North Texas Pagan Pride Day is committed to bringing folks of open minds together for a time of fun, learning and sharing.

Our North Texas Pagan Pride Day 2008
Will Be Held At...
Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff
http://www.oakcliffuu.com/
3839 W. Keist in SW Dallas
September 13th
10am to 10pm

On Pagan Pride Day we come together for dancing, drumming and fun! There are vendors, workshops and lots of things to do! We host the Annual Hot Goddess Chili Cook-off. If you think you have the best chili in North Texas , bring a pot for tasting and sharing. We take donations to support charities like Adopt a Soldier Now and the North Texas Food Bank. So bring your donations, open minds and fun loving hearts.

http://ntxppd.org/

Remember Caelum Moor! Never forget the tragedy of the stones now lying forgotten in a water treatment plant.

If you'd like to help resurrect Caelum Moor in Arlington and restore a wonderful roadside Texas attraction, contact the Arlington Arts Advisory Board and let them know how you feel!

Yesterday I joined: Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF) and am looking forward to beginning my studies on the Dedicant Path. I've also been practicing with my guitar everyday since January 10th or so and have been getting better every day. Maybe by the end of this year I'll get good enough to sit and play with a group of other musicians here and there.

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, August 30, 2007

President Bush Apologizes to Wiccan War Widow Roberta Stewart

At midday today, President George W. Bush met by phone with Roberta
Stewart, a Wiccan from Nevada and member of Circle Sanctuary. The
president apologized to Roberta for her not being invited to the meeting
he held in Reno, Nevada on Tuesday with families of Nevada soldiers killed
in action.

Reports about Roberta not being invited to this meeting began appearing
in the media yesterday and have continued today:
http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/article/20070830/News/108300034
In the press articles, both Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Rev. Selena
Fox, senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, called for the president to
apologize to Roberta Stewart, and to give equal respect to soldiers and their
families regardless of their religious orientation.

During the phone call, the president said that he admired Roberta for
her spirit and thanked her for accepting his apology. He also offered his
condolences for the loss of her husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, who was
killed in action in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan on
September 25, 2005.

Following her phone meeting with the president, Roberta told Selena: "I
am thankful that President Bush offered his condolences and his apology.
This has helped bring some much needed closure for me regarding this recent
issue as well as the struggles I have endured in the Veteran Pentacle
Quest seeking to have my husband properly honored."

Both Rev. Fox and Rev. Lynn have expressed their appreciation for the
president's phone meeting with Roberta:

Rev. Fox: "I am glad that President Bush provided this support to
Roberta -- it has helped remedy this recent problem as well as helped heal the
stress that Roberta has endured since her husband was killed in action.
It also is a positive development for Wiccans and other Pagans who are
serving and who have served in the US military and their families in the
quest for equal respect and equal rights in society."

Rev. Lynn: "The president has done the right thing, and his apology to
Stewart should be commended. All veterans of war, regardless of their
faith, should be honored and treated with the utmost respect, especially
from their commander-in-chief. We are pleased the president recognized
his slight of Stewart was wrong."

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has issued a press
release commending President Bush for apologizing to Roberta:
http://www.au.org

Rev. Lynn interviewed Roberta for his Culture Shocks show shortly after
the President apologized to her. The show, which was broadcast today, will
be archived on-line beginning tomorrow: http://www.cultureshocks.com

News of the apology also has begun appearing in the press:
http://www.lahontanvalleynews.com/

More information about Roberta Stewart, Sgt. Stewart, and the Veteran
Pentacle Quest Success:
http://www.circlesanctuary.org/liberty/veteranpentacle


FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact:

Rev. Selena Fox: 608-924-2216
Executive Director, Lady Liberty League
selena@circlesanctuary.org

Angie Buchanan: 847-456-4833
Public Relations Director, Lady Liberty League
angie@circlesanctuary.org

Paula Johnson: 954-471-1435
Media Relations Coordinator, Lady Liberty League
paula@circlesanctuary.org

Lady Liberty League News Release
Circle Sanctuary
PO Box 9, Barneveld, WI 53507 USA
telephone: (608) 924-2216
fax: (608) 924-5961

900 Saturdays



The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped tolisten to what he had to say

"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's "dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years.

"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part.

It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays." "I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear."

"Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.

Thereis nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.

Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.

Breathing Earth: World-Wide CO2 Levels, Births, and Deaths - In Real-Time

Breathing Earth is a great presentation that shows you the world-wide carbon dioxide emission levels, their birth and death rates - all in real-time.

You know, the way I see it, I'm going to buy electricity from somewhere anyway, I might as well buy it from a source that is clean and renewable. That's why we use Green Mountain Energy

Mother Earth
(P. Chatman/L. Simpkins)

You may play the horses
You may even own the race track
You may have enough money
To buy anything you lack
I don't care where you go
And I don't care what you're worth
When it all ends up
You got to go back to Mother Earth

You may high-hat me all the time
You may never go my way
But Mother Earth if layin' for you
And that's a debt you've got to pay
I don't care where you go
And I don't care what you're worth
When it all ends up
You got to go back to Mother Earth

You may be a big shot in the city
You may own your own home town
You may fly your own jet plane
Think you never will come down
I don't care where you go
And I don't care what you're worth
When it all ends up
You got to go back to Mother Earth

Well, this is rather nifty. You can embed your personal Last.fm radio station player into your website, your blog, your myspace page or wherever.

I stood up (well, okay I sat at my computer) and got counted!

I've finally found a Linux friendly alternative to LaunchCast. Actually I found a few but I've decided that this one works best for me. It's called Last.FM and it's basically a social networking site for music fans. Behold...THIS!


Also worth checking out are Rhapsody, Pandora Internet Radio and of course there's still Shoutcast and Live365 if you don't mind having others choose the songs for you.

So anyway, I got tired of playing stupid Microsoft games such as, suddenly your Windows XP which has worked fine since you bought this old desktop nearly three years ago is not a "Genuine" copy and you owe us $184. Why does the world's richest man need my $184 just to keep a 4 year old desktop that I could easily replace for $184 running? How is it that a piece of hardware isn't worth what I paid for it 4 years ago but his 4 year old operating system is still worth the full price it cost when it was brand new?

So I decided to look up my old friend Linux and see what he's been up to since I last installed and played around with it. Man oh MAN has Linux come a long way in the field of user friendliness and hardware compatibility. I've set up all the computer's in the house to run Kubuntu Linux, dual booting Windows XP where neccessary but things went so much more smoothly and networking is working so much better. Now I am tinkering around with some of the free games available to kill a little time on my weekend and just to see what's going on in that end of the Linux world. I'm having a blast exploring this strange and interesting new world. Thank you Microsoft for opening my eyes to another way of doing things!

Get your Kubuntu here:

http://www.kubuntu.org/ Kubuntu - The KDE Desktop

Or your regular Ubuntu here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/ Ubuntu Linux


And if you're bored, there are Games:

http://gaming.gwos.org/ Ubuntu Gamers Arena


http://www.dimensionex.net/underworld/ UnderWar Online Game
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/ Scorched Earth 3D

Saw an interesting program on TLC tonight about Feral Children...

FeralChildren.com - Feral Children - isolated, confined wild and wolf children

Yeah, well, check this out! I thought it was rather interesting...


Globe of Blogs ::: Browse by Weblog Location ::: North America ::: Texas

Wren's Nest Spirit News: "Derry Pro-family campaigner Mrs. Jennifer Barber last night hit out at the latest Harry Potter book saying it is familiarizing children with the art of witchcraft and black magic.

Urging parents to 'get rid' of any Harry Potter videos or books they have in their homes Mrs. Barber condemned the series as 'carefully marketed instruction manuals for young dabblers in the occult.'

'This book is 'anti --Christ' and provides an easy entry into the murky and corrupt world of occultism, priming children up for possibly something much more sinister later on such as paganism, witchcraft, sorcery, black magic and different branches of occultism.'"

The story of Steve Vaught is certainly inspirational. Check it out!
'Fat Man Walking' gains Web following | CNET News.com

We've been spending more time down at Betwixt & Between off and on lately when I can get away from work and other commitments. The Friday night drum jams and especially Bohemian Dreams on the fourth friday of every month are a great way to wash away the stress and tensions of the work week. We went camping with them for Beltane a few weeks back at Circle Star Retreat and will probably be going back during the summer to clear our own campsite for future festivals. Eme and I have a lot of plans for the campsite including hanging birdbaths and some nice flowers that do well in sandy soil.

World Pagan Radio WPR

Well worth the listen!