CURRENT MOON

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Bangs Head On Desk


Local radio WAMU is hyping its ten o'clock interview with Starhawk.

So far, we've gotten: "Spirituality vs. Witchcraft

Is it earth-based spirituality or is it witchcraft? Listen to my interview with self-professed witch, Starhawk."

The write-up for the program isn't much better:

Starhawk, self-proclaimed witch, pagan, . . .

She freely calls herself a pagan, a witch, and a believer in the religion of the Goddess. . . .

The Wicca or Goddess movement has many rituals and feast days, including Halloween. Yes, they dance around a cauldron, but it’s often a soup pot. She notes that Halloween symbols such as ghosts (representing ancestors’ returning) and jack-o-lanterns have ancient Celtic religious roots.


One more time. Unless you're going to refer to the local priest as a self-professed priest, refer to Dobson as a self-professed xian minister, and call the local rabbi a self-professed Jew, don't call witches "self-professed." Just stop it. It makes you look like the ignorant boor that you are. "Is it spirituality or is it witchcraft"?!?!? Hmmm, is it Lutheranism or is it spirituality? Is it evangelism or is it spirituality? Is it . . . well, you get the idea. And, honestly, in 2007, do we really need "Yes, they dance around cauldrons?" Really? How can you confuse Wicca with the "Goddess movement"? Come on. Presumably the person doing the interview has done some research beforehand.

Don't make this self-professed witch call out the "fictional flying monkeys."

6 comments:

Anne Johnson said...

Piss on WAMU. They never should have stopped playing bluegrass.

Anonymous said...

What a ridiculous write-up. It does make you wonder if the interviewer did ANY research beforehand.

Blessings

Mama Kelly

Anonymous said...

They called her a self-professed witch to underline that they were not calling her a person who does black magic for the destruction of the community.

But she is also self-professed in the broader sense of the word.

There are self-professed priests of all religions and then there are one who have checkable credentials. There is no place for newspapers to check Starhawk except some books .

There are people who accept the name witches, for example, the family witchcraft, three-rivers type traditional workers who would might say that Starhawk whatever she is , is no witch.

And if they did agree that she was their idea of a witch , other groups might not.


The situation is not as simple as you would like it to be.

Anonymous said...

Well at least they didn't describe her as 'seemingly normal' or 'surprisingly levelheaded'. There's no end to the putdowns, subtle or crass.

Anonymous said...

J Dobson is not in fact any kind of xian minister. He's a psychologist. He's professed only by journalists who can't understand why anyone would take religious advice from anyone without a Rev in front of his name. Well, why do they? RC

Anonymous said...

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