HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: aaldrich@encore.com (Al Aldrich)
Subject: Re: Just an observation
Organization: Encore Computer Corporation
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 13:45:08 GMT

falcore@gatecom.UUCP (Carolyn C. Doss L.V.T.) writes:

>        So am I on the wrong track here?
 nope

>        Am I aggrivating you with these posts?

 nope

>        I am learning the Craft and practicing Solitary.

 great

>These are what I see so far ...just want to see if it makes sense to others 
>        Being Pagan sure can be lonely at times!

 yup..:-)

 Hey.. as far as I am concerned, there is NO right and wrong about it
 unless you are purposely hurting someone or doing it for your own
 self aggrandizement(sic).. I happen to agree with your views..other
 pagans may not, but I suspect they will not tell you that you are
 `wrong' in your views.. just different.

>My the Lord and Lady guide your lives Journeys into the Shadowland and 
>beyond!

>         Blessings!

Merry Part
al
-- 
Al Aldrich	inet:aaldrich@encore.com
"..if you understood everything I said, you'd be me." miles davis
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MY opinions are not to be construed as those of my employer.
From: wce@hogbbs.scol.pa.us (Bill Eichman)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Scummy behavior of pagan males
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 15:06:45 EST
Organization: The Heart of Gold BBS, Lemont PA

kumagic@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Stephen R. Figgins) writes:

> The first thing you do before working magic is to create a safe space.
> I would like to create some pagan safe space where men are not scummy.

Hey, Steve, let me suggest a bit of memetic editing here, for you to use 
later on, when you're done poking folks with your 'men are scum' 
examinging tool....

How about, " I would like to create some pagan safe space where 'scummy' 
and abusive behavior will be confronted, and healed if possible, but not 
tolerated..."?? Nah, doesn't have the snappiness of 'men are scum', eh? 
Well, I'm sure some verbal expert will come up with a cool way of 
expressing the concept... ;-)

Later, Bill
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: st923058@pip.cc.brandeis.edu (Jessica Raine)
Subject: Help for a friend
Reply-To: st923058@pip.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:10:56 GMT

	I'm back! and I'm _finally_ using my real name. For those of you who
respected my privacy and did not ask my real name, I used to call myself
Rosaleen Dhu on the .nets.
	I have a friend who asked me about help for a co-worker of his. This
co-worker met a woman, at a bar I think, and they exchanged numbers. The
woman is a Wiccan priestess, according to D (my friend). D's friend decided
he didn't want to see the woman again. (Nothing to do with her being Wiccan,
he just wasn't interested.) The woman had other ideas. She's pursuing him.
Some specific instances: D's co-worker had a nasty dream that the woman's
face appeared on his beeper, threatening him...five minutes after he woke
up, terrified, he got a message from her on his beeper telling him to call
her. A little while ago, while the co-worker was in Ireland, the woman
showed up at the place where D and the co-worker work. She was responding
to an ad that the office had placed in the Globe--they were hiring people.
D says that his computer stopped working as soon as she entered the
office. He (D) has been, in the past, what he calls a "weirdness magnet",
and past experience has taught me that there are, in fact, people who
attract magical activity and have the ability to sense it.
	Thoughts/comments/ideas? D's not real worried for himself, but he's
afraid for his co-worker. He'd like to know what she (the priestess) can "do"
to either D or his co-worker, and what they can expect.
					Jess
"All the cute ones are mutants..."--?
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: ag055@yfn.ysu.edu (Ward Chanley)
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Organization: Youngstown State University/Youngstown Free-Net
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 03:37:06 GMT


Re: Assuming Matriarchy's existance...

For me, the issue isn't open to debate.
Christians have faith that the Son of
God walked the earth, and I have faith
that long ago, there was a culture 
oriented around women's values which
flourished and provided the roots
for that which was to come.  Hopefully
that culture may manifest itself again.

-----
 it necessary to rebel.  If the society
was totally alienated from violence, where did the sons learn it?

-----

Here, I'll make statements you don't
like; men are more hormonal about lots
and lots of things.  Violence and sex
being two of the more popular.  I'm
not implying that women don't like
sex or can't fight; it's just that in
my experience, men seem to have these
innate, possibly biological urges to
fuck and break things, as often as 
possible.  I'm guilty of it as well;
it's something I want to learn to 
express in ways that won't end up
contributing to an oppressive culture.

Where did they learn it?  I think it 
was genetically encoded; instinct.
That doesn't mean that men are "flawed"
just that were different.  When those
differences are expressed in ways 
that don't opress people, there isn't
a problem.  When they ARE used to 
opress, there is.

BB
Ward
--
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 21 Nov 92 18:39:41 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.071035.4377@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> radzy@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (T. O. Radzykewycz) writes:
>holzman@fnalno.fnal.gov (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>>If it is a set of values, not a gender, being valued over the other, why 
>>enshrine either gender in the name of the system and not derscribe the values?
>>
>>How about calling it Omnifocal?
>
>cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>> Because women have been so shit on for so long and done nothing about
>> it through swallowing all the drek ...  that it is necessary
>> to weigh down a little harder on our side. ....  You have to
>> smack them over the head with alternative possiblities.
>
>Janis -- I have a *lot* of respect for you, and I really appreciate
>when you try to give people a jolt, to get them thinking.  But I
>just can't sit here and read this without wondering if you *realize*
>that when you talk about smacking people over the head, you're really
>describing how much *YOU* desire power-over!

Sorry for not making myself CLEARER seeing as howe the concept of
affirmative action seems to be so foreignn to the netters here, but I am
sayingb fucking nothing of the sort.  I, too, appreciate you and am fond
of you, radzy, but when something so simple gets misunderstood I get a
little pissed.

I am not looking for power over anyone, okay?  Is that settled, or do I
have to spell it out in big, pink, neon letters?  If you people think
that altering a two millenia old paradigm can be done by just asking
quietly and politely to change, you're crazy.  Please read my subsequent
post using the booklist analogy.

Blessings,
Janis
From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: the US elections...
Date: 17 Nov 92 22:36:08 GMT
Organization: n.o.y.b

In article <1992Nov13.123401.26068@linus.mitre.org> heimberg@pacific.mitre.org (Jeff Heimberger) writes:
>In article <1992Nov10.233618.25115@radian.uucp> markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr) writes:
>>
>>"I don't think that you can be an atheist and a patriotic American"
>>	- George Bush
>>Proposition 9 (WA) & 2 (CO) were both set up by the xian funnymentalists that
>>currently run the GOP.
>>
>>	is that enough of a start?
>
>Yes, it is a good start, but it is somewhat less than a claim that
>pagans around the country are being *systematically* denied their civil
>rights because of their religion.  I believe that there are isolated
>incidents and that someone with adequate resources, communications,
>"connections," should be keeping track of them.  Perhaps "leaders" in
>the pagan community could coordinate this (where is the UFP when you
>need them? :-) ).
>
>So the funnymentalists are well-organized, well-monied, work together,
>and are focussed on an objective... perhaps we can learn a lesson?
>
Jeff, 
  I guess you weren't hanging around here a few months back, so I'll 
repeat a variation of what I said then: Do your employers know your
religion? How about the folks you work with? Do you work in a small
programming shop, or a regular co?

I'm in Austin, at the bottom of the Bible Belt. There are a *few* folks
at work I wouldn't be *too* uncomfortable mentioning this bunch to, but
I make sure that my pentacle stays *under* my shirt. I do want to keep my 
job.

I certainly would prefer that my ex not know, away off in VA. Yes, I pay 
my child support, but, knowing her, I would prefer that she not have 
something else to say when she gets a bug up her ass, and *certainly* not 
to be able to say to a court.  I do *NOT* want to lose visitation/calling 
privileges. 

I certainly have some worry about people that live in the city. There's
certainly enough elements that, if they knew, and were in the mood, 
would certainly make trouble. I don't want nuts with guns demonstrating
their Xian charity & love with firepower aimed at our house.

Go ahead. Walk into some town in the Bible Belt with a pentacle worn the
way xians wear there symbols of deity-torture. See how fast trouble finds
*you*.

This doesn't qualify?

>BB,
>
>Jeff H...
>
>==============================================================================
> Jeff Heimberger                                 If I want your opinion, I'll
> heimberg@pacific.mitre.org                         read it in your entrails.
>==============================================================================

And you *asked* for my opinion. You want entrails? Sorry, I let you see my 
contrails (pun intended).

	mark
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: markbr%radian@natinst.com (markbr)
Subject: Re: women and men witches
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 18:50:00 GMT
Organization: n.o.y.b

In article <gate.L0ZkuB1w165w@pil.UUCP> alizard@pil writes:
>Re: Re: Women and Men Witches
> 
>> From: ag055@yfn.ysu.edu (Ward Chanley)
>> Newsgroups: alt.pagan
>> Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
>> Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 03:08:39 GMT
>> The only mistake the Matriarchy made 
>> was in assuming that their sons would
>> never take up arms against their
>> mothers.  When violent overthrow 
>> happened, the life-affirmative, art
>> creating cultures of the Goddess were
>> unprepared to deal with such violence.
>> War was never their thing; art, music
>> and worship were.
>
>Actually, the Goddess cultures were taken over via invasion from the outside,
>this does not mean that they didn't have warriors, just that they were not
>equipped to resist attacks from cultures whose primary focus was war. 
>The number of people in favor of armed self defense around here indicates that
>we have learned to some extent from the mistakes of our spiritual ancestors.
>                                                 A.Lizard
Actually, many of those invading cultures, and the invasions themselves, (as
it just struck me this weekend) came about the time of the discovery of iron,
and the advent of iron weapons. Can anyone else remind me of pre-iron age
invasions that did *not* involved the movement of whole peoples, and just
of armies for conquest? For that matter, of any large-scale violent movement
of peoples, as opposed to slow incursion?

	mark
From: wolves.durham.nc.us!circle!lance (Lance A. Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Annoying, cloying "wann-be"s (was Pagan Bumper Stickers)
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 20:25:22 EST
Organization: The Full Circle BBS, Raleigh NC

imcc@cs.strath.ac.uk (Iain McCord) writes:
> In article <iF42TB1w165w@circle.UUCP>  writes:
> >This is how I first encountered pagans too, and whole-heartedly agree with 
> >your statement.  Yes, there are a lot of wanna-be's at cons, but Minicon in 
> >Minneapolis, MN is where I have met some of the nicest pagans I know. 
> >
> >Lance
>   There are also a lot of people at cons who are just trying to freak the
> public.  Unless you meet them outside the con there is no way you can tell
> if they are always that cracked.  To some people a con is an extended costume
> party,  and some even have a con persona that they adopt for duration.

Well, the people I am talking about specifically I did interact with after 
my 1st Minicon, some quite extensively.  Many of these people were involved 
in the planning, coordinating and management of Minicon itself.

I realize that just about every kind of goofy person crawls out of the 
woodwork during cons, but if I pay attention to what is going on I find it 
rather easy to separate the wheat from the chafe, as it were.

Lance
From: dhardin@bbn.com (Dawn Hardin)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Date: 20 Nov 1992 22:29:57 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

> Because women have been so shit on for so long and done nothing about
> it through swallowing all the drek about our victimized powerlessness
> that it is necessary to weigh down a little harder on our side.  

Yep, yep, yep.  I've been shit on and I plan on SHITTING back.  Pass the
prune juice when you're done with it, Janis, it seems to have done wonders
for you.  

I don't know, maybe this post won't seem so obnoxious if I re-read it
later.  But I've read it twice now and it certainly seems like the least
lucid diatribe you've gone on in a while.  I don't really see what point
you're trying to make except that you'd like to be on top for a while.

Dawn

Joseph Campbell gave me hope and now I have been saved.
"Folk Song" by Bongwater
From: ag055@yfn.ysu.edu (Ward Chanley)
Subject: Re: Jungian Tarot
Organization: Youngstown State University/Youngstown Free-Net
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 18:06:17 GMT


Tarot works best as a personal oracle.  If
you like the cards, but don't relate 
to the book's interpretations, don't
use them.  Use the cards, and find
your own meanings.

-- 
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: feriom@vccsouth24.its.rpi.edu (SiD)
Subject: Re: Tarot Construction Questions
Distribution: usa
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 20:33:54 GMT

As a point of information, you should keep your cards wrapped in a piece of 
silk.  This is supposed to protect the energy level of the cards.  Good
luck!

						- Justine

Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: hart0037@student.tc.umn.edu ()
Subject: Re: Who was that scary guy?
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 03:40:12 GMT

In article <00964014.A8E1EAE0@Msu.oscs.montana.edu> 
uphrrmk@Msu.oscs.montana.edu writes:

>Hi, Janis, Amy, Al, and other wonderful all and sundry folk.
>
>     I'm wondering how often these serious Fundamentalists come on the
>alt.pagan.  Every once in a while, I keep seeing some arrogant, pompous 
>anonymous someone putting things on the net that are insulting.  I don't
>mind debate, but--well, you've probably seen 'em, and have a pretty good idea 
>what they're doing.  I'm just kinda nervous about it.  
>
> 
>                               La Mort.

      Hi Death!  I'm new enough to this group that I can't answer your
question about the frequency of fundamentalist postings.  I don't even
know how nervous one should be.  I guess it depends on how vocal and
prominent you are about your beliefs, and where you are when you
choose to be vocal.
      When it comes to something like the posting on fetal remains after
an abortion, I kind of suspect that the person who posted it is long gone
and doesn't even bother to read the replies.  They already know what we're
gonna say, so why should they bother?  If they do pass through, I bet it's
only to see if they've managed to shake anyone up.  It's kind of like
people who leave fundamentalist literature in the libraries--they're just
trying to spread the word to us unenlightened folk.
      On the other hand, I would not be entirely surprised if the
fundamentalists are monitoring this group and a whole bunch of others they
might consider to be distasteful.  What better place to get ammunition for
your own beliefs than out of the mouths of your enemies? 
      I guess I'm here (in this newsgroup) because I care about what
happens to our planet, and this caring runs deeply enough that I consider
it to be religious.  If someone has a problem with me caring about the
environment and the fact that if we don't care we destroy every one of us
(including the fundamentalists), then I guess they'll just have to live
with it.  Still, you won't catch me going onto the 700 Club and saying this!

   BTW, I got quite a laugh out of the first line of your reply
to Janis' recent posting ("Hi Janis.  This is Death."  --or something to
that effect)!

    --Amy
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: radzy@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (T. O. Radzykewycz)
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Organization: International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A.
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 16:51:34 GMT

cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> Two groups of people are running a race, one free and the other with
> ankle hobbles on.  After the race is half over, you take the hobbles
> off, and tell the second group to start running.  Of course, they are
> about three laps behind the first group.  What do you do?  You pick up
> the group that wore the hobbles and plop them down next to the first
> that has been running free all this time.  THAT is a fair race.

No, it still isn't a fair race.  Once the hobbles were put on in
the first place, the only way to get a fair race is to take the hobbles
off, wait a few days for the runners to get back in shape after their
efforts, and then run the race fairly from the beginning.

Of course, that can't happen in real life.  Face it, there HAS been
descrimination in the past, and there's no way to change or eliminate
that descrimination.  We *do* need to have some affirmative action,
but we need to be *constantly* on guard to make sure that the
*REVERSE DISCRIMINATION* (embodied in affermative action) does not
continue beyond the point that it's necessary.

If anyone believes that affirmative action is NOT discrimination,
then that person is very deluded.  Statements like Janis' imply
that AA is not descrimination, when it really is.

Blessings: may unnecessary evils never happen, and necessary evils
never cause you harm.

		-- radzy

------------------------------------------------------------
					|  An it harm none,
	T. O. Radzykewycz	     	|  do as ye will.
	The Incredible Radical Cabbage	|
					|  "Just pray for a
	radzy@cogsci.berkeley.edu       |  tough hide and a
	        			|  tender heart."
	        			|    -- Ruth Graham
------------------------------------------------------------
Tribal Mother was old, and lay ill on a bed of moss and
fern.   Her hair was long and grey.   Her face was very
wrinkled.    Tamura'nun-pa thought:   How beautiful you
are, Mother, so old and wise.
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
From: weaver@kuttner.sfc.sony.com (Eric Weaver)
Subject: Re: Who are we kidding?
Organization: SONY Advanced Video Technology Center San Jose, CA USA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 18:26:44 GMT


In article <2B0C22CA.3305@news.service.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov19.133156.15828@mic.ucla.edu> suzi@trifid.astro.ucla.edu (Suzanne Casement) writes:

|> >Let's hope good ol' mother earth doesn't have to try to start life again
|> >why don't we. If EVERYONE pitches in, I think we can make a difference!
|> 
|> Again, she'll just have to shepherd other species toward new directions;
|> we just won't be around to see it.
|> 

I rather think we WILL be around to see it, actually.

We just won't be wearing the same kind of bodies.  And I'd better handle
my karma on cockroaches pretty darn soon...   ;-}

-- 
Eric Weaver  Sony AVTC  677 River Oaks Pkwy, MS 35  SJ CA 95134  408 944-4904
& Chief Engineer, KFJC 89.7 Foothill College, Los Altos Hills CA 94022
-- 
Eric Weaver  Sony AVTC  677 River Oaks Pkwy, MS 35  SJ CA 95134  408 944-4904
& Chief Engineer, KFJC 89.7 Foothill College, Los Altos Hills CA 94022
From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Women and Men Witches
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 20 Nov 92 01:11:06 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.164342.1@fnalno.fnal.gov> holzman@fnalno.fnal.gov (Daniel B. Holzman) writes:
>In article <1992Nov19.150243.26769@news.ysu.edu>, ag055@yfn.ysu.edu (Ward 
>Chanley) writes:
>> Daniel has repeatedly made the point that women are equally capable of the
>> "power-over" abuses of which I accuse patriarchy; this isn't surprising,
>> since these women are operating within a patriarchal structure of empowerment
>> and thus feel the need to play by its rules.  If we eliminate the patriarchy,
>> we're not setting up a new "power-over" structure, we're CHANGING those rules
>> alltogether.
>
>If there is no power-over in place, why enshrine power-over in the name of the
>system?  "Archy" means "rule", as in coercion.

Because this was the name bestowed on it by patriarchal anthropologists
working in a patriarchal system.  It has historically been used, and
while I agree that it is a misnomer, it is useful for recognition.  The
preferred word seems to be "matristic." 

>If it is a set of values, not a gender, being valued over the other, why 
>enshrine either gender in the name of the system and not derscribe the values?
>
>How about calling it Omnifocal?

Because women have been so shit on for so long and done nothing about
it through swallowing all the drek about our victimized powerlessness
that it is necessary to weigh down a little harder on our side.  Telling
people who've grown up in a patriarchal society to celebrate all values
won't work; their minds are still locked in.  You have to smack them
over the head with alternative possiblities.  You have two millenia's
worth of garbage to haul out -- it must be EXPLICITLY STATED that women
have been devalued and that women and the values that have been
associated with them must be paid more attention.  

No one in history has
said that any disembodied characteristic is evil; they have
systematically called women evil and then attributed all the things they
disliked TO us.  The characteristics have been devalued and are not
exclusively feminine (you who have heard me rant about enforced
bipolarity know how I feel about that) but HAVE BECOME SO through being
arbitrarily linked with US, who ARE evil.  It is women themselves who
have been devalued and denigrated, and everything else so only be
association.  If you doubt this read the Malleus Maleficarum as the
most egregious example. 

Blessings,
Janis