Pompeii being destroyed AGAIN!

Latest Pompeii collapse: Garden wall gives way

This is so sad. It seems Italy is having real difficulty conserving its remarkable history:

...A stretch of garden wall ringing an ancient house in Pompeii gave way Tuesday after days of torrential rain, the latest structure to collapse at the popular archaeological site...

This is the third in a string of recent collapses.

More pics here.

All Hail the good people of Maple Ridge

Council has moment to reflect

Many have taken issue with prayers of invocation at the start of town council meetings. For those who cherish the concept of the "Separation of Church and State", this becomes even more troublesome when just prayers of mainstream faiths (dominated by Christian ones) are welcome. In the USA, debates in small towns often degenerate into shouting matches, egged on by outside agitators. But a town in British Columbia CA has come up with a reasoned solution to this problem:

...Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims and Sikhs could all offer their thoughts and blessings to Maple Ridge council, as politicians continued their plan to invite all groups to start council meetings on a spiritual note.

The town is granting a period of time "and reflection" for a list to be generated documenting the varied faiths around their community. Not only that, the invoking prayer has now been modified, to become a "moment of reflection" to allow readings and other expressions which don't quite fit in the definition of "prayer". What's quite exceptional about the town council of Maple Ridge, is that they are even extending a hand to less established faiths:

...The invitation would include groups that don’t have established locations to practice their faith...

That seems wonderfully inclusive of the non-mainstream!

Rest forever in SummerIsle, dear Ingrid Pitt

Ingrid Pitt, star of many Hammer Horror films, and a small but significant roll in the original Wicker Man, died the other day shortly after a collapse.

Is Hutton Wrong?

Ron Hutton's landmark book "Triumph of the Moon" is on the bookshelf of many Wiccans and Pagans. In it, Hutton asserts there is little connection between modern Paganism and the Paganism of old. For years, Hutton's pronouncements about the history of our religion have influenced many of the movers and shakers of modern Paganism and Wicca. A number of popular Pagan authors rely heavily on Hutton and basically treat it as 'gospel'. Currently there's a budding controversy concerning Hutton's book and the conclusions he reached. For some time, there's been occasional objections raised to Hutton's conclusions. Frequently, these objections have been rapidly silenced by those same movers and shakers. Finally, someone has come forward to more fully flesh-out those criticisms and provide something of a 'take down' of Hutton.

I first read of this at Wildhunt, down in a longer post:

But the discussion really heats up at Fr. Barrabas blog, here:

The comments sections includes posts by some of those directly involved in the recent analysis.