Cadet Chapel Falcon Circle at the Air Force Academy. Photo by: Jerilee Bennett / The Gazette

“Still, the academy this year dedicated an $80,000 outdoor worship center — a small Stonehenge-like circle of boulders with propane fire pit — high on a hill for the handful of current or future cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of “Earth-based.” Those include pagans, Wiccans, druids, witches and followers of Native American faiths.”

That spurred a new wave of commentary about government waste and political correctness gone amuck, which prompted the Air Force Academy to defend the cost, and their commitment to religious plurality.

Rev. Dr. David Oringderff speaks with Lt. Gen. Mike Gould during a dedication ceremony for the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel Falcon Circle May 3, 2011. Oringderff is the executive director of the Sacred Well Congregation and represented the Earth-Centered Spirituality community during a religious respect conference at the Academy in November 2010. Gould is the Academy superintendent. (U.S. Air Force photo/Mike Kaplan)

“The LA Times got the $80,000 figure from the Academy’s Cadet Chapel fact sheet. But the numbers on the fact sheet at the time were too high because they mistakenly included $26,500 that was spent to control erosion on the east side of the hill on which Falcon Circle is now situated. [...]  The scope of work in the $51,484 Falcon Circle contract included removing screws and nails from the inside of the circle and installing 1,225 square feet of flagstone. The boulders were moved in 2009 from the east side of the hill, where erosion threatened to send them crashing into the Visitors Center, where more than 500,000 people per year learn about the national treasure that is the Academy. By way of comparison, the Cadet Chapel that now houses Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist worship areas cost $3.5 million to build — in 1959. That would be more than $25 million in today’s dollars, or enough to build 500 Falcon Circles.”

That commentary by Don Branum, published on December 27th, movingly recounts the struggles of Pagans in the military, and declares that building Falcon Circle was “the right thing to do.” Branum’s defense trickled into the mainstream media yesterday via The Denver Post, who did note that the circle is available to all cadets, not just Pagans, and that the initially reported cost estimates are deceptively high. Whether these clarifications reach the critics who were quick to condemn Falcon Circle, or manage to change the minds of those who believe the Air Force Academy is being overrun by unholy forces is an open question.  Whatever the outcome from the latest round of publicity, this defense of Falcon Circle by the AFA is a welcome sign, and part of an ongoing initiative to create a culture of religious respect.

“You don’t have to be scared about sharing your religion or think you need to stay in the broom closet about it,” Cadet Johnson says. “People are very understanding. We have officers in charge of us who are very understanding, the Chaplains are very understanding so it’s very easy to be a Pagan at the Air Force Academy.”

Here’s hoping that it continues to be “very easy to be a Pagan at the Air Force Academy, “ and that Pagan cadets can get back to focusing on their lessons instead of being put under a microscope by those looking to prove some ideological point.

Photo by: Jerilee Bennett / The Gazette

“The academy is home to about 10 cadets who regularly attend “earth centered” worship groups. Earth-centered is a catch-all phrase for groups including New Age religion, paganism, Wicca, Druids and ancient Norse beliefs. “This is very important for us, we didn’t have a place to call our own, to be outside in nature,” said cadet Nicole Johnson, a member of the earth-centered group. Johnson and others used to meet in an engineering classroom to worship before construction of Cadet Chapel Falcon Circle, on a 7,200-foot hill top that overlooks the main cadet chapel.”

While the circle was created in response to a genuine need among Pagan cadets, it has also been something of an PR tool for an institution that has long been accused of being a focal point for evangelical Christian takeover of the military, and is still struggling to create an environment friendly to all faiths. This struggle was underlined when the Pagan site was vandalized shortly after it received press attention, an event the academy is trying to ensure never happens again.

“It’s clear that the academy is worried about security at the site. The circle of stones is surrounded by metal poles containing video cameras and signs on the trail that leads to the site warn that the area is under electronic surveillance.”

Despite the controversy and setbacks this has been a step forward for the equal treatment of Pagan religions within the military. The Air Force Academy still has a lot of work to do in the area of equal treatment and safety for all religious personnel, but for now we can congratulate the Pagan cadets and their superiors for making this happen. You can read all my coverage of this issue, here.

Yes, it seems that religious intolerance is bad when it happens to Christians in Egypt, but a little bit of it is OK when talking about Pagans getting a worship area at the Air Force Academy. Sadly, his Twitter feed is now protected, so we have no idea if there was any follow-up concerning his thoughts on religious (in)tolerance. We do know that he is sponsoring one of those “religious bill of rights” for Colorado public schools. It, like similar bills passed into law in other states, is supposed to allow students greater freedoms to wear religious garb, give religiously-themed presentations, and allow schools to offer “religious education” courses.

“Teach a religious topic in public school for historical, literary, or other educational purposes, including but not limited to the religious origins of various holidays.”

One wonders if Schultheis will remain a big fan of the law, if passed, once religious minorities start taking advantage of it. Because the answer to “where does it end” for Schultheis is most likely “far beyond where you’d like it to”. Perhaps Pagans in  Colorado Senate District 9 should drop him a line to let him know how eager you are for Pagan students to express themselves more fully in class (pentacles! t-shirts!), and for teachers to discuss the pagan origins of Christmas, Halloween, Easter, and other major holidays.

“…farmers called police to County Road 28 and County Road 5 around 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and police said they found a package wrapped securely in black plastic and tied with yellow nylon ropes. Police said someone dug a small hole and left the package inside. Since officers couldn’t tell what was inside the package, they called out the bomb squad. X-rays showed no mechanical devices inside, so police opened the package and found some kind of flesh that had sutures in it. An anthropologist, who is part of the investigative staff identified it as a cow’s tongue.When officers opened the sutures, they found a photograph inside, writing in Spanish and what looked like different types of pepper, said Longmont Police Cmdr. Tim Lewis.Officers said they did some research and found a cow’s tongue is used in different types of rituals, including one that would make someone stop gossiping or talking about a person, which is what this appears to be, Lewis said.”

First of all, a bomb squad? I understand the need for caution, but who would bomb a rural cornfield? Also, since they uncovered that it wasn’t a bomb, and in fact no danger to the community, why was the press told? Further, they said they are trying to warn the person in the photo and bring in the spell-maker for questioning (though they admit they probably won’t press charges), escalating a simple bit of folk-magic into an ongoing drama.

An x-ray of a cursed cow-tongue.

If there is a lesson here, it is two-fold. First, magical practitioners need to be really, really careful about where they leave spells. Even if you’re doing a bit of non-malefic magic to stop someone bad-mouthing you, you better make sure that en-spelled cow tongue (that you bought at the butchers) or bottle full of pee and rusty nails is buried somewhere safe. Second, if no harm was done, and no charges are going to be pressed, then this should never have been a matter that made its way to the press. You don’t think the local papers aren’t going to want to follow up and see who did this? There is the very real possibility that a fragile  (or simply personal) domestic situation could boil over now that it’s splashed all over “news of the weird” sections across the country. As for the local papers, frankly, you’d think that with newspapers collapsing across the country, they’d want to save their payroll for issues that actually concern the public at large.

“The [Department of Justice] spent $8,000 on blue drapes that hide the two giant, aluminum art deco statues, said spokesman Shane Hix. For aesthetic reasons, he said, the drapes were occasionally hung in front of the statues before formal events. The department used to rent the drapes, but has now purchased them and left them hanging. The drapes provide a nice background for television cameras, Hix said … ABC News reported that Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered the statues covered because he didn’t like being photographed in front of them.”

Well, it isn’t just Republican politicians who want to avoid being photographed around the bared breasts of a goddess. It seems Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden’s campaign team was a little bashful around a proudly (half) nude statue of Diana the huntress.

Joe, meet Diana. Photo by Javier Manzano.

“Normally, Diana the Huntress – the statue of her, that is – poses au naturel in front of the Union Depot building in downtown Pueblo. But on Wednesday, that changed. At least for a few hours. “I don’t think they wanted bare breasts showing,” said Mike Randall, the person in charge of putting a makeshift shift on Diana, goddess of the hunt and the moon. “They said cover her up, so I put her in a toga,” said Randall, who used a large swath of black cloth to cover Diana’s unmentionables and a bunch of black string to keep his creation from blowing away. The enormous flag was added after the toga alone was deemed inadequate to keep Diana out of the picture.”

Diana covered. Photo by Javier Manzano.

A word of advice to politicians, don’t sweat the statues! It just makes you seem prudish and overly concerned with avoiding a potentially embarrassing photo (plus, I would love to get some great shots of politicians standing in front of pagan deities to use for my blog). Also, I can’t imagine it would be good luck to throw a toga and flag on Diana’s statue (she just doesn’t seem the acquiescing type). I’m just sayin’.

PS – Here is a shot of the de-toga-ed statue of Diana.
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