First, the happy thing: I have a new interview posted online! Heather Marseillan of the Tacoma Examiner asked me a few really great questions about Wonders, and the article/interview is up now. Read it here. I hope you like what I had to say. 🙂
Secondly, less happily: this is about that tar sands spill that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. The party line is that it’s safe to live in the area less than an hour from my own home and water supply that was ruined by a tar sands spill last March. Just try driving through the town of Mayflower and not being bowled over by the fumes. The people who can afford to leave have done so, even though many of them would have preferred to stay. The people who can’t? Families and their small children with less disposable income. And they’re all sick. Safe to live in, my ass. Read more.
My Arkansas is a beautiful place, and just like everywhere else on earth that’s been destroyed in one or more ways by this kind of mess, it deserves better.
Thirdly, and with a good dose of snark and a hope that I’m wrong: it occurs to me belatedly that I may have been shunted from the song contest I recently entered as soon as the judges read the word Pagan in my bio.
…
It’s not like it’s 2014, or anything.
Remember what I said yesterday about some parts of the world not being so progressive.
Now, this is only speculation on my part. I resolutely keep the chip OFF my shoulder in situations like this, or at least I work to keep it off. I Do have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder about being a misfit, and that was one of the things that I privately let get to me yesterday when the song contest finalists were announced. I’m better now.
The truth is that I knew it was a possibility that my Pagan affiliations would be taken into account, and I still didn’t take it out of my bio. Nor would I. I have nothing to hide, even though I’ve always been very good at social camouflage, having grown up in the bible belt in the South. I love it here, and I love so many things about the place that raised me. I wrote a song about those things for the contest.
Now it’s time to write some more songs, songs which include some strong words about the things that need changing.
Quoth Julia Sugarbaker, “you people really should be more careful. I almost got by you. Thanks for the sherry.”
I’m considering a separate blog post to follow up with this, outlining what a Pagan is and isn’t to me, what it means and what it doesn’t, because I know that ignorance, again, is part of the problem. There are still people in the world who honestly believe that Druids actually do things like sacrifice babies in the woods. Some people actually think the same sorts of things about Muslims. Or anyone else who prays in a different way. Yes, really.
Bards and storytellers have a duty to share knowledge, so I may do just that. Not that I expect anyone who’s already gonna be scared off by seeing the word Pagan in the first place to make it all the way into my blog (see certain recent Huffington Post links, or rather, the comment threads), but a girl can dream. 🙂