THE WANTON GREEN: “There, among the scraps of litter and cracked clay, I created a pyramid. This stepped ziggurat was the podium upon which my small God would sit. The Orb was installed and I began a daily ritual of worship. Picking my way through the low canopy of leaves, my nose close to the dusty earth, to the shrine I had made. Here I would make offerings of perfume (Swizzels Parma Violets), flowers and my own hair. Sometimes sorcery... Read more
IRISH CENTRAL.COM: “The people who left Ireland were in some sense the best part of us,” said Stephen Kinsella, an economist at the University of Limerick. “They were the most dynamic, the most ambitious, the most willing to succeed, and we did not give them the conditions where they could succeed.” Read more
NY TIMES: “J. Paul Oetken, a former Clinton administration lawyer, on Monday became the first openly gay man to be confirmed as a federal judge.” Read more
PETER DYBING: “Elders please understand that when you bring up these issues many of us tune out and begin to give less credence to your words. We do not want to believe that we will one day arrive at a place were we also are encumbered with grudges, petty complaints and the inability to move beyond the past conflicts in our community. Consider compassion for those who have wronged you, insight into these individuals more current achievements and the good... Read more
Lord_Voldemort7: “I stand as an example that someone can make a name (even if you cannot say it aloud) by refusing to conform, and I’m proud to say that the only thing that sparkles on me is the Dark Mark I send up after I murder.” Read more
LIFE (NSFW): Of Vodou’s unique appeal and power Karen tells LIFE: “It’s raw, and it’s primitive. The harmonious singing and rhythmic beats of the drums can be hypnotic to an open mind. I’m not like a lot of photographers, who take pictures without so much as talking to the people they document. I’ve shared in plates of communal offerings, danced with the priests [Hougans] and the priestesses (Mambos), and I’ve downed my fair share of special religious elixirs with them.... Read more
BRAD HIRSCHFIELD: “The need to make a material difference, to clean up a mess when your whole world feels dirty – this too, is a holy need. Picking up dirty napkins, in this context at least, is a sacred act. Perhaps in its own way, it is also another form of prayer, one in which, as in the Kaddish (memorial prayer for the dead), we attempt to argue order and goodness back into the world.” Read more
BBC: An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as “religious headgear”. Read more
THE ADVOCATE: Mitt Romney won’t sign an antigay pledge proposed by an Iowa religious right group because it’s “undignified and inappropriate” Read more
GARRISON KEILLOR: “You rewrote the midsummer ritual? The most sacred ritual of the year? The ritual honoring the Sun God, the source of all life? You rewrote it?” Read more
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