(Significantly revised 12 August 2007.)

Caterpillar: Who... are... you?
Alice: Why, I hardly know, sir. I've changed so much since this morning, you see...
Caterpillar: I do not see. Explain yourself.
Alice: I'm afraid I can't explain myself, you see, because I'm not myself, you know.
Caterpillar: I do not know.
Alice: I can't put it any more clearly, sir, because it isn't clear to me.

Are you really interested, or are you just poking your nose in places where it might not belong? It doesn't particularly matter to me, but one should really think through their reasons for going places and doing things.

For the most part, this journal is friends-only. There are rare exceptions, and will be noted as Public Posts.

In addition, I employ the use of filters for some posts. Here is a link to the Sorting Poll for those interested.

Dancing in the Moonlight My primary journal. You're here already.
Kolchak Reporting (mainly a fandom journal)
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Me at LiveJournal
Yet Another Blog

CFP: APPROPRIATING THE PAST: THE USES AND ABUSES OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
An inter-disciplinary conference to be held at Durham University, UK, 6-8 July 2009 to inaugurate the Durham University Centre for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage.

This two-and-a-half-a-day conference should be of wide appeal to archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, lawyers and others with an interest in the ethical principles and problems associated with the concept of cultural heritage. The meeting will open with four invited lectures to introduce the conference theme and relate it to the specific aims and methods of the new Centre. In recent years, the right of archaeologists to erect 'Keep Out' signs around what they conceive of as the archaeological record has come under increasing challenge from other interest groups which may assert equal or superior rights to access, utilise and manage those remains, or to determine their significance. So a decorated bronze vessel which for an archaeologist is primarily a source of information to be extracted by academically approved methods may be, to other eyes, a sacred or tabooed object, an anchor of social or cultural identity, a work of art, or a legitimate source of hard cash. These different perceptions correspond to different forms of appropriating the past, and they can give rise to sharp practical conflicts. This conference will explore some of the key ethical issues raised by the competing modes in which archaeologists and others appropriate the past. These include: rights to interpret the past and tell stories about it; handling the sacred; the concept and ethics of birthright; local versus national versus international rights over sites, antiquities and artifacts; roles and responsibilities of museums; duties/rights of international intervention to defend antiquities; study and custodianship of human remains; looting and the antiquities trade; the economic exploitation of sites and resources; duties of preservation for future generations; the use of destructive research techniques; the roles of codes of ethics and of legal frameworks.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Professor James O. Young (Philosophy, University of Victoria,
Canada) Professor Robert Layton (Anthropology, Durham University,
UK) Dr John Curtis OBE (Keeper, Dept. of Middle East, British
Museum, UK) Ms Janet Ulph (Law, Durham University, UK).

ABSTRACTS
Abstracts of no more than 400 words (double spaced, prepared for blind review) should be submitted to Dr Andreas Pantazatos (email: andreas.pantazatos@durham.ac.uk) by the 11th of May 2009.
Notification of acceptance will be sent no later than the 25th of May 2009. Offers of papers from all relevant disciplines will be welcomed, including those working in the field and academics
(together with postgraduates). Further information will be provided in May for those who wish to attend without presenting a paper.

ACCOMMODATION AND FURTHER INFORMATION
The conference will be held in the College of St Hild and Bede.
Further information can be obtained from the Centre's website at: http://www.dur.ac.uk/cech

This entry was originally posted at http://moondancer.dreamwidth.org/1444236.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

I have often referred to this phrase from the Declaration of Independence in my discussions on marriage equality. In response to comments I made in another journal, someone recently questioned whether or not the Declaration could be used in legal arguments.

From Wikipedia (that world-renowned source of reliability :D):

The phrase "pursuit of happiness" appeared in the 1967 Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), which focused on an anti-miscegenation statute. Chief Justice Warren wrote:

The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

The phrase is used in the depression-era case Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923), which is seen as the seminal case interpreting the "liberty" interest of the Due Process clause of the 14th amendment as guaranteeing, among other things, a right to the pursuit of happiness, and, consequently, a right to privacy.

If Loving v Virginia cannot be considered relevant in any question of marriage equality, then I do not know what can be. As a member of the pagan clergy, I fully support the right of any committed, adult persons to engage in the rites of marriage (regardless of gender sexual orientation or, for that matter, number.)

About the Sorting Poll for this journal

California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban

The California Supreme Court has overturned a ban on gay marriage, paving the way for California to become the second state where gay and lesbian residents can marry.

The justices released the 4-3 decision Thursday, saying that domestic partnerships are not a good enough substitute for marriage in an opinion written by Chief Justice Ron George.

The cases were brought by the city of San Francisco, two dozen gay and lesbian couples, Equality California and another gay rights group in March 2004 after the court halted San Francisco's monthlong same-sex wedding march that took place at Mayor Gavin Newsom's direction.

See LJ Advisory Board tagged messages for more information and details

I've added several folk from LJ to the flist for moondancer.insanejournal.com's open id over at LJ. Hopefully, this post will show up over there...if not, back to the drawing board/reading the faqs.

To reply to this post using your LJ account, click the Open ID link and sign in with yourusername.livejournal.com; there will be a short journey through the verification/password process and you can then make your response.

It's being a stressful year. Consequently, I'm not posting a great deal anywhere; the exception was the period where my mother-in-law was dying. 

Thank you all for the kind thoughts and words - they are greatly appreciated.

Middle Spawn is on break from class this week; new term begins next week. Youngest began her new term today. No idea when Eldest is getting back to work.

Katrina/Nephir/Raven - my dearly missed spouse - is still in California with her sister doing the after-work of settling mom's estate and disposing of those things which need to go away. She should be back home in another week or so.  The girls, eldest and Youngest Spawn got home Friday evening, after a much delayed take-off form the Burbank airport. They've gone from 70F+ to 35F- -- sunshine to snow and Youngest is attempting to retaliate by coming down with a cold.

The weather - what a wierd year! Tuesday is April 1st and we had about an inch snow and hail today, on top of the 4-5 inches of snow from the past couple of days. I've got two theories on what's going on, and neither of them involve Global Warming.

1. Zombie Baby Jeebus really did see his shadow on Easter and we are being blessed with six more weeks of winter, or
2. This is all of the winter we avoided by having Daylight Savings Time over the years and the change in the start/stop date has caused a massive withdrawal from the daylight savings account.. I'm actually leaning towards this one at the moment, as I consider Daylight Savings Time to be an abomination to begin with.

Spealing of Abominations, I'm currently reading HUNTERS OF DUNE; it's probably the first Dune novel I've actually enjoyed reading in years. Dune and Dune Messiah were huge influences on my life back in the 1960s - especially as I was living in the Mojave Desert at the time. I was mostly unimpressed with Kevin Anderson & Brian Herbert's "prequels" as they felt much too rushed and shallow (especially The Butlerian Jihad) compared to Frank's work, which was vividly rich in imagery. While I know that the "final" novel is out in hardback, I'll wait until this summer to pick up SANDWORMS OF DUNE, just to savor it a bit longer.

I've got deadlines approaching for the Witches' Almanac and a couple of others that I really need to meet, so it may be a bit longer before I'm posting often; now if only the Muse will return my voicemails...

Life here at Caer McSidhe continues.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

~~ Bene Gesserit maxim (From Frank Herbert's DUNE series)

And in closing, I would like each and every one of you to read FDR's First Inaugural Address, containing that immortal phrase: "... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ..."

As those of you who stalked me followed me over here from livejournal already know, I use group filters for many of my posts.

Here is the current version of the Sorting Poll (sorry, they were all out of hats). Should you later change your mind, you can retake the poll and change your responses, but as I may not notice this, also drop me a comment here letting me know.

Poll #253 Sorting Poll
Open to: All, results viewable to: None

Do I know you in Real Life?

To which post groups would you like access?

BTW Restricted - please indicate someone from my Flist who can vouch you

TIW Restricted - please indicate someone from my Flist who can vouch you

Sylum Clan - you really should friend nightstalker for these, but let me know your clan name/character.

Some questions should be obvious, even to me, but sometimes I don't recognise screen names.

If you do not know what BTW, TIW or Sylum Clan refer to, you may safely skip those questions.

As noted in the first two of those, I am asking for someone who can vouch for you - I may already have you sorted into these, I might not. the request for a vouch is something new, I know, but I've been reevaluating some of the online interactions I've had over the years, and am being just a tad more cautious.

Sylum Clan members - please also friend nightstalker as that is my fandom and Clan Journal.

ALL comments to this poll are screened, and will be removed once they are answered. Any questions you do not wish to make here may be emailed to me at moondancer at nemedcuculatii dot org.

Should it be so desired, ljarchive is a 32-bit MS Windows (NT/2000/XP), OS Independent (Written in an interpreted language) application that can import your personal LJ, and any communities you wish, along with comments.

There are probably Mac and *nix utilities that can do the same.

ETA:
Additionally, read eeyore990's post on how to complete the import process to a new server!!!

Also noted in comments elsewhere:
Warning regarding transferring security settings on posts: (1) You need to have already created any custom groups on the other journal and (2) Those groups need to be in the same order as on your original journal. It doesn't transfer security settings by group name but rather by its order in you list of groups. So, if your small, custom group of three betas on LJ happens to be group number 2 on LJ and your huge group of all friends happens to be group number 2 on IJ, guess what? :P

It's a good idea to check your security settings after the transfer. If you need to change them, re-start LJ-Sec pointing it at your new journal, refresh the list of entries (to get rid of the LJ ones and only show the IJ ones), then select only the entries that match the security settings that need to be changed, select what to change the security settings to, and click the "Process Security Changes" button. Once it's done, go check the site and make sure that things are as desired. Repeat as necessary until your posts have the desired security settings

Thanks to doingsoso for the linkage...

FDA Press Release

This listserv covers mainly Class I (life-threatening) recalls. A complete listing of recalls can be found in the FDA Enforcement Report at: http://www.fda.gov/opacom/Enforce.html


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 21, 2007 Media Inquiries:
Kimberly Rawlings
Michael Herndon
301-827-6242
Consumer Inquiries:
888-INFO-FDA




FDA Expands Its Warning about the Risk of Botulism Poisoning From Certain Castleberry Food Products and Dog Food

( Read more... )

I'm likely to not be online for the next several days. Jsut saying so you don't panic.

Authorities Probe Benoit Wikipedia Entry
By HARRY R. WEBER (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
June 29, 2007 7:55 AM EST
ATLANTA - Investigators had not yet discovered the bodies of pro wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and their 7-year-old son when someone altered Benoit's Wikipedia entry to mention his wife's death, authorities said.

Authorities said Thursday they are trying to determine who altered the entry on the collaborative reference site 14 hours before authorities discovered the bodies of the couple and their son.

Benoit's Wikipedia entry was altered early Monday to say the wrestler had missed a match two days earlier because of his wife's death.

A Wikipedia official, Cary Bass, said the entry was made by someone using an Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Conn., where World Wrestling Entertainment is based.

Remainder of article at link, above.

Link to bookshop's entry on this for details.

Per bookshop, feel free to link to the original.

State official issues ground beef alert

SACRAMENTO – Consumers should not eat Moran’s All Natural, Miller Meat Company, Stater Brothers Markets, Inter-American Products or Basha’s ground beef with a sell by date of “Apr/29/07” or “Apr/30/07,” a freeze by date of “Apr/28/07” or “Apr/30/07” or a produced on date of “April 13/07” because the products could be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 and may cause serious health risks, State Public Health Officer Dr. Mark Horton warned today.

United Food Group, LLC, based in Vernon, Calif., is voluntarily recalling an additional 370,000 pounds of ground beef products produced on April 13, 2007. Today’s recall is an expansion of the company’s June 3 recall of 75,000 pounds of ground beef.

The affected products were distributed to Albertson’s, Basha’s, Grocery Outlet, Fry’s, “R” Ranch Markets, Sam’s Club (California, Arizona and Nevada stores only), Save-A-Lot, Save-Mart, Scolari’s Wholesale Markets, Smart and Final, Smith’s, Stater Bros., and Superior Warehouse. Distribution of the affected lot includes the following 11 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and Montana.

The recalled products were sold in 1-pound, 3-pound, 5-pound and 10-pound chubs and bear the establishment number "EST. 1241" inside the USDA mark of inspection or printed on the package.

Read more at bakersfield.com

In response to Strikethrough '07, a new community was created.

fandom_gives came about as an irony in the wake of Strikethrough '07: What if Livejournal fandom turned the tables around? What if everyone who vowed not to renew their paid account, everyone who swore to give LJ and SixApart no more financial support in the form of extra userpics, or virtual gifts, or more storage - what if all those people took that money and instead donated it to charities for the prevention of child abuse and sexual assault?

And so the idea was born: a fandom drive to collect funds for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, which has been called one of America's Top 100 charities - which then expanded to include a number of the USA and UK's foremost child-protection charities.

This drive is Fandom Gives: Strikeback. Two weeks of intense pimping, and intense donating, commencing at 00:01am EST, June 2^nd 2007 and ending at 11:59pm EST, June 15^th.

According to the poll posted in fandom_gives, over $1600 has been raised in the first day. let's see if we can multiply that amount by "a bunch".

NOTE: This is a Public Post

PS: Just for giggles, go read this - it makes as much or more sense than anything else we've heard from 6A/LJ.

or several from the astute and brilliant lilithsaintcrow on the subject of expectations of privacy on the internet.

(Reader's Digest Condensed Version: THE INTERNET IS PUBLIC. Engrave that on your brain, chickadees. It is not private in any sense of the word.)

Thank you, lilithsaintcrow!

170 New Yorkers' Gay Marriages Upheld
By DENISE LAVOIE (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
May 16, 2007 4:03 PM EDT
BOSTON - The marriages of more than 170 gay couples from New York who wed in Massachusetts before last July are valid because New York had not yet explicitly banned same-sex marriages, a Massachusetts judge ruled.

Couples are barred from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriages would be prohibited in their home states. The New York Court of Appeals ruled against same-sex marriages on July 6, 2006.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders had asked for clarification of the status of New York couples who married in Massachusetts before that ruling. Massachusetts became the first state in the country to allow gay marriage in May 2004.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Thomas Connolly ruled last week that those early marriages are legally valid.

"Just being able to say without any qualifications - 'we're married' - it feels great," said Amy Zimmerman, a New York City resident who married Tanya Wexler in Somerville on May 19, 2004, the third day same-sex weddings were allowed in Massachusetts.

A spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo indicated that his office considers the marriages at issue valid.

"Since 2004, it has been the position of the attorney general's office that New York law presumptively requires the recognition of marriages validly performed in other jurisdictions," John Milgrim said. The opinion he cited came from Cuomo's predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

New York state has recognized same-sex marriages in some cases - those performed in Canada, for instance, are considered in determining public employees' retirement benefits. But in 2005 a state appeals court ruled that a man could not sue a hospital for malpractice in the death of his longtime partner, despite their civil union in Vermont.

Michael Long, who heads New York's Conservative Party, predicted Connolly's ruling will not hold up in New York if gay couples press for marriage rights there.

"It's wishful thinking by some homosexual couples that the interpretation of a particular judge will change their status," Long said. "The law in the state of New York is very clear - marriage is between a man and a woman."

Although the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said in March 2006 that gay couples from states with no "express prohibition" of same-sex marriage could marry in Massachusetts, it was unclear at that time whether gay marriage was specifically banned in New York and Rhode Island.

Connolly ruled in September that gay couples from Rhode Island have the right to marry in Massachusetts because laws in their state do not expressly prohibit same-sex marriage. Whether Rhode Island honors those marriages is an unsettled issue; its Legislature has rejected same-sex marriage, but its attorney general issued a nonbinding opinion this year advising his state to recognize those conducted in Massachusetts.

Susan Sommer, senior counsel for Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization, said New York common law has held that as long as a marriage is valid where it is performed, it will be respected in New York.

"Not everybody along the way has agreed - there's been some litigation around it - but the clear direction is one of growing respect and recognition," she said.

Spitzer, a Democrat, has proposed that gay marriage be legalized, but so far has failed to convince either the Republican-led state Senate or the Democratic-controlled state Assembly to do so.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Fair Use Notice: This web site contains some copyrighted material whose use has not been authorized by the copyright owners. We believe that this not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Fair Use notwithstanding I will immediately comply with any copyright owner who wants their material removed or modified, wants me to link to their web site, or wants me to add their nude photo.

lupabitch's fault
( cut for pic, worksafe. )