14-year old Pakistani girl activist shot by Taliban

[merithyn]

Oh and by the way, Margo Adler post dates Wicca by a lot.  I think are thinking of Margret Murray.  Interestingly, Gardner's association with the Golden Dawn means that Wicca has a sort of "cousin" religion.  Another alumni of that group was none other then L. Ron Hubbard who went on to found his own religion, Scientology.

No, he wasn't. Hubbard lived with an Aleister Crowley follower named Jack Parsons who was a member of OTO, not Golden Dawn. And there's nothing so far as I'm aware that said that Hubbard even joined OTO.

You're right on the Margaret Mead thing though. I always get those two women mixed up.

[Razgovory]

Oh and by the way, Margo Adler post dates Wicca by a lot.  I think are thinking of Margret Murray.  Interestingly, Gardner's association with the Golden Dawn means that Wicca has a sort of "cousin" religion.  Another alumni of that group was none other then L. Ron Hubbard who went on to found his own religion, Scientology.

No, he wasn't. Hubbard lived with an Aleister Crowley follower named Jack Parsons who was a member of OTO, not Golden Dawn. And there's nothing so far as I'm aware that said that Hubbard even joined OTO.

You're right on the Margaret Mead thing though. I always get those two women mixed up.

Sorry they mix up the names quite a bit.  Golden Dawn, AA, OTO.  Gardner and Hubbard were part of Crowley's outfit (whatever he was calling it at the time), as was Parsons (who was rocket scientist of all things).  Hubbard ran off with Parson's wife and Parsons blew himself up.  Crowley seems to have seen Hubbard as shyster (which was accurate).  In his occult days Hubbard called himself "Frater H".  Flakes a feather, flock together.

[Queequeg]

I know. You've told us all of that before. It's why I said what I said, specifically the bolded part. Your background was one of breaking free from that which you were taught was law, and finding your own path. I mistakenly assumed that you might recognize that as a valid option in life for others.

So, my hatred of a recently invented faith founded on Victorian misconceptions would make me more likely to be sympathetic of a recently invented faith based on Victorian misconceptions? 

[Razgovory]

Love your avatar spellus.

[jimmy olsen]

Also who says that any given neo-pagans belief stem from a Greaco-Roman tradition? There are plenty of other pagan faiths on which to draw inspiration.

Who said that neo-paganism has to stem from Greco-Roman models? The late Classical Pagans were brought up as the last example of respectable pagans.

Surely there must be respectable Hindus. Hinduism, like the Greco-Roman and Norse pantheons derives from the original Indo-European pantheon does it not?  So does it not count as Pagan?

EDIT: Beaten by Razberry 

[sbr]

Raz is a person, not a berry.

[katmai]

How razian of you Sbr.

[Sheilbh]

Thank God for Ataturk! Inspirational military leader, politician of genius and colossal piss-artist!

Let's raise a glass of raki to his memory.

It doesn't always work out.  Just look at whisky loving, bacon eating Jinnah.

It is interesting though.  I've seen adverts for whisky in Egyptian newspapers from the 30s.  Nowadays that simply wouldn't happen.  Ataturk was helped by being a great man but also a genuine nationalist defending his country.  Sadly too many of his type like, say, the Wafd Party were more than happy to drink Commissioner's whisky and formed a corrupt, decadent, effete, westernised elite of collaborators.

[Queequeg]

Egypt has been ruled by foreigners since Saladin.  Or, frankly, since Cambyses II.  I think that's just endemic to the Arab World. 

[Neil]

If we're going to start talking shit about Victorians, I'm gonna get pissed.

[Queequeg]

If we're going to start talking shit about Victorians, I'm gonna get pissed.

I don't think Joseph Smith or Gardener represent the high point of the epoch.  That's all I'll say. 

[Sheilbh]

Egypt has been ruled by foreigners since Saladin.  Or, frankly, since Cambyses II.  I think that's just endemic to the Arab World.

Yeah.  Ruled by foreigners for at least 1000 years.  Probably fucks you up a bit.

If we're going to start talking shit about Victorians, I'm gonna get pissed.

The Wafd Party's comfortably Edwardian

[Richard Hakluyt]

There are not as many great men as one would like.

Not really sure about Jinnah. I confess to a dislike because he helped make partition a certainty and then had the bad taste to die just after Pakistan got independence leaving it to the kleptocrats; but I don't really know much about him 

I was intrigued by how Western Istanbul was when I visited a couple of years back, very similar to Athens in the general feel of the place; though they did blare out the Call to prayer, the most noticeable being the one that woke one up in the small hours.

[Sheilbh]

I've not read enough on the subject to comment, and what I've read is anti-Jinnah.  But this article by Perry Anderson (a lefty intellectual historian) is fiercely anti-Nehru and interesting:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n14/perry-anderson/why-partition

It goes against what else I've read and I've always like Nehru, but I think he makes his case well.

[Neil]

I always felt that Jinnah was problematic but ultimately right, working for partition pretty much from the beginning.  Still even when he did make some moves to trust Congress, Nehru would shoot his mouth off about how once they took power, he wouldn't be bound by any deals he made with Jinnah anyways.  The fact of the matter is that Congress simply wasn't capable of dealing honestly with the Muslim League.  As far as they were concerned, nobody other than them had any right to take any political action on the subcontinent.