Completely open thread

Because: Life.

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Comments

[Mmy]

Because there is nothing like calling to get all the underground cable/lines locates done, watch various individuals walk around one's yard with machinery that makes vaguely "distressed small animals" sounds and then spray colours on one's lawn to discover, the hard way,† that someone forgot to indicate the location of the line that brings telephone and the internet into one's house.

† When the machine being driven by the nice man who is digging up my yard for me sliced through the lines.

[Mike Timonin]

Ouch! Best of luck with that, Mmy.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

Incidentally, Fred has put out a request for donations.

TRiG.

[Froborr]

Ouch, Mmy!

We had a fun morning ourselves. Woke up at a quarter to six because my fiancee was screaming in pain. Soon after she started having trouble breathing, and by the time the paramedics arrived she was barely conscious and trying to tell me what to tell various people if she died.

They put her on oxygen and she started being able to breathe more normally. They checked everything out at the hospital, ran some tests, and it turned out to just be *really bad* muscle spasms in her back that were squeezing her chest cavity; they gave her a prescription for muscle relaxers and it seems like everything's going to be okay.

But still, terrifying, exhausting morning, and that's just for me--it was much worse for her.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Ow, sympathies to your fiancee -- and there was nothing *just* about that level of pain.

[Z]

Wow! What caused the spasms?

I just read the book "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why." (Trigger warning for people who've had loved ones get into trouble on a hike?) It was a compelling read, mostly because of the harrowing personal stories in each chapter, but I also learned a few new things about how to survive from the psychological- and search-and-rescue post-mortems. 1. If you get lost, admit it to yourself. The campsite isn't 'just over the next hill'. Settle in or retrace your steps. 2. Always wait for the weather report. And 3. the summit isn't the mountain. If you have to go back before seeing the big view, you will be okay. I was a little surprised that the author labelled me, an urban mom with a government-clerical position, as a thrill-seeker. I don't take a lot of chances, don't like toys with engines and tend to call it a night earlier than everyone else at a party or club, but I like to hike and kayak, and apparently that's because of the thrill. There's no safety net in the wild. I have to admit, I feel flattered.

I'm looking for book recommendations in a specific genre! I'd like a female protagonist who's a cop or detective in a book with a supernatural element.

[Coleslaw]

Oh, Froborr, that sounds scary. I hope this is just a transient thing.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

Z: Stealing the Elf King's Roses, by Diane Duane

[Mike Timonin]

Z - look at Tanya Huff's "Blood" series - fantastic vampire detective fiction before anyone knew that supernatural urban fantasy was a "thing."

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

mmy,

I feel your pain about the line work. We had one six month period where the electric company cut the phone line when they came to fix the electric line that went bad, and then the neighbor's cable company cut the phone line, and then the phone company cut the neighbor's cable when they were fixing the phone line said cable company cut, and then the neighbor's lawn service cut the phone line.

I found myself very glad that none of them hit the gas line during that whole clusterfuck. And the grass did grow back there eventually.

[Froborr]

Thanks all. We don't know for sure what caused the spasms; she has significantly upped her exercise regimen in the last month or so, and she has been spending a lot of time drawing for the past several months, which she does with fairly poor posture. Either is a possibility. Or she may just have slept on it *really* badly. Most likely is a combination of all three.

She's spent most of the day sleeping. She seems to be in much less pain now, which is good.

[hapax]

Omigosh, Froborr. That sounds terrifying. (And familiar -- I remember the first time I had crippling back spasms; I also thought I was going to die. If anyone says "Some day you'll look back at this and think it was funny", please feel free to whup them upside the head with a cluebat.)

@Z -- I am now trying the first of Kim Harrison's "Rachel Morgan / Hollows" series DEAD WITCH WALKING, which stars a female PI in a fairly typical urban fantasy series. I'm reading it mainly because it is part of my job to be familiar with really popular genres, even if they're not my cup of tea.

So far I can *stand* it, which is saying a lot, because I tend to really hate KickAss UF heroines. The "detecting" part doesn't seem nearly as well fleshed out as the asskicking part, though.

I remember being much more impressed with Michelle Sagara's Elantra series (the first is CAST IN SHADOW) although I stopped reading it around book 3 for some reason.

And finally, there's our very own Kit Whitfield's BENIGHTED (BAREBACK in the UK) which has a female cop (of a sort) protagonist in a very different sort of werewolf setting. Be warned, though; it is much more realistically violent and psychologically intense than the typical UF story, and goes to some very dark places indeed.

[Z]

Thank you! Thank you! I don't know why I have such a craving for the genre, but this summer it's all I want to read.

[Ross]

Since this is an open thread, I want to bring up two things that came to my attention last week that I hadn't found relevant until now:

Colorado lawmaker supports ban on new mosques because "mosques are not churches like we would think of churches. They think of mosques more as a foothold into a society, as a foothold into a community, more in the cultural and in the nationalistic sense. Our churches — we don’t feel that way, they’re places of worship, and mosques are simply not that."

And also: Montana lawmaker thinks Bambi (the movie) was the opening gambit in a decades-long plot to destroy america: "Bambi persuaded us that animals deserve compassion, which established environmentalism as a religion." leading to conservation laws protecting bison, so that in the near future, evil liberals won't let us drill for the limitless oil we will need to secure our future, because bison live on top of the land in montana where all that oil is hiding.

[Nick Kiddle]

//I am now trying the first of Kim Harrison's "Rachel Morgan / Hollows" series DEAD WITCH WALKING, which stars a female PI in a fairly typical urban fantasy series.//

I just read that a few weeks ago because xCLP's bio-dad was getting rid of it and it looked interesting enough to try. I liked lots of things about the worldbuilding, but the mechanics of the writing jarred even my highly elastic immersion abilities. And the infodumps were not remotely subtle.

[Amaryllis]

@Froborr: belated sympathies, that does sound terrifying. Glad to hear that your fiancee is feeling better.

Chest spasms, hmmm? I never heard of them before, but maybe a much less intense version is what kept me awake last night? It was a weirdly painful sensation. And I've been shoving furniture around and sitting for hours with bad posture, if those are contributing factors. Anyway, thanks for the information that they exist, and best wishes to your fiancee for no recurrences.

@Ross: Oh jeez. Sometimes I can't even.

Here's another, whose headline immediately reminded me of the series we love to hate: The U.N. Is Coming For Your Guns.
"The United Nations is deliberating over a treaty that will place comprehensive limits on the international weapons trade. The language of the draft agreement is so expansive it wouldn’t take an Obama-appointed judge very long to extend the treaty to cover the domestic firearms market as well. If American jurists continue to be enamored by the popular trend to consider international precedence when making U.S. rulings, you can kiss the Second Amendment goodbye."

Why, hello there, Nicolae!

But that's the Times for you: wherever they start, they end with Obama's government thugs breaking down your door and taking your Stuff, with the U.N. cackling evilly in the background.

[Timothy (TRiG)]

@Froborr. Belated sympathies.

@Z. Seconding hapax's recommendation of Bareback/Benighted.

@Amaryllis. Someone I know on Facebook was going on about that recently. I looked it up. It was completely overblown.

@Ross. What the actual fuck? This is real? (I'll check those links as soon as I'm out of work.)

TRiG.

[Froborr]

There's a Washington Times now?

(I kid. The Times is considered something of a joke in D.C.--*no one* reads it, at least not that they'll admit to publically.)

[Kit Whitfield]

:-)

Because I feel like saying something uncontroversial for a change: I am knitting a hat. It has a bark pattern and will be decorated with ivy leaves.

So: IIII've got a special hat, as Professor Elemental would say. (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gAodFpSLYiU)

Since I also have a chest infection, that's about all the excitement round our way just now.

[Amaryllis]

It was completely overblown.

Of course it was. It was the Washington Times. Overblown is what they do.

The Times is considered something of a joke in D.C.--*no one* reads it, at least not that they'll admit to publically.
I can admit it, because I live in Baltimore! Spouse, in a weak moment, agreed to a subscription with a rate so low they're practically giving it away. I hate to support them at all, but at least it's not by much, and at least they're good for a laugh.
...When I'm not totally bemused with "How can they tell those lies in print?"

Their coverage of the health care decision was priceless. I think my favorite opinion column was the one which compared "Obamacare" to a rotten broccoli cake with sweet unhealthy icing, but there was so much to choose from, it was hard to decide.

[Froborr]

Hope you feel better soon, Kit!

Thanks all for the well-wishes. Fiancee is taking it easy today. The medicine seems to be working and she is no longer in pain, but very tired.

[Mmy]

@Froborr: Fiancee is taking it easy today. The medicine seems to be working and she is no longer in pain, but very tired.

I have never had back spasms so bad that they made me scream or interfered with my breathing but I have had spasms so severe I couldn't move with pain that felt close to the screaming level. The next day I was always exhausted. In fact I was often tired for several days. And there was usually some form of residual soreness as well.

Has anyone ever suggested a TENS machine for her? I found mine to be the only thing that really helped when I was having severe muscle spasms.

[storiteller]

Colorado lawmaker supports ban on new mosques because "mosques are not churches like we would think of churches. They think of mosques more as a foothold into a society, as a foothold into a community, more in the cultural and in the nationalistic sense. Our churches — we don’t feel that way, they’re places of worship, and mosques are simply not that."

Um, "we" don't? One of the most important things I look for in a church is involvement and engagement in the community. My favorite activities in my church are the ones where we serve the community, whether it's hosting the homeless lunch program or making gifts for the kids at the hospital. I don't know that I would call it a "foothold" (those are scare quotes), but it's not "just" a place of worship. Any church that's just for Sunday services and singing is not a place I want to be. In fact, the insular nature of many evangelical churches and lack of community engagement is one of the things that reinforces their hierarchical thinking and tendency to misrepresent other types of religions and cultures.

And also: Montana lawmaker thinks Bambi (the movie) was the opening gambit in a decades-long plot to destroy america: "Bambi persuaded us that animals deserve compassion, which established environmentalism as a religion."

As much as the "destroying America" part is a total crock, there is some academic research on the role of Bambi in environmentalism. I watched it in college for a class called Nature and Culture and we talked about its effects on hunting and policy. It seemed to me that the major effect was that hunters no longer wanted to shoot does, because you'd be "killing Bambi's mom." Unfortunately, this attitude doesn't really help deer at all because the hunters still shoot bucks and can actually make efforts to keep deer populations under control very difficult.

[Froborr]

@Mmy: No, not so far. They gave us the number for a clinic to call if the pain continues more than a few days or if it returns later; right now they seem to be treating it as a one-time thing but watching out for the possibility that it isn't.

[Mmy]

@storiteller: One of the most important things I look for in a church is involvement and engagement in the community.

Damned right storiteller. That struck me as the most bleak commentary on a person's relationship with a church I had read in a long time.

Thinking of things that our church did in other than "worship."

Well, when I was growing up all the churches were heavily involved in the Girl Guides/Boy Scouts, the churches all ran free summer schools/camps so that people's children would get supervised safely during the summer. The church collected food and clothes and took them to needy families. The church (it was always the women's leagues back then) organized meals on major days of the year and picked people up and drove them home. The church organized snow shoveling and yard mowing for the elderly/physically disabled in the community. The church organized free babysitting/supervision for people who were called away to look after sick family members. The church organized gift drives at Christmas.

Now? Right now it is the churches in my parents town who arrange that the libraries at the two palliative care hospitals are stocked and organized. It is the churches in my home town that have organized a free breakfast/lunch program at the schools so that every child has a good breakfast and a good lunch.

Worship -- the churches I went to as a child and the churches that help out the needy, battered and bereft in my community are full of people who believe that coming together to help each other is, in itself, a form of worship.

[hapax]

Speaking of churches, I have heard *unofficially* that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has approved a liturgy for the blessing of same sex unions, and to prohibit discrimination in ordination on the grounds of "gender identity and expression."

So (if these are confirmed officially), score two for the side of progress.

[PrismaticShadow]

*sigh*

I don't know why, but I feel quite meh right now. Neither my girlfriend nor I feel like taking care of any of the dishes or the other chores that needed to be done three weeks ago, and that's essentially shot down my whole day.

Still, at the craft fair my girlfriend and I took part in on Saturday, we managed to make a relatively good bit of money selling jewelry. I also managed to make a post on the kyriarchy for my blag and I'm finally making it a point to read through all of Fred's Left Behind archives.

S'been far too long since I've been part of the Slacktiverse and I'm glad to be back.

TO THE ARCHIVES!

*hops into her time machine*

[kisekileia]

I had severe stomach spasms periodically in my last year of high school and first year of university. I think they were caused by a combination of repressed anxiety, multiple untreated/ineffectively treated psychiatric conditions, and Effexor. They got bad enough that it hurt to breathe. There was one time when I probably should have gone to the hospital and begged for morphine. The walk-in clinic doc couldn't find anything wrong, but said that if it really hurt that badly when he pressed down on it, they should take me to the hospital and open me up for exploratory surgery. I knew exploratory surgery was probably a bad idea, so I started pretending it didn't hurt as much as it did. I ended up taking a seriously dangerous combination of meds--five or six different central nervous system depressants--to kill the pain, and after I had a glass of wine on top of everything I finally fell asleep. I didn't realize until Heath Ledger died several years later just how stupid I'd been.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

Just because I thought this was really cool...

cjmr's husband and I took the kids to our alma mater today (Michigan State). We were walking past the carillon tower and youngest tripped and fell. So we decided to sit on the benches and rest for a while and noticed there was a woman playing at the practice keyboard on the first floor of the tower. She invited us up into the tower to see the carillon (which had been removed for re-casting during the years we were actually at university). Then she gave eldest a short carillon lesson and actually let him play a piece with her.

[Literata]

mmy, what a lovely display of incompetence.

Froborr: I hope your fiancee feels better soon! That has to be terrifying and exhausting afterwards.

As far as anyone who thinks that churches are "just" a place of worship, I'd like to take them on a tour of cathedrals and historic churches in Europe, or, more succinctly, to the National Cathedral in DC, which I saw recently. Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful, but it is also a stunning statement of power, pure and simple. If you can get together enough resources, especially enough money, to build something like that, it is impossible for me as a member of another religion not to see that as also being a statement about the kind of social and political effect those resources can have. For a member of a tiny minority religion, that can make me quite nervous.

Which is not to say that I'm against cathedrals. It's just another example of how some Christians want to deny to others what they've been doing all along.

Kit: feel better soon. That hat sounds awesome!

[Kirala]

@Literata: as a Christian, I feel nervous around cathedrals, too. I don't like seeing what happens to my faith when it gets connected with wealth and power. (And then I'll see a particularly beautiful piece of artwork or architecture in the cathedral and think, "Well, that is pretty awesome," which is an experience I'd like to be able to share.)

[Literata]

I totally understand, Kirala. In fact, after Fred's recent comments on bishops, I reflected that seeing the bishop's seat in the cathedral made me a lot less nervous than the idea of how many people had to put how much money together to build and maintain the building.

On the other hand, the National Cathedral has a Space Window which contains a piece of moon rock from the Apollo 11 mission, which is just too cool. The guide described it as a sort of modern relic, which made an amazing amount of sense to this Pagan who finds the divine in nature.

[Mmy]

@Literata: One of the (many) things that struck me about your recent experience of having your application turned down in Virgina was that the questions on many of the Virgina County forms not only favoured certain versions of organized Christianity they were also, one could argue, against the spirit of the Christian Gospels. I was thinking, specifically, of Matthew 18:20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.

[lonespark]

The National Cathedral has a Space Window which contains a piece of moon rock from the Apollo 11 mission, which is just too cool. The guide described it as a sort of modern relic,

Wow that is very cool.

[Literata]

mmy, yup, and as a Christian actually pointed out to me, if there really is a requirement to have a fixed address zoned as a church and permanently associated with the group, then Jesus himself wouldn't have been able to get recognition as clergy.

[Mike Timonin]

I know the issue of colour names (and how having colour names affects our ability to see those colours) has come up here. My wife shared a pair of really neat articles on that:
http://www.empiricalzeal.com/2012/06/05/the-crayola-fication-of-the-world-how-we-gave-colors-names-and-it-messed-with-our-brains-part-i/

There's a link to the second article at the bottom of the first article. I found the bit about yeondu and chorok fascinating. (two shades of green which are completely different in Korean, but which I can't tell the difference between)

[Raj]

@Froborr: My sympathies and good thoughts to your fiancee. I'm glad she's not in danger.

[Raj]

Kit: I am knitting a hat. It has a bark pattern and will be decorated with ivy leaves.

For some reason, this sounds like coded spyspeak to me.

Spy #1: I am knitting a hat. It has a bark pattern and will be decorated with ivy leaves.

Spy #2: Will you be wearing it on a fully-loaded jumbo jet?

Spy #1: Yes, but the flowers are in the trash.

[Raj]

Kit,

Aww, hope you get well soon.

[Steve Morrison]

Kit: I am knitting a hat. It has a bark pattern and will be decorated with ivy leaves.

For some reason, this sounds like coded spyspeak to me.

Aarghh! I just read A Tale of Two Cities, and you just put a terrifying image into my brain – Kit as Madame Defarge [shudder].

Fortunately, it's a very difficult idea to take seriously.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

The National Cathedral is Episcopalian, BTW, not Catholic. The RC archdiocesan cathedral for DC is St. Matthew the Apostle.

[Literata]

I'm not aware that I said it was RC; I'm quite clear that it's Episcopalian. It's still a cathedral with an Episcopalian bishop's chair. And while the Episcopal church is generally pretty liberal, and this one has some wonderful inter-religious type programs, it's still a big, powerful hierarchy of people who are part of Christian hegemony. If they commit to honoring marriage equality, I'll have one less reason to feel nervous and potentially othered by them, but...

[Literata]

Sorry, cjmr, I didn't mean to snap there. I understand that it's not Roman Catholic, and that has different implications about the power structure involved and the amount of resources, but I think it was also a bit unnerving that an organization not as big as the Catholic church has that much power.

[cjmr, on her son's netbook]

Literata--mine was more of a 'information for non-DC locals' info dump, anyway.

[Mmy]

@Literata: Although the Episcopalian Church in the US is now quite small (around 2.5 million as of 2000) it has deep roots in the power structure of the country. It had been the established church in a number of the colonies and, according to the book I am now reading:

Roughly one-third of all Supreme Court justices and one-quarter of all US presidents have been Episcopalians, far more than any other denomination. And Episcopalians commanded forty-two seats in the 109th Congress—about thirty-three more than their current share of the US population would warrant.†

I guess one could say that they still have deep roots in the "old, monied" families of the eastern seaboard.

† Prothero, Stephen (2009-10-13). Religious Literacy (p. 176). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

[lonespark]

Yeah, Unitarians are like that, too.

[storiteller]

As far as anyone who thinks that churches are "just" a place of worship, I'd like to take them on a tour of cathedrals and historic churches in Europe, or, more succinctly, to the National Cathedral in DC, which I saw recently. Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful, but it is also a stunning statement of power, pure and simple. If you can get together enough resources, especially enough money, to build something like that, it is impossible for me as a member of another religion not to see that as also being a statement about the kind of social and political effect those resources can have. For a member of a tiny minority religion, that can make me quite nervous.

Do you have the same feelings in reaction to non-Christian memorials in other countries? (Like the massive statues of Buddha or the ornate Muslim mosques.) Or is it just the fact that Christianity has had such power worldwide and specifically in America that's been abused? I think either is perfectly legitimate, I'm just curious if your nervousness comes from a specific issue with a specific religion or large-scale displays of religious power in general.

Personally, I love cathedrals even though the voice in the back of my mind says "You know, this money could have been used to feed poor people." I love the beauty of such sweeping spaces and the art that's inside. I also really enjoy them as cultural artifacts - you learn so much about a place and time from just looking at the little details. I recently visited the Catholic National Shrine in DC and was struck at how different it was from other large churches I've been to. In fact, it's almost the opposite from the National Shrine, which is rather America-centric. (Even the Space Rock window is about the US Space Race.) In contrast, the Shrine featured smaller shrines from Catholic groups all over the world who had donated them as symbols of friendship from their church to the American church.

Unfortunately, I haven't been to a modern non-Christian large place of worship. I've been to some of the ancient ones, like Stonehenge, Newgrange, and El Castillo in Chichen Itza. As wondrous as these are, they have a very different power knowing that the civilizations that built them are long gone. I'd like to visit ones of a vibrant tradition, but I just haven't traveled to anywhere that has them yet.

[Literata]

storiteller, I'm not sure what kind of reaction I'd have to a large non-Christian worship space in another country (that is, in a setting where they might be as socially and politically powerful as Christians are in the US), as I've never had the chance to visit one. I think that part of it is both historical and political context; I remember feeling a bit of wariness about churches, even quite plain ones, that were part of a government-established system (C of I, active Catholic churches in governmentally Catholic countries) that I didn't feel in more secular countries, although some of that was moderated depending on circumstances, especially with very old churches whose original power stemmed from a no longer extant social system.

I think some of it has to do with my perception of how much someone is willing to point to this thing/structure/place and say "I, we, mine, ours" about it, thereby personally and currently identifying with the type of power it represents - and potentially being willing to exclude others and set the stage for power-over those others. The guide at the National Cathedral certainly gave the impression of being associated with the building in that personal sense, and of inviting the group to feel that way as well, which I just couldn't. Come to think of it, I might not have noticed my reaction so much if I'd simply done a self-guided tour, although I think the seeds of it still would have been there, since the whole idea of a National Cathedral is somewhat exclusive.

More and more I'm beginning to rely on a simple rule of thumb to figure out whether something is functionally religiously neutral or not: replace the Christian term of art with the nearest Wiccan equivalent, then imagine the reaction of my Southern Baptist aunt. National Day of Spell Casting? Oh he...heck no. National Covenstead? No way, Hosea. Prayer before legislative sessions led by the chaplain-cum-High-Priest? Maaaaaybe, as long as it's clear that no one is required to participate and that it doesn't represent all the citizens. Spell to help graduates find a job at high school graduation? Right out. And so on...

The game is sad/funny in a different way if one uses Muslim equivalents instead. (My Southern Baptist aunt still works, unfortunately.)

[Kirala]

Spell to help graduates find a job at high school graduation? Right out.

Wait, let's not be too hasty here. Anything to improve the odds of a job in this economy.

[hapax]

replace the Christian term of art with the nearest Wiccan equivalent, then imagine the reaction of my Southern Baptist aunt.

This gives me the opportunity to tangent off (this *is* an open thread, after all) and throw a question out to the Wiccans / Pagans / other non-traditional faith members here.

T'other day the mother of a young baby came to the Reference Desk. She was very shy about asking her question (and I was once again very glad that I don't wear a cross at work!) but I eventually got that she was looking for Wiccan spellbooks.

Unfortunately, these are among the top items stolen at public libraries (along with dream interpretation, sex manuals, drivers license manuals, Bibles, ASVAB study books, and stop-smoking books), so all that we had were downloadable e-versions. This young lady neither had a computer nor was willing to go online with her questions.

I think that since I was receptive, moderately knowledgeable, and non-judgmental, she was willing to open up about her "real" question. She was in considerable distress, concerned that her baby was possessed by a demon. A family member had named the demon, and she looked him up and one source identified him as "one of the princes of Hell". She wanted a spell to cast this demon out.

This put me in a real quandary. I do not share her belief in demons. I do believe that mucking about with strong spiritual forces, whatever their names, without experienced guides can lead to bad places. I know for a fact that many children have been physically and emotionally harmed by well-meaning parents who thought they were demon-possessed. I am bound by professional ethics from interjecting my personal beliefs into an interview, passing any judgment upon a patron's beliefs or reasons for asking a question, just to answer the question to the best of my ability.

So.

I told her that I was by NO MEANS an expert on this topic (which is true) but I had done a fair amount of reading about theories of demonology (which is also true.) I told her that it was my understanding that it was usually an error to put too much stock in any particular "name" for entities that by definition did not belong to human categories -- I compared it to wine-tasters describing a particular vintage as "oak-y", which wasn't meant to indicate that they thought it literally tasted like a tree.

(The young woman seemed considerably relieved by this line of discussion, by the way.)

I then said that I didn't personally know of any Wiccan circles, and considering the intensely fundamentalist region we live in, I doubted many would publicly advertise themselves. I suggested that she contact the local Unitarian Universalist Assembly, which I happened to know was friendly to what they called "Earth-centred traditions", and ask them if they could recommend any resources to her.

So. I did the best I could think of on the spot, and the patron seemed in a much happier place when she left than when she came in.

But here's the thing. This is like the THIRD time I have had a similar sort of question: "I think my child is possessed of a demon. What should I do?"

I would be VERY grateful if the folks here, who are much more knowledgable than I, could suggest any better way to address these issues.

[Literata]

Wow, hapax, that sucks. If it's okay, I, who am also by no means an expert, will try to respond in two parts.

First, the idea of looking for a Wiccan or Pagan spell to cast out a (Christian) demon is, well, strange. It's sort of like asking a Catholic how best to give offerings to Athena on the basis that they talk to something sort of like a goddess sometimes anyway. Demonology is almost entirely a monotheistic construct. tl;dr: I no more believe in demons than I believe in Satan, so I can't help you there.

If I were asked, as a priestess, how to deal with this, I would start out with the basic statement that influence by negative spiritual forces (demons, curses, etc) is extremely rare, vanishingly rare compared with how many people wonder if they might be affected, and is never the right assumption to start out with. There are always umpteen other possibilities to investigate and try to work on first.

But you are absolutely right that a lot of harm is done by parents who think their child (let alone infant? seriously, WTF?) is possessed or influenced by "demonic" forces. And I respect your professional ethics, so...

Second, I think you did absolutely the right thing by pointing the woman to a place where she could potentially get counseling that had the highest chance of being helpful and not harmful. I think your approach to downplaying the potential seriousness of the issue was an effective, ethical compromise between your professional requirements and the desire to first do no harm. (For example, simply saying "If you want an exorcism, see the local Catholic parish" might meet your professional standards but would be extremely suspect to me in terms of general ethics.)

I might present someone with a range of options: recognize that other people have these issues and they're usually not related to spiritual matters; seek professional but non-spiritual counseling as a first approach; seek spiritual counseling not necessarily biased towards a particular outcome (as you suggested); potentially see your existing spiritual counselor if you have one.

Would it be professionally ethical for you to "teach the controversy" on this topic? You could say, for example, that some people talk and teach these ways (about demons, etc), but others talk mostly about psychology, and there's even some good evidence that the people who talk about demons are mistaken and or misleading in ways X Y and Z...and since the last Satanic Panic, a lot of that has been debunked anyway, and it turned out that simple counseling would have been a better option anyway, so maybe you should consider talking with someone who won't start throwing holy water around right away.

Does that at all begin to address your question?

[Froborr]

hapax and Literata: Wow, you are both *much* better at dealing with that than I would ever, in a billion years, be.

Unrelated, but this is an open thread: A college buddy of mine has written an article that may be of interest to folks here: Stereotyping Muslims: One Directions' Zayn Malik, Pop Culture, and the Diverse Realities of Lived Religious Identity.

[dr ngo]

Saudi Arabia is apparently sending women to the Olympic Games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKW9L4EeWJU&feature=share

[Mmy]

@dr ngo: It is fairly clear if one reads the details of the deal that it was the IOC that blinked rather than Saudi Arabia. Two woman athletes neither of whom made the regular standards of the game have been given waivers by the IOC to attend. They cannot qualify in the normal way because Saudi Arabia will not allow women within the country to compete and train in a way that makes them truly competitive. In addition to always being "dressed modestly" the two women who are representing Saudi Arabia must also be attended by a male guardian and not mix with men. Which will be interesting given the nature of officialdom at the Olympics and the fact that many other female athletes have male coaches and trainers around them.

I watched an interview with one of the two women--she has lived most of her life outside of Saudi Arabia and done most of her training in the US. Which means that life for women in Saudi Arabia who want to take part in sports has not been materially changed by this. Women in Saudi Arabia still cannot use swimming pools (there are no women-only times and women and men are not allowed to swim together), they cannot even enter sports stadia, they are not allowed to rent athletic venues, they cannot register for sports clubs or form leagues that will allow them to get competitive practice. They don't even have physed in the schools for girls.

Saudi officials have not indicated that any of these things will change. They simply found two women that the IOC would give a special waiver to attend in the hope that people who quit bugging them. The IOC in giving the waiver without rigorous conditions seems to be hoping that by achieving the "letter" of the Olympic charter people will leave them alone.

[MercuryBlue]

Bad, bad typo: McaNally.

[dr ngo]

@Mmy: I was not aware of all of these details, but none of them surprise me at all. Yet I would describe it as a small (very small) but significant step in the right direction.

Would you prefer that Saudi Arabia be given the boot from the Games, on the grounds that none of their women are qualified to compete? In your opinion, would that be better for Saudi women?

I ask this in all seriousness, since this would appear to be the only realistic alternative. The outcome we both, along with other right-minded people, might desire - that SA says "Oh, my goodness, we're facing an Olympic ban, we'd better start treating our women much better right away, etc." - is one I never thought remotely possible. So this trivial and superficial and petty concession (I'll grant all of that) struck me as the best outcome we might reasonably have hoped for under the circumstances. It'll take more than the International Olympic Committee to turn Saudi Arabia around.

[Mmy]

@dr ngo: Would you prefer that Saudi Arabia be given the boot from the Games, on the grounds that none of their women are qualified to compete? In your opinion, would that be better for Saudi women?

Yes.

Of course it would take far more than the IOC to turn Saudi Arabia around but this is just another indication to the Saudi authorities that they pay no price for their treatment of women.

The IOC's decision to allow these two women into the games will not benefit the women in Saudi Arabia who are not allowed to drive, not allowed to go the hospital without the permission of "guardians," will not get women the vote and indeed, will not even allow Saudi women to go to a swimming pool or enter a stadium.

It helps Saudi women not at all and quite arguably sets back their cause since it reassures the Saudi authorities that if they throw a few meaningless concessions to international agencies they will be allowed to continue their mistreatment of women with impunity.

[dr ngo]

@mmy: Fair enough. We're in the realm of hypotheticals and counter-factuals and probabilities here, in which my experience and observation of the world leads me to one conclusion about what's likely to be the best result and yours to another. You could (and did, IIRC) adduce South Africa, which eventually mended its ways after prolonged boycotts and bans; I might adduce Myanmar/Burma, which seems to be improving itself, little by little, in response to what its neighbors refer to as a policy of "engagement." But if the purpose is to induce change (rather than, for example, feeling good about ourselves) it's a gamble either way, and I'm prepared to admit that I could be wrong.

[MercuryBlue]

I think it's the goddamn cookie problem. No, one has not earned a cookie just because one is behaving like less of a jerk. However, if behaving like a jerk and behaving like less of a jerk net identical reactions, there is no incentive for someone inclined to jerk behavior to knock off the jerk behavior.

[Ross]

Hm. I'm not quite sure. I mean, it's certainly true that this concession isn't going to have any direct practical effect on the women in Saudi Arabia. But I'm not convinced that this is a "meaningless" concession. I mean, the position of the establishment is pretty soundly based in the idea that they are enacting the immutable word of God with absolute certainty. And so even if this is purely a token concession with no practical impact, symbols mean something; there are only so many token concessions with no practical impact you can really make before you've raised a generation of people for whom the status quo is "Well okay, it's not *absolutely* forbidden".

I'm sort of brought to mind of the Catholic Church. If the Vatican were tring to field an Olympic team, there's no way they'd make even a token concession like this, because the Catholic Church always operates under the assumption "If we ever admit to having changed our minds on anything ever, that will the the end of us."

As empty and meaningless as this concession is, the fact of the matter is that they had to give up *something*. (And this isn't the first time, IIRC, last year they announced "In the unlikely event we ever have free elections again, we might let some women vote, under a set of restrictions that will probably ensure none of them are actually able to do it." Again, not a concession that has any practical value, but I think the very fact of it happening at all is a big deal. I think that they're compromising their position of absolute-ideological-purity, and that's a sign that they're losing purchase

[Mmy]

@Ross: This conversation reminds me greatly of conversations that went on during the fight against apartheid and the fight for civil rights in the United States.

Even if the very slight, tiny, almost imperceptible concessions that the Saudis are making lead eventually, after all due considerations and with majestic slowness to women in Saudi Arabia be given equal rights in their own country--given the speed at which movement is taking place millions of women in Saudi Arabia will live (and die) in country that denies them basic human rights while we sit on the side and counsel them patience.

And I think you underestimate the skill of the Saudi authorities in deflecting actual change. Saudi's know that women are quite capable of driving (they see it on television and many Saudi women have drivers licenses in other countries.) That does not change the fact that they are punished for driving in Saudi Arabia.

Me--if I had magical power I would tie all Saudi participation in international sports such as football (soccer) to the Saudis allowing women full access to sports facilities within their own country. That is, I would make Saudi men bear the price for their treatment of Saudi women.

[Mmy]

Sorry to double post--but there is another reason why the behaviour of the IOC and the world response concerns me and that is the indications within the last decade of how tenuous is the hold that even American women have on being according equal rights and value as citizens of their own country.

The fight to recognize the equal humanity of women is not a completed project. For example, a coordinated legal assault on the rights of a woman to own her own body is going on right now in many (perhaps all) American states. I get the sense that for many members of the powers that be what Saudi Arabia is doing wrong is being too obvious in its actions rather than thinking that its actions (such as making women legally subordinate and answerable to a male figure) anathema.