Archive | October 5, 2015

Murtagh An Doile, Me, Elizabeth Tiger Rose and Brian Ewing

I spent yesterday at our local Pagan Pride for LA and Orange County down in Long Beach. It had rained all night up in our neck of the woods but LB hadn’t gotten any rain until that morning and it was still spitting when we got there around 11:00. I still managed to sunburn my part even with heavy cloud cover most of the day. I didn’t discover that I had until I went to part my hair this morning after I had washed it. I hate when I burn my part. When it peels if it does, it peels like a zipper which is just gross.

It was a bit melancholy in some ways, I went with two friends that had lost 3 people in 48 hours starting with Kim in Oregon and two good friends were having severe health issues. But the good thing about that is you are with pagans who have a keen understanding of the Samhain cycle and what happens during a Mercury Retrograde. Poor Tagh had to do a workshop on the Irish gods and was having trouble concentrating.

But it still was a lot of fun to see old friends and I hadn’t been to a Pagan Pride in at least 5 years, not since they moved from Whittier Narrows to Long Beach and I had a booth for TOILA. I was on the committee that put on the very first one here about 10 years ago.

A lot of us you participate in the Pagan Studies Conference in January were trying to figure out what to do papers on because the theme is Social Justice and most of us old time pagans that started back in the 80s think that is a mine field we do not want to walk in. Those of us raised in the 60s or in second wave feminism are too aware of the fact our views are under attack as no longer being politically correct even though we were the originators of the concept. Now it seems to be anybody you disagree with, with or without a good logical reason isn’t being policitically correct and need to provide a trigger warning which is bullshit.

E-Book Sales Slip, Print Picks Up, NY Times Says. Is That True?

Oct5

Nicholas C. Rossis

The NY Times Article

In a surprise twist, the mad dash of e-book sales – up 1,260 percent between 2008 and 2010 – finally slowed down in 2015. Or at least, that’s what NY Times recently claimed, in a controversial article.

According to the newspaper, e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper. E-book sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of 2015, it said, while digital books accounted last year for around 20 percent of the market, roughly the same as they did a few years ago.

Publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, may weather digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and television, after all. With the recent end of Oyster, it looks like e-book subscription services, modeled on companies like Netflix and Pandora, will struggle to convert book lovers into digital binge readers. Meanwhile, sales of dedicated…

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A belated lesson for Ted Cruz on speaking for the people

Oct5

Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues

It helps when more people are behind you. How’s the view from under the bus?

ICYMI: Politico 9/28 – Cruz sternly rebuked by GOP

On Monday night, Cruz’s colleagues ignored his attempt to disrupt Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s efforts to fund the government without attacking Planned Parenthood. In an unusual rebuke, even fellow Republicans denied him a “sufficient second” that would have allowed him a roll call vote.
Then, his Republican colleagues loudly bellowed “no” when Cruz sought a voice vote, a second repudiation that showed how little support Cruz has: Just one other GOP senator — Utah’s Mike Lee — joined with Cruz as he was overruled by McConnell and his deputies.

Life must be truly surreal for him these days. I mean:

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