"While the 1971 Sorcery Act technically outlaws the burning of alleged witches, the practice persists."

In Papua, New Guinea.

Elsewhere, murder is outlawed, yet the practice persists.

Speaking of Presidents and nightmares...

I had a dream last night that I woke up, looked at my iPhone, and saw a terrible headline in Drudge. I tried really hard to yell it out to Meade, who was asleep. It was impossible to yell, which should have tipped me off that it was a dream, but it was so realistic — the dream of waking up in bed and doing something that you tend to do while still in bed — that later, when I really did wake up, I grabbed my iPhone, went right to Drudge, and I was so relieved to see the same headline that was there when I went to bed Friday night.

It's a particularly cheerful headline — "Stocks Hit 5 Year High" — with a picture of wine glasses splashily clinking, angled together in a position that parallels Oprah's hands in a picture just above and to the left. Oprah looks alarmed/outraged, but only because "He even lied — to Oprah?!" And how reassuring that is. The outrage of the day is Lance Armstrong, doping and lying, the same old thing, and it's something that only vaguely affects us. Thank God.

What was the headline I saw in my dream? I won't tell you. It's not that I'm superstitious, but ideas affect minds, and it's an image I won't put out there.

What time is the world supposed to end?

It is 12/21/12 at long last, I just noticed, after paying some some attention to the real, albeit mini, apocalypse that is Draco the Blizzard. I was going to note that the world hasn't ended, but there's the question of what time the Mayans pinpointed on this Day of Days:

I know the world isn't really going to end today, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous that anyone would believe it is. But my 11-year-old brother thinks it's going to end, and I want to be able to go scream "I told you so!" in his face as soon as possible.

Thanks.

ABC is checking midnight in each of the world's time zones. Weather prediction noted:



I like NASA's reassuring web page. Excerpt:

Q: Does the Mayan calendar end in December 2012?

A: Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then — just as your calendar begins again on January 1 — another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.

Wikipedia has a huge article on the somewhat larger topic "2012 phenomenon." Excerpt:

Many assertions about the year 2012 form part of Mayanism, a non-codified collection of New Age beliefs about ancient Maya wisdom and spirituality.... Archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni says that while the idea of "balancing the cosmos" was prominent in ancient Maya literature, the 2012 phenomenon does not draw from those traditions. Instead, it is bound up with American concepts such as the New Age movement, millenarianism, and the belief in secret knowledge from distant times and places. Established themes found in 2012 literature include "suspicion towards mainstream Western culture", the idea of spiritual evolution, and the possibility of leading the world into the New Age by individual example or by a group's joined consciousness. 

Is there a bigger crock than secret knowledge from distant times and places?

"In Romania, on moonlit nights, the peasant women used to look down into a well until they saw the reflection of the moon."

"Then they let down a pail, slowly drew up water with the moon in it and, with a spoon, drank its reflection. Looking down into the well at that moment, they could see the face of their future bridegroom."

(A quote at the end of an essay by Saul Steinberg, found in a fruitless search for a drawing I remember or misremember with "we" and "they" —or is it "Who are they?" — drawn to signify the emotion contained in those words — a search undertaken after writing "So we they are not chomping cheeseburgers simply for sensual pleasure....")

Looking for meaning and finding it.

1. "A Texas family says they are getting strength from an image of Jesus they found in the mold growing inside the shower of their home."

2. "The family of a 13-year-old Kansas boy who found a picture of a long-dead uncle inside a camera he bought at a garage sale said it may be a sign from beyond."

(These are the top 2 "Most Popular" stories at UPI.com right now.)

"Baseball as a Road to God" — the name of a course at NYU.

Taught by John Sexton:

As the president of N.Y.U., Dr. Sexton could certainly teach any course he wanted. And as the former dean of its law school and clerk to a chief justice of the United States, he might have been expected to hold forth on jurisprudence. However, as a child of Brooklyn, as a scholar whose academic robe bears the number 42 in homage to Jackie Robinson, and as a practicing Catholic with a doctoral degree in religion, Dr. Sexton has for more than a dozen years chosen baseball and God as his professorial focus.

“The real idea of the course,” he put it in an interview, “is to develop heightened sensitivity and a noticing capacity. So baseball’s not ‘the’ road to God. For most of us, it isn’t ‘a’ road to God. But it’s a way to notice, to cause us to live more slowly and to watch more keenly and thereby to discover the specialness of our life and our being, and, for some of us, something more than our being.”...

The core of his original reading list — “The Sacred and the Profane,” by the religion historian Mircea Eliade — remains central to the class all these years later. Eliade’s essential insight, at least for Dr. Sexton’s purposes, is his concept of hierophany, meaning the manifestation of the sacred in the world. So, just as much as Stonehenge or the Kaaba or the Western Wall or St. Peter’s Basilica, baseball in Sextonian teaching affords such a locus for faith.

Hey, this reminds me of what my father used to say when I asked him why he didn't go to church. When we kids were little, the parents took us to church — we went here — but later they opted out. My father, who liked to play golf, said "God is every bit as much on the golf course as He is in church." I'm putting a capital "H" on "He," but it's not like he said it with a capital "H." That answer annoyed me, by the way. I was a teenager.
I was a nonbeliever in the proposition that guys on the golf course were thinking about God. Maybe if he'd claimed God was there with him when he went for a walk in the woods, I'd have accepted it. But my father never went for a walk in the woods.

By the way, a sexton is "An officer responsible for a church and its property, and for tasks relating to its maintenance or management" or "A warden, a custodian; a guardian or keeper of something..." The etymology goes back to words like "sacristan" and is influenced by the "secretarius" line of thinking which leads to "secretary." It's not connected to "sex," "the state of being male or female," which goes back to the Middle French word "sexe," meaning genitals —I'm getting this from the Oxford English Dictionary, which, sadly, I can't link to — even though one might think of genitals as sacred and secret.

"Hierophany" — which the linked article calls Sexton's "concept of... the manifestation of the sacred in the world" — is a word that is not in the Oxford English Dictionary. The closest thing is hierophancy, "The function of a hierophant; capacity of expounding sacred mysteries." A hierophant — familiar to anyone who's fooled with Tarot cards — is "An official expounder of sacred mysteries or religious ceremonies...." The etymology goes back to a root that means "bring to light, make known, reveal."



The sexton and the hierophant... picture them. One keeps things and the other brings them out into the light. Sexton's intellectual pursuit seems to be a manifestation of that old notion that an individual takes on a profession suggested by his name — many dentists are named Dennis, that sort of thing. If you were a sexton, would you not long to be a hierophant? If you were a groundskeeper, would you not long to be the Commissioner of Baseball? And if you were a lawprof, wouldn't you want to be President of NYU?

Will you attend a "Titanic Dinner" this Saturday, in remembrance of the last dinner on the Titanic 100 years ago?

There's one here in Madison, at Steenbock's on Orchard, which is an excellent place. 11 courses, $100 with "wine pairings." "Attire inspired by time period is welcome." Hmmm.

What's the least inviting part of this?
	Too expensive.
	11 courses? Of what? Sounds like too much and too weird.
	We're supposed to go in costume, but we don't have to -- that makes it too hard to get right.
	I don't want to eat based on mass death.
pollcode.com free polls

Oh, don't be such a wet blanket killjoy iceberg, it will be fun!

CORRECTION: "Friday" in the post title changed to "Saturday" after reading Curious George's comment: "Titanic Dinner on Friday the 13th...sure right after I break a mirror, walk under a ladder, and open an umbrella inddors."

139 human individuals... mostly Pakistani soldiers....

... buried under 70 feet of avalanched snow.

The Siachen Glacier, known as the world's highest battleground, is 6,300 meters (20,670 feet) high and spans 77 kilometers (47 miles) across the Line of Control that separates India- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir...

"It's a very massive scale slide," Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Saturday. "They are under the slide, but we haven't lost hope. The rescue work is on, and we are keeping our fingers crossed."

Fingers crossed? I didn't want to say anything about how religious people might perceive an giant avalanche that buries the soldiers on one side of a conflict that exists for reasons I have not studied. But I'm surprised to hear a Pakistani general say "we are keeping our fingers crossed," referring to what I've always thought was a Christian gesture. I presume the remark was translated, and I wonder what the general really did say, and what other images and gestures of hope stand in for crossed fingers around the world.

And yet:

[O]ne theory goes that during the various times when Christianity was illegal, the crossing of fingers was a secret sign for Christians to recognise each other. Yet whilst the Sign of the Cross has evolved into a good luck symbol and retained its Christian meaning, Fingers Crossed has lost any Christian connection.

This change of emphasis may have begun during the so-called 'Hundred Years War' between France and England (1337-1457). An archer would cross his first and second fingers, pray or wish for luck, and then draw back his longbow string with those same fingers. Maybe.

Another theory suggests that the sign pre-dates Christianity, when it was believed that benign spirits dwelt at the intersecting point of the cross, as in the Solar Cross. In Europe, the sign was made by two people; the first to make the wish and the second to support it. Linking their fingers firmly would squeeze and energize the spirits into beneficial action. Maybe.

In China, crossing the index and middle fingers is the sign for the number ten, which happens to coincide with the Chinese and Japanese written character for ten....

"So to believe in magic — as, on some deep level, we all do — does not make you stupid, ignorant or crazy."

"It makes you human."

"Don’t come down here and tell me there is no God."

"This nation is a Christian nation regardless of what those fruit loops and fruitcakes in Washington D.C. say. Hell will freeze over before I vote to have it removed."

So says Joe Hall, the Henderson County Commissioner, defending the Athens, Texas nativity scene from an attack by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which — for the record — is from Madison, Wisconsin.

The foundation asked for the baby Jesus to be removed, or for a sign to be put up next to his crib that would read: “At this season of the winter solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

But while some believe Santa is “but myth and superstition,” no one has asked for a sign to be placed next to him, clarifying his non-existence. The town has several other seasonal decorations up, such as reindeer, garden gnomes and snowmen, but the nativity scene is the only decoration has been criticized as a religious symbol. As for Santa, he’s more of a tradition than a religious icon, so the foundation has not taken issue with him.

Herman Cain and numerology.

I've already expressed my concerns...

It's not conservative to trash the entire system of funding the federal government and replace it with something concocted more out of numerology than economics.

... but Michelle Cottle really makes the connection:

In Chapter Nine of This Is Herman Cain—entitled “‘Forty-Five’—A Special Number,” Cain notes that his “conception, gestation, and birth all occurred within” the year 1945 (true of pretty much anyone born in the last three months of that year). He then launches into a detailed account of how “45 keeps on popping up as I go about the business of being elected—you guessed it—as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America.”



Meaningful signposts include events both past (in 1945, Reader’s Digest published a version of Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which Cain ran across last year and loved) and future (in 2013, the year the 45th president will take office, Cain and his wife will celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary.)

In some cases the digits 4 and 5 are only part of a figure, like the times when one of Cain’s weekly commentaries ran to 645 words or when the final leg of a campaign trip took place on Flight 1045 traveling at 45,000 feet. At times the 45 in question is only tangentially related to Cain, as when he cites a Las Vegas campaign event where he met a couple celebrating their 45th anniversary. And in one case, the key moment ultimately doesn’t have anything to do with 45 at all: at an early strategy meeting, Cain and two aides believed they were seated at table 45 in a restaurant, only to be told that there were only 43 tables total. Regardless, it all adds up to something big for Cain.

It’s not just the casual numerology....

Oh, lord...

Michele Bachmann: "When you take the 999 plan and you turn it upside down, I think the devil is in the details."

A well-crafted version of an observation many of us have been making.

Here's what I said in my live-blog of the September 22 debate:

8:15 — Herman Cain, is it just a coincidence that all those 9s just matched up in your 999 plan? Also, if we turn that upside down...

Note that my main point there was not 666 (the "Number of the Beast"). It was that lining up the digits is too cute. How can it be good policy when there's so much evidence that it was concocted to look snazzy? We're expected to respond to the lure of numerology. Good lord!  I don't believe in the devil or have any superstitions about numbers, but I am afraid — legitimately afraid — of people who use or respond to the mysticism of numbers.

This makes me want to check out numerology to see what 9 is supposed to mean. When would a person who believed in numerology choose 9? What about someone who wanted to influence other people who believe in numerology? When would he choose 9? I loathe this sort of superstitious belief system, so I haven't gotten any further than the Wikipedia article on numerology. It says: "There are no set definitions for the meaning of specific digits," but cites an example of the meaning of 9 as "Highest level of change."

Well, Cain certainly is proposing the highest level of change for the structure of federal revenue collection. He seems quite proud of that. Unlike everybody else's proposals his "starts with... throwing out the current tax code." This is not a conservative instinct. It's radical and daring. It seeks to excite us about change. There's some crazy emotionalism in it. Who would buy that? Who would be impressed that the 9s line up so perfectly?

The world-did-not-end traffic.

From my Site Meter, just now, under "Referring Search Words Ranked by Visits":



It's not all about the world not ending — Google traffic going to this post of mine. Somebody came here looking for "music to read to" and got to a post that I'm proud of. And then there was "you know i work on my hair" — which went here, where the clip from the movie with that quote no longer plays.

"While witches enjoy popular support in Romania..."

"... many in the government view them as swindlers whose presence makes their country seem superstitious and backwards.... It seems that tensions will diffuse when witches feel respected by their government and Romania feels respected by the West."

"There was a moment during the test when my mind drifted to her funeral and melancholy began to overtake me."

"At that point, I noticed a scent of hairspray—the same one my grandma used for the past 60 years. I teared up, knowing that she was right there with me and she was proud of me."

IN THE COMMENTS: Everybody's talking about what their grandmothers smelled like. Mine smelled like: 1. lemonade, watermelon, and chicken & dumplings, and 2. knitting wool and African violets.

"Arriving angry at Bush's Texas ranch over the president's position on Israel and Ramallah, Abdullah quickly decided he wanted to leave."

"But the prince spots a turkey on the road -- and takes it as a good omen, a sign from Allah!"

"Family Becomes Extinct, To Be Replaced with Feminism and Gender Equality."

A headline in Pravda.

The Russians gradually lose interest in marriage and family. Recent opinion polls conducted in the Krasnoyarsk region showed that 72 of each 100 marriages end with divorce. Demographers say that family as a social unit became irrational because of the financial crisis. Psychologists explain the current trend with the development of new culture and substitution of notions. It is not ruled out that the institute of marriage will vanish in the near future....

What makes Russians live in loneliness? Every specialist would have their own opinion regarding the subject and all of them would be right in their own way.

As long as I'm reading Pravda...

"Pregnancy: Mystical Condition Full of Superstitions."

It was believed that by denying a pregnant woman’s request, people incurred all kinds of misfortune. If a pregnant stranger knocked at someone's door, she had to be let in, fed and given overnight shelter. You could not raise voice at or scold a pregnant woman.

"Hellish hairy sea monster cast ashore." (Oh, now I may have to skip dinner.)

"Belka and Strelka: 50th Anniversary of Space Dogs Flight."

Russia on Thursday marked the 50th anniversary of the space flight of two dogs who became the first living creatures to circle the Earth and come back alive.

How many came back dead?

"Cat crosses Siberia to find its home."



"Bush's Legs Strike Back." What?!

American chicken legs, widely known in Russia as Bush's legs...

???!!!!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is right about this.

On the one hand, it is absurd for a world leader to be attacking an octopus, but superstition is a sign of a deficient culture:

"Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to human perfection, basing themselves in the love of all sacred values."

I agree. Let us aspire to perfection, love sacred values, and turn away from superstition.

(Via First Things.)

Paul was right!

"If Paul gets it wrong tomorrow, nothing is going to happen to him, to Paul. Paul has proven his mettle so far and there is nothing bad waiting for him round the corner if he gets it wrong. It could happen to anyone. Even an octopus can get it wrong."

7 new Supreme Court cases — including a win for Jeffrey Skilling.

Start reading!

Especially conspicuous:

In Skilling v. United States (08-1394), the Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in a main opinion by Justice Ginsburg.  The vote is unanimous on the “honest services” question in this case, but three Justices would have ruled that the honest services statute is unconstitutional:  Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy.  There are an array of other concurrences in the case, including a partial dissent by Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Breyer and Stevens.

• Holding: (1) Pre-trial publicity and community prejudice did not prevent Skilling from having a fair trial. (2) the “honest services” statue covers only bribery and kickback schemes.  Part of the opinion vacates the Fifth Circuit’s ruling on Skilling’s conspiracy conviction.  In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor disagrees with the Court’s conclusion that Skilling had a fair trial before an impartial jury.

SCOTUSblog falls prey to the statue-for-statute typo. I picture a ghostly statuesque demon that swipes at the hands of anyone trying to write statute. We all know how to write statute, and lawyers and lawprofs have far more occasions to type the word statute, but something drags us to statue. Perhaps it isn't anything supernatural, but a desire to escape from the legal structure we've imposed on our lives and to experience the freedom and beauty of art. No, no, not another statute! I would prefer a statue!



But of the subject of imposed confining structures: Will Jeffrey Skilling, the Fiend of that Terrible Corporation Known as ENRON, break free of the iron grip of federal prison? From the opinion (linked above):

Whether potential reversal on the conspiracy count touches any of Skilling’s other convictions is also an open question. All of his convictions, Skilling contends, hinged on the conspiracy count and, like dominoes, must fall if it falls. The District Court, deciding Skilling’s motion for bail pending appeal, found this argument dubious, but the Fifth Circuit had no occasion to rule on it. That court may do so on remand.

Skilling was convicted 5 years ago, by the way. Isn't it disturbing that justice takes so long, even — especially? — for a very rich man?

I wonder what Obama and his cohort will make of this new opinion, which limits the ability of federal prosecutors to go after the nefarious men who run corporations.