"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.

Obama's inauguration poet "tackles 'the intersection of his cultural identities as a Cuban-American gay man.'"

The poet is Richard Blanco, the verb "tackles" comes from Politico, and the quote within the quote is in the Presidential Inauguration Committee press release.

I'm not a poet, but I pay attention to images, and I find the picture of tackling an intersection absurd in a particularly amusing way. Intersection of his cultural identities is also absurd but only in that dry, dreary academic way that makes you want to say to all your children and grandchildren: Do not major in the humanities!

What amuses me about tackling an intersection is that it seems to reveal the author's anxiety about the masculinity of the gay poet. Why make us picture a football move? Admittedly, the verb tackle originally meant to equip (a ship) with the necessary furnishing and then to harness (a horse), and only later "To grip, lay hold of, take in hand, deal with; to fasten upon, attack, encounter (a person or animal) physically." So says the OED. But it's all pretty damned macho.

There's no Blanco poetry at the link, but there is a description of an essay "Afternoons as Endora" from a collection "My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them."

“According to [my grandmother], I was a no-good sissy — un mariconcito — the queer shame of the family,” Blanco wrote. “And she let me know it all the time: Why don’t we just sign you up for ballet lessons? Everyone thinks you’re a girl on the phone — can’t you talk like a man? I’d rather have a granddaughter who’s a whore than a grandson who is a faggot like you.”

Go here for a little more of the writing, including Blanco's description of dressing up like Endora and watching "Bewitched" on TV:

Together we'd turn Mrs. Kravitz into a chihuahua, Derwood into a donkey, or Uncle Arthur into a chair. We were unstoppable....

I was a helpless and scared child, powerless against my grandmother, while Endora was a mighty witch with limitless powers. Unlike Samantha, her foolish daughter, she was a witch who wasn't afraid of being a witch, and used her magic to get her way or enact revenge every time she had a chance.

A fantasy of power. Suitable for a presidential inauguration.

AND: More on Blanco:

"Since the beginning of the campaign, I totally related to [Obama's] life story and the way he speaks of his family, and of course his multicultural background,” Mr. Blanco said... “There has always been a spiritual connection in that sense. I feel in some ways that when I’m writing about my family, I’m writing about him."...

Cynics might say that in picking a Latino gay poet, Mr. Obama is covering his political bases....

Aw, come on. People observing the normal things that happen in politics don't deserve to be called "cynics." OED defines "cynic" as:

A person disposed to rail or find fault; now usually: One who shows a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, and is wont to express this by sneers and sarcasms; a sneering fault-finder.

Oh, what the hell. I'll accept the label. With politicians, we should be cynics. By the way, "cynic" comes from the Greek for dog-like (which you can sort of see in the word currish, which echoes in churlish).

Saturday's protest ambiance: mellow, low-key.

A woman dressed in nonthreatening witch garb stood under the "Forward" statue and implored people to assemble for an "Oakland March" — which I presume was a protest against the recent attempt by the police in Oakland, California to oust the Occupy Oakland protesters.



People gave the "witch" a wide berth. It was a Farmers' Market day, so the Capitol Square was pretty crowded, mostly with people who didn't seem to be shopping for any new political ideas. But there was a woman standing under a black "Recall Walker" umbrella, and a man with a lot of 9/11 Truther paraphernalia.



Then there was this man with a "Decline of Western Civilization" poster. It's got this quote that's attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish-born British writer who died in 1813.



The Wikipedia article says: Tytler "believed that 'a pure democracy is a chimera,' and that 'All government is essentially of the nature of a monarchy.'" The "Tytler Cycle" that appears on the poster is unlikely to have been written by Tytler. I'm not sure what political position the poster-holder is trying to take. He has a "you are here" pointer — see the enlargement — between "from Abundance to Complacency" and "from Complacency to Apathy." "Apathy" subsequently leads to "Dependence," which makes me think he's taking a right-wing position against the people becoming dependent on government. "Dependence" leads to "Bondage," which gets us back to the beginning of the cycle. But I'm going to assume that he means it in a left-wing way. Right?

"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."

Christine O'Donnell drives the liberals nuts.

Bill Maher has put together a video montage — intended, of course, as an attack...



1. Does this really work as an attack? I mean, as an attack on O'Donnell? Is it not instead or also an attack on the gaggle of liberals who gang up on and mock her? Maher brings on one woman — undoubtedly partly because she's pretty — and makes a punching bag out of her. They are so cocksure of themselves — both of their politics and of their funniness. It's really rather creepy and embarrassing for them.

2. O'Donnell is charming and game and she's stirring them up, that is, doing what she was brought on the show to do.  She holds up bravely, while they have each other, and they knew when they went on that they'd have each other to make things easy for them. They'd even have the fun of bashing a pretty woman. Look at all these guys — ugly guys — getting ugly on her. That was the entertainment model, a turnaround from normal social life. She had her reasons for doing the show, but I want to give her credit for doing it bravely and well. The courage of the comedian-liberals was not tested. And the show was structured to guarantee that.

3. We should take note of who drives people on the other side nuts. That person has a special power. It's not witchcraft, but it is power that they are afraid of. The more they deride her, the more those who agree with her politics should notice how desperately they want you to reject her. Think about what that means. (As Rush Limbaugh loves to say: They will tell you who they are afraid of.)

4. Remember when it was oh-so-terrible to take a person's statements out of context? In particular, in the montage, we hear the author Clive Barker say "You have to tell me about the ex-homosexuals." But what does she say? Obviously, the notion of curing homosexuals is highly inflammatory, but why are we hearing Barker's words and not hers? Did she say sexual orientation can be changed by some sort of therapy or did she refer to the religious belief that homosexual behavior is sinful and say that it is possible to refrain from conduct? (I'm not suggesting that the idea that gay people should refrain from engaging in sexual activities isn't also a problem, but it is a belief widely shared by many people, especially religious people, and if they are not hypocrites, they will also reject all sexual conduct outside of a marriage.)

5. As Bill Maher admits, introducing this montage, he has no more clips that will be "earthshaking." He's reached the end of the treasure trove archive he bragged about a few weeks ago. So, he got a lot of publicity for himself, but in the end, pretty much all he had was her assertion that she "dabbled into" witchcraft when she was a kid. Ha. He made us look.

Michelle Obama: "It means all the world to us to know that there are prayer circles out there and people who are keeping the spirits clean around us"

Keeping the spirits clean?

She's out doing politics. Fine. She drags in prayer. I don't like that, but I'm used to the political appropriation of religion in America. But what is this notion of "keeping the spirits clean"? The "spirits... around us"? Does she think we all have spirits around us, spirits that can be unclean?

What religion is that? Is she dabbling in... New Age? Is she a witch?

Now, she does pause and chuckle/scoff between the words "keeping" and "spirits," and that might suggest an ironic distance from the common folk who believe in such things. Or — listen and judge — it might mean that she's aware that it's a bit daring to let it slip that she believes we are surrounded by clean and unclean spirits that influence our fate.

"Whores. Whores! Whores! Look around you. Look around you. Do you see what's happening?"

"In our town. In our very homes! You know who I'm talking about. You know! You know what's going on in that house! Vice! Perversions! Shamelessness! Cavorting... with that... devil!"

A quote from:

A. Somebody talking to Jerry Brown, who responded "Well, I'm going to use that."

B. David Axelrod, denouncing Christine O'Donnell.

C. Veronica Cartwright, attempting to warn people about what Jack Nicholson is doing.

"Keith Olbermann Interviews A 'Clown' And A 'Witch' About Christine O'Donnell."

"The clown and witch were played by comedian Angry Bob and Village Voice columnist Michael Musto, respectively."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the other end of the political spectrum, here's Rush Limbaugh complaining about O'Donnell's "I'm not a witch" ad. He mainly objects to her letting her opponents know it bothers her and giving any more play to something so stupid. Then there's this:

It's either navy, royal blue (very dark), or black background....  If you're gonna do a black background, it would be great to have Pelosi on a broomstick flying around or Harry Reid as one of the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, "Oh-weee-looo'" if you're gonna do that. A dark background and say, "I'm not a witch"? Make it white. Make it a lighter, you know, a "morning in America" kind of background.

A white background? I think that would come across not so much "morning in America" as... Ellen Feiss!



And then when she got to the "I'm you" part, we'd be all Nooooo! You don't want me in the Senate. I'll screw everything up!

"I was dabbling in witchcraft, I've dabbled in Buddhism."

"I would have become a Hare Krishna but I didn't want to become a vegetarian and that is honestly the reason why because I'm Italian, I love meatballs."

O'Donnell "is actually defaming Wiccans."

"Whether she intends to do that or not as a way to try and get herself out of this political problem she has created for herself, the fact is America really needs to be a place where you can celebrate diversity and practice your religion without getting ridiculed or defamed."

That night I sat down with the witches.

In the comments on that last post, Irene says: "Wicca seat savers: I had almost forgotten." Oh, yes! How apt, in these witch-hunting days. The text, from my old post about going to see Camille Paglia at a bookstore in Madison:

I show up early for the Camille Paglia reading at Borders this evening. The place is packed. I find a seat and then, here’s Chris, sitting with Nina, and they’ve saved me a seat in the second row. There are a lot of saved seats. Next to me is a seat saved with a copy of a book called “Wicca – a Guide for the Solitary Practitioner… over 400,000 copies sold.” At first, I think, 400,000? So we’re screwed... And then, I think, well, apparently not. Two women show up and claim the Wicca seats. One says, looking at the book, “Oh, cool. I’m kind of interested,” and the other says, “Me, too.”

"We need to get out the message that it’s now really dangerous to re-empower the Republican Party."

The Democrats are trying to figure out the best way to scare the bejeezus out of you.

Really, where did the Tea Party come from? Suddenly, it's everywhere. It's all these people congregating at rallies. No leaders. Just spontaneous comings-together. How could that happen? Then, the leaders emerge. Who are these people? They came out of nowhere. And one of them... is a witch!

Christine O'Donnell: " I dabbled into witchcraft — I never joined a coven. But I did, I did. … I dabbled into witchcraft."

She said that in 1999. I don't know when the dabbling itself took place. It bugs me more that she says "dabbled into" than that she actually did it (or claimed to). It's "dabbled in." Here's the clip, from Bill Maher's show:



1. Maher obviously knows her well and likes her. "She's nice," he says. She was on his show a lot, and he's just exploiting the clips he has, which, he tells us, he's going to keep doing until she comes on his show. He's blackmailing her and giggling about what he's doing to this nice person he likes.

2. It's a good attention-getting ploy by Maher. He's got the video and he's taking clips out of context for the maximum shock/comic effect. It's perfectly okay to do that with video, right? Remember when Andrew Breitbart did something like that to Shirley Sherrod, and all the liberals got all righteous about taking things out of context?

3. Did O'Donnell ever practice witchcraft? I doubt it. Even in the out-of-context clip, I'm seeing a young woman trying to get the hipper kids to believe she isn't really a complete square. In the story she tells, she went out with someone who, she thought, was into Satanism, and they had a picnic. A picnic! Even when she's straining to sound cool, she's square.

4. But she "dabbled into" witchcraft — doesn't that mean she did some witchcraft things? Frankly, I don't think she knows what "dabbled" means. The use of the wrong preposition is a hint. I think she means something more like she stumbled into witchcraft. She knew some people who did such things, and I'll bet the point she was making was that she was able to be friends with them, that she hasn't spent her whole life cocooned in squeaky clean conservative religion and she's able to relate to a wide variety of people.

5. Even if she had participated in some witchcraft, she'd only be like thousands of other young people who dabble in such nonsense. Do you want to string them all up? It's typical pop culture junk these days.

Witches punished.

In India.

Five women were paraded naked, beaten and forced to eat human excrement by villagers after being branded as witches in India's Jharkhand state.

Correspondents say the abuse of women who are branded as witches is common, but rare footage of the incident has caused outrage across India.

The power of video overtakes the power of superstition.

Top 10 Worst Bible Passages.

Perhaps you will disagree:

1. "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet." (1 Timothy 2:12)
2. "Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban. Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses." (1 Samuel 15:3)
3. "You shall not let a sorceress live." (Exodus 22:18)
4. "Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock." (Psalm 137:9)
5. "When the men would not listen to his host, the husband seized his concubine and thrust her outside to them. They had relations with her and abused her all night until the following dawn, when they let her go. Then at daybreak the woman came and collapsed at the entrance of the house in which her husband was a guest, where she lay until the morning. When her husband rose that day and opened the door of the house to start out again on his journey, there lay the woman, his concubine, at the entrance of the house with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, 'Come, let us go'; but there was no answer. So the man placed her on an ass and started out again for home." (Judges 19:25-28)
6. "And the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity." (Romans 1:27)
7. "Jephthah made a vow to the Lord. 'If you deliver the Ammonites into my power,' he said, 'whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the Lord. I shall offer him up as a holocaust.' ... When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came forth, playing the tambourines and dancing. She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her. When he saw her, he rent his garments and said, 'Alas, daughter, you have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the Lord and I cannot retract'." (Judges 11:30-1, 34-5)
8. "Then God said: 'Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you'."(Genesis 22:2)
9. "Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord." (Ephesians 5:22)
10. "Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse." (1 Peter 2:18)

"As always with Obama, it's a question of who the rubes really are. It's the power of glamour."

Writes Glenn Reynolds, quoting me — and possibly implying that I'm one of the rubes. On "glamour," he links to this, from Virginia Postrel. Postrel makes a distinction between "charisma" —"a personal quality that inspires followers to embrace the charismatic leader's agenda" – and "glamour" — which "encourages the audience to project its own yearnings onto the glamorous figure."

When voters motivated by charisma disagree with the leader they've backed, they support him anyway and possibly even change their minds about the right policy course. When voters motivated by glamour disagree, they become disillusioned and angry.

But then why haven't Obama's supporters gotten mad?

I have to think psychological phenomena are far more complex. It can't be that there really is a substance "charisma" and a substance "glamour" that one can possess and that have specific, different effects on other people.

And does it really help to use those terms — with their weird roots in religion and witchcraft?

It might be better to think about the difference between a leader and a figurehead. (Obama's potential as a figurehead is much more apparent than his potential as a leader.) But I think you can get angry and disillusioned at either.

What does any of this have to do with who ought to be considered a "rube"?

I think Glenn is alluding to Obama's shot at those people in "small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest" who "get bitter [and] cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The idea seems to be that what really makes you a rube is not where you live but whether your politics spring from unexamined emotions.

If that's what his gnomish concision is about, let me say that I didn't vote for Obama in the primary because I projected a dopey enthusiasm onto a glamorous blank screen. Forced to choose between Clinton and Obama, I voted for Obama — even though he stated positions that were farther from what I want than Clinton's — because I thought he had more mental flexibility and pragmatism, that he was more likely absorb and process evidence and advice and exercise sound judgment.

ADDED: Glenn, being less gnomishly concise, explicitly strikes my name from the list of possible rubes.

Did European witch-hunting kill 9 million?

I've been under the impression that was the real number, ever since I read Gyn/Ecology about 15 years ago. But I see here, that number is entirely wrong:

"For witchcraft and sorcery between 1400 and 1800, all in all, we estimate something like 50,000 legal death penalties," writes Wolfgang Behringer in "Witches and Witch-Hunts" (Polity, 2004). He estimates that perhaps twice as many received other penalties, "like banishment, fines or church penance."

Other recent estimates range from 40,000 to 100,000 executions over those early modern centuries. These remain appalling numbers, even when put in the context of the far greater numbers killed in religious wars and the fact that resort to capital punishment was at one of its high points in European history.

No one should underestimate the cruelty these numbers represent. "Witchfinders," Malcolm Gaskill's full-blooded account, just published by Harvard University Press, of the most notorious witch hunt in English history, makes that clear in engrossing detail.

But contemporary historians bridle at the huge numbers that have become part of the witch hunt mythology-and the implicit or explicit comparisons to the Nazi campaign of genocide. Professor Behringer traced the estimate of nine million victims back to wild projections made by an 18th-century anticlerical from 20 files of witch trials. The figure worked its way into 19th-century texts, was taken up by Protestant polemicists during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf in Germany, then adopted by the early 20th-century German neopagan movement and, eventually, by anti-Christian Nazi propagandists.

In the United States, the nine million figure appeared in the 1978 book "Gyn/Ecology" by the influential feminist theoretician Mary Daly, who picked it up from a 19th-century American feminist, Matilda Gage.

Do such unfounded myths do anyone any good? Certainly many feminists, including some identifying themselves as neopagans, agree with contemporary historians about the answer: No.

Have any of you folks read "Gyn/Ecology"? Oh, that is a rousing book!

UPDATE: Cathy Young (who also participates in the comments) expresses shock at my "rousing book" compliment to "Gyn/Ecology." (She and I also had some debate about the writings of Andrea Dworkin.) I wrote this in the comments:

I just said it was rousing, not that it was good or right. I went through a period when I read a lot of Dworkin and Daly's books. They were very stimulating, but also ultimately stimulated me into wanting to distance myself from them. There are plenty of things in the treatment of women to be outraged about, but polemical works that demand that you reach and maintain a permanent state of anger just seem sad after a while (or dangerous, if they are actually effective).