria around the world, but instead makes a correlation to the “witches” (ie Catholic politicians who are pro-choice) receiving communion in America. Truly, his empathy and sense of proportion is staggering.
That’s all I have for now, have a great day!
