Community Linkage

Every week there are new press releases, articles, and videos popping up concerning Paganism, spirituality, health, or disabilities. Community Linkage is a round up of useful information and sometimes entertainment for you.

Star Foster at Pantheos featured Kelle Maize a rising female rapper from Pittsburg, Penn. who includes a spiritual message in her lyrics. She’s currently number one on Amazon. Her music is free if you share a message about her on Facebook, Twitter, or join her email list. Click here for Kelle’s website. The Pagan Centered Podcast, episode 187 posted March 13, had a huge laugh at her expense about how she emailed them asking for an interview but didn’t respond back. Since then Star Foster, who is one of the PCP hosts, posted that there was a live Pagan Centered Podcast recording with Kellee Maize in March 23. “We have a natural suspicion of anyone who reaches out to the Pagan community and that, combined with a typo in Kellee’s marketing, meant there some trepidation surrounding the interview. However, Kellee is an impressive lady and very genuine.” www.patheos.com/community/paganportal/2011/03/24/kellee-maize-ing/

VIDEO: Third Eye – a song about Kelle’s connection with Isis.

The Wild Hunt “Pagans Raise Over 30K for Japan Relief” wildhunt.org/blog/2011/03/pagans-raise-over-30k-for-japan-relief.html Pagan Japan Relief Project raised over thirty thousand dollars for Doctors Without Borders. This dispels the myths that Pagans won’t offer money to causes or that we have too many differences to unite across traditions for a cause. This gives hope that we can come together to create community centers and temples.

Cara Schulz of the PNC-Minnesota Bureau has put together a video series on permanent sacred spaces. It features Temple of the River and the Sacred Paths Center. http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/sacred-spaces-celtic-temple-part-1/

Staff of Asclepius “Interview with Glenn Turner About Pantheacon” <a href="http://www.patheos.com/community/paganswithdisabilities/2011/02/18/interview-with-glenn-turner-about-pantheacon/"http://www.patheos.com/community/paganswithdisabilities/2011/02/18/interview-with-glenn-turner-about-pantheacon/ Pagans with disabilities (especially mobility issues) have voiced their concern over accessibility at Pagan festivals. The problems tend to be mainly with outdoor festivals with logistic (rough terrain, primitive restrooms) and programming concerns (workshops that require a lot of walking or standing). Pantheacon and other indoor gatherings are seen as a wonderful step toward inclusiveness."

Yahoo! Accessibility “(For All the) Public Broadcasting” by WGBH and Mary Watkins yaccessibilityblog.com/wp/for-all-the-public-broadcasting.html Did you know that PBS is the home to media access technologies such as closed and open captioning. In the They produced the first captioned children’s series (Zoom) and the first captioned national news in collaboration with ABC. “PBS, through its member station WGBH, continues to develop technologies and solutions to make media accessible. These include: Discrete captioning and description technologies for movie theaters; do-it-yourself software to create captions and descriptions for digital media; a tool that grabs the captions from analog media and reinserts them in versions for the Web; expanded description for educational programs; guidelines for creating accessible Web-based educational materials; guidelines for creating accessible iTunes U media; captioning of Netflix streaming media; descriptions on mainstream movie DVDs and streaming services such as iTunes; access considerations for disabled users of emergency communications; a tool to measure the accuracy of live captioning; and development of guidelines for distributing and displaying captions on mobile devices.” If congress cuts funding for PBS, they will cut funding to needed communication accessibility.

Unfortunately, it takes many many hours to embed captioning into streaming video and Netflix has a huge library to go through. Don’t expect many titles with captioning steaming to your TV soon. Here are a couple of blog posts by Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer at Netflix. “Closed Captions and Subtitles” blog.netflix.com/2009/06/closed-captions-and-subtitles.html However, there are more available if you watch Netflix streaming to your computer. “Subtitles Now Available for Some Titles for PC/MAC Viewing.” blog.netflix.com/2010/04/subtitles-now-available-for-some-titles.html