Sounds of Sunday – yesterday’s MoSo FEST concert

Saskatoon always has something going on and, like usual, I’m the last to know about it. Via the Star Phoenix:

More than 50 international and local acts will take the stage at seven different venues across the city. The organizers hope to foster a growing event similar to Austin’s SXSW festival (which pairs a technology component with a music festival) or the awesome Sled Island Festival in Calgary, which features hundreds of bands at shows spread out across the city’s downtown core.

This festival will also feature plenty of your favourite local acts, giving Saskatoon (and Regina) artists a chance to play alongside exciting established acts.

As a listener of CFCR, I recognized a few of the bands listed, as they tend to feature a lot local music or highlight the music of bands in town for shows. Others, like two of the three last night, I’d never heard of before. (The third I only knew of because the Man used to know the artist fairly well and played me tracks from one of his albums. He’s toured Europe and Japan, so while his audience was small last night, it might not be the norm for him.)

The first musician last night never introduced himself and I didn’t get a chance to find out who it was until after the second set: Shuyler Jansen.

The short set he provided was quite good. I don’t have a clue what key he’d set his guitar in (he had one of those string clamp things) but I liked it. The chord progressions he used to move the songs along were unpredictable and odd to ears not used to his style already, but they certainly added a neat element. Listening to “The Next World” it’s actually putting me in mind of Joss Whedon’s work on Once More with Feeling.

The second player didn’t introduce himself either, but much of the seating at the Broadway Theatre filled up by the time it was his turn to play. He was clearly a favourite. I had to wait until after the whole concert to find out whose melodies and lyrics had made me bawl my eyes out. Turned out to be Damian Jurado. His solo acoustic choices for the evening put me in mind of Nick Drake, Rufus Wainright and Ron Sexsmith.

I was blown away by him. Truly blown away. Nothing more I can really say beyond that.

Well, okay. He was amusing near the end of his set as he got to chatting about the fact that he’d never been to Saskatoon before and admitted he’d never heard of the place before getting the invite. He made a few digs bout not understanding Canadians from the east and offered to sell us Washington and Oregon if we’d pay for them with our Kit Kat bars and a couple other things he apparently can’t get back home. A fan called out a song request around that time and he flat out refused to play it. He was hilarious as he explained why. Something like, “The only notes I play in that whole song is this series of notes,” which he demonstrated for about a minute. Since the rest of his usual players weren’t along to fill in the rest of it, he explained, there was no point in performing it. He also claimed he was using Saskatoon as the last concert where he’d play one of his songs. I think it was the one he called Ohio.

The place cleared out quite a bit once Damian was done but if soso was bummed about that once it was his turn, he didn’t show it.

The Man tells a nice story about him. Eleven or so years ago, soso was set to play at some club in Saskatoon, his home town. The Man, 17 years old and a stranger to the city (coming in just for that show), had no idea where the club was. He found soso’s number and called him up to ask for directions. soso obliged him. The two of them became friends after that, although they don’t see each other that often anymore. So it goes. I did encourage him to get up and say hello at least but he didn’t want to bother the guys setting up and, after the show, soso hurried off the stage and vanished into the back somewhere.

All in all, we had a fun filled musical evening.

The One Minion Search Party – “how old should you be to watch csi”

Did you know that the Saskatoon Public Library loans movies and TV shows on DVDs? Part of me thinks the place needs to advertise itself a whole lot better. I frequently run into people who have no idea free movies are there for the borrowing. It’s fiddly work for an employee to add a card into the database but it’s all made easier when the patron who wants the card carries ample ID. I have no idea how people can get anything done when they wander around so “incognito.” What if they were in some terrible accident that knocked them out or, worse, killed them outright? CSI-Saskatoon doesn’t exist. Nobody’s going to eyeball their shoelaces and know that only one store in the world stocks those shoes and it just happens to be in town and just happens to keep detailed records about buyers…

But I digress. Library cards are free for everyone. There’s no good reason not to have one. Everyone local should stop at a branch and get one this summer if they don’t have one yet and use the library as much as possible or else some politician will try to declare it a derelict operation better left unfunded and succeed. Libraries are still valuable sources of information and not everyone can afford their own computers or internet or want to. Not everyone wants to own books, movies, or music either so it’s nice to have a place to come to borrow some for a while and return them and get different ones. It’s still a terrific system. There are all kinds of programs going on every day, too, like story time or board game days or activities aimed at seniors. We’re also getting into the video games, kids, so now’s a good time to sign up!

Not only are the cards free, but they’ll work in every city/regional library in the province. Stop in any public library and you can sign up for a card useable in Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Prince Albert and all surrounding areas. People who officially reside in other provinces but are living here short term for work can also apply for a temporary card that will let them borrow a limited number of items per library visit but give them an all access pass to our internet resources 24/7. We also offer single visit cards for travelers who are merely stopping by to check email or whatever.

So, onto the actual question. When libraries buy materials like DVDs, we’ll add stickers to the cases indicating the rating level the product itself advertises on the back of the box somewhere. The symbols are always on the back, but sometimes very small and hard to read. If you look and you still can’t find one, then the item is considered Not Rated. The bulk of the collection falls under Not Rated and General. This will be stuff anyone can borrow; kids, teens or adults. Most informational DVDs fall here, as do TV shows from earlier decades and anything specifically aimed at children. Canada’s rating system differs a little from the States sometimes, though, and something that might have an American rating that limits the viewing audience might wind up with an NR sticker here. (This often happens to films produced by non-English companies. They might not be intended for children but no group in Canada has rated it so the NR sticker is what we have to use.)

It’s been a while since I bothered to watch it but I think the CSI television series gets a 14A rating. This means it’s not intended for viewing by people younger than 14. That’s different than PG, which is going to be stuff that kids can watch if their parents or other adults are going to be in the room with them. There might be the odd episode or season given 18A which means no one younger than 18 should be watching it. We put the rating on the item and set up the item in the database with a code that will check the birthday listed on the card against the rating listed for the item. A card-carrying 12-year-old will be automatically blocked from borrowing anything with a 14 or 18A rating. Libraries don’t police whole families though. If a parent borrows it, who knows if they’ll let their kids watch it. We are only bound by law not to loan it to the kid directly.

Funnily enough, there’s a loophole no one really noticed until recently. For the past few years we’ve had a collection called “Hot Titles.” These are popular items that people can’t request or renew but can take out for a week if they’re smart enough to grab them as soon as they see them. The database coding for the DVDs in that collection never got written to take ratings into consideration. A parent came forward recently to complain about a movie the library loaned their child although it wasn’t age appropriate. I don’t know how that slipped by everyone. That’s the trouble with the obvious sometimes, though.

I’m late commenting on the Saskatoon atheist angst…

Local story, though, so I should have been more on the ball. Life getting in the way a little, I think. Interesting times and all that.

Anyway, there was some brouhaha earlier this month when a man by the name of Ashu Solo got a bit miffed over having to sit through a prayer at a civic function. The National Post picked up the story:

A Christian prayer by a city councillor at a City of Saskatoon volunteer appreciation dinner discriminated against non-Christians, says a volunteer who intends to complain to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.

Ashu Solo, a member of the city’s cultural diversity and race relations committee, was among the guests at the dinner Wednesday, where Coun. Randy Donauer said a blessing over the food in which he mentioned Jesus and ended with “amen.”

“It made me feel like a second-class citizen. It makes you feel excluded,” said Solo, who is an atheist.

“It’s ironic that I’ve now become a victim of religious bigotry and discrimination at this banquet that was supposed to be an appreciation banquet for the service of volunteers like me.”

He started with a letter to the Mayor and passed out copies to the rest of City Council, too. Mayor Atchison was “caught off guard,” over the complaint regarding prayer, the article goes on-

because many of the events he attends include a prayer before meals.

“I’ve never given it any thought at all,” he said.

Atchison said he is sorry to hear Solo felt excluded.

While Atchison suggested perhaps featuring prayers from other belief systems and sometimes skipping prayers all together, this notion didn’t satisfy Solo. He wanted an apology and a commitment to scrap prayer at all civic events or he was going to take things up with the Human Rights board. Good luck with that…

Understandably, there are differing opinions regarding Solo’s complaints and intentions. Friendly Atheist wrote stuff up about this, taking the side that Solo over-reacted. Indi in the Wired had this to say:

When you feel insulted or marginalized as an atheist, the first step is not to point fingers and scream “bigotry” and “discrimination”, it’s to think – to understand the insult or slight better. And that doesn’t mean a thought process like, “well, i’ve seen other cases of bigotry and discrimination that sorta kinda look like this, so… that must be what it is!”; it means real thinking – we’re a movement that prides itself on rationality, so we should act like we believe what we preach. Understand the insult or slight, and its motivation, then decide on the best response: which could be firing up the word processor for some hot letters to the editor… or it could be a gentle reminder that atheists exist, and have feelings, too.

There’s this editorial out of the National Post as well, where Barbara Kay mocks Solo and the atheist movement in general, making us all out to be whiny complainers who’ll bawl over the littlest things. She claims Solo’s problems are nothing like real Christians suffer around the world. True enough, but I’d say she ought to look into some of the countries where people aren’t safe to be admitted atheists, either. Including areas of the USA and possibly parts of Canada. It’s just as big a concern, I’d say. Persecution is persecution.

She’s right about abusing human rights commissions over petty grievances, though. She and Hemant Mehta make the point that Solo could have discussed his concerns about including a prayer with the organizers of the event after the fact and simply request they consider dropping such blessings in the future. Claiming his rights have been violated because he was stuck hearing “Amen” before he could receive his volunteer award makes him seem… well, petty. Why drag Council and the Mayor and everything else into it?

I believe Atchison when he claims he never gave it a thought. Christians don’t. It’s just the every day thing and who takes much notice of how others might feel to be surrounded by people praying when they might not share the same beliefs? I recall being at a co-worker’s home for a meal once and the whole damn family broke into some praise song before they served any food. Good gravy, what the fuck is this.. awkward much? So I’m stuck standing there while everyone sings joyfully and in tune. Real good time for the atheist stranger in the crowd.

By and large, I don’t really care for the whole blessing thing either. They do it at my work Christmas party and it’s the library. That’s city. Why have prayer at that city event? But it’s there. One year it came from a rabbi. Last year it was some random babble from an employee’s kid. I’m not going to go up and whine about it. I’ll just sit there and ignore it. It doesn’t concern me. It bores me more than anything. If you’re going to thank anyone, thank the makers of the food and everyone else who played a part in getting it to the table.

I found an anonymous piece (via friend and commenter koinosuke) at the Star Phoenix offering more on this:

Whether it’s the non-denominational theistic prayer with which the provincial legislature opens its daily business or a city councillor invoking Jesus at a taxpayer-funded civic event meant to honour volunteers, it’s time that Saskatchewan reconsiders such practices in venues where secular public proceedings are held.

For as much as Judeo-Christian ethics and practices have contributed greatly to shaping western society, the Saskatoon of today isn’t a Christian society but a richly diverse community where atheist Ashu Solo, a member of the city’s cultural diversity and race relations committee, is justified in asking to be spared from religion at a public function.

His request isn’t an impingement on the freedom of religion claimed by his critics, whose right to practise their beliefs is protected by law, with tax deductions granted by senior governments to those who donate to religious organizations and tax abatements granted by the municipality for church property.

He’s not saying make all religion go away (even if he’d like it to). He’s saying make overt prayer go away at civic events. People can pray at their own tables if they feel like it but does the whole damn place have to stand up to honour a god they may not follow or give a damn about?

It’s a stupid tradition that’s easily done away with if people would just up and do away with it.

–
quick edit: via koinosuke I get another link: CFI has a media advisory out about Solo and the filing of his complaint on May first.

Excorcism in Saskatoon? Say it ain’t so!

Exorcism seems like one of those quirky things that should only exist in the realm of fiction. Sadly, since many people insist on believing a god can exert power over a populace, and hold the opposing belief that demons can manifest a similar ability to wreak havoc, it means many people can believe an exorcism will solve that problem. Including people in the somewhat metropolitan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Via CBC, the headline– Exorcist expertise sought after Saskatoon ‘possession’:

According to church officials, a priest was called to a Saskatoon home by a woman who said her uncle showed signs of being possessed by the devil. The woman believed a priest’s blessing could help the distraught man.

At the home, the priest encountered a shirtless middle-aged man, slouched on a couch and holding his head in his hands.

The man had used a sharp instrument to carve the word Hell on his chest.

When the priest entered the room, the man spoke in the third person, saying “He belongs to me. Get out of here,” using a strange voice.

The priest told CBC News that he had never seen anything like this and was concerned enough to call police, for safety reasons.

Why wouldn’t the first assumption be mental illness? There are people who’ll self mutilate and hell, my teacher in grade 3 talked to us in the third person all the time. “Mr. Y. would like you to open your Language Arts books now…” (That is third person, right? Perhaps I need a Language Arts refresher.) I went to a catholic school and nobody went to find a priest in the hopes of ridding him of demons. He was just weird.

He said he then blessed the man, saying he belonged to the good side, to Jesus. With that, the man’s voice returned to normal for a short time.

The unusual voice returned when police arrived, and the priest continued to bless the man until he resumed a more normal composure.

So the possibility that the guy was doing all this just for a bit of attention isn’t worth considering? Over the top, granted. He could have just stripped down and flashed his neighbours or masturbated at the library (as some have been known to do).

CBC News followed up on the incident to learn if an exorcism had been performed, but church officials said a formal exorcism did not happen.

Bishop Don Bolen explained that the ritual of exorcism is a very structured exercise. He said it was not clear if the Saskatoon man was possessed or experiencing a mental breakdown.

Well, that’s something, at least. Good of him to admit there’s difficulty telling the difference. Of course, it requires the belief that possession is actually possible, sadly. The guy should be treated by medical professionals to see if there’s something they can do for him that will rid him of whatever delusions he’s living under. The problem I see with the “very structured exercise” is the need for said exorcist to buy into the delusion, too, and cater to it. It’s like people who truly believe dowsing rods work, or that they have psychic ability.

“I would think there are perhaps more stories about exorcisms in Hollywood than there are on the ground,” Bolen said. “But the Catholic Church teaches that there is a force of darkness, and that God is stronger than that darkness.”

Church leaders in Saskatoon have been considering whether Saskatoon needs a trained exorcist.

Sorry, but that’s just stupid. Stop encouraging people into believing these dark forces exist. This is the 21st century. Lay that superstition to rest already. Encourage the power of prayer, because you would anyway, but it would do so much more good to push these people toward medical help instead of engaging in spiritual fluffery as a supposed solution. If exorcism does anything, it does it like a placebo would; by tricking the mind into thinking that shit works.

Regina has no expert in this field, the article goes on, but mentions Saskatoon’s retired Rev. Joseph Bisztyo who’d been trained in the “art.”

Anglican priest Colin Clay, who has worked with Bisztyo, told CBC News the topic of exorcism touches on questions that go back centuries.

The issues revolve around the nature of evil and how to respond to people who claim they have the devil in them.

“The churches have to respond,” Clay said. “And they’ll either do it by saying — some churches will say — ‘Well that’s the devil, and the devil is at work in the world and we’ve got to deal with it,’ or the churches will say, ‘Well there’s certainly evil in the world, whether there’s an actual Satan or devil, there’s certainly evil in the world, and it has a terrible effect on people’s lives,’ and so we’ve got to respond to it.”

Clay said he does not dismiss how evil can affect people.

People in general are capable of tremendous good and extraordinary wickedness. Sometimes the same person can achieve both within a half hour, I’m sure. I don’t think wickedness ought to be explained using demonic possession as a possible reason for it, though. If some churches are still pushing that scenario, why aren’t the others speaking out against it more often? Why do ideas like that still persist? What use do they have beyond keeping people tense and scared? Better church attendance records when people think the devil might get them in their sleep? Or their children? Lunacy. Wouldn’t education would protect people better than Armor of God pajamas?

I hope it’s decided that an exorcism expert is unnecessary for the city. Surely there are better uses for their time and money.

Former Saskatoon priest charged with sexual abuse

CBC Radio 1 mentioned 89 year old William Hodgson Marshall this morning so I went hunting for more information. From CBC I learn he’s in custody in Kingston, Ontario and awaiting trial:

Marshall was a priest, basketball coach and mathematics teacher at St. Paul’s High School in Saskatoon between 1958 and 1961. The all-boys school, which was on the 400 block of 22nd St. E. downtown, closed in 1967.

On Tuesday, the Saskatoon police said Marshall has been charged in connection with indecent assaults that took place in 1959 and 1960.

The two alleged victims, now both 66 years old, were 14 at the time.

The Crown prosecutor’s office is arranging for a court appearance to take place in Ontario, Saskatoon police said.

In a written statement, Saskatoon Bishop Donald Bolen said the diocese was recently informed of the new charges.

“In all such cases, our first concern is for the suffering of those who have been abused. We are called to listen and to assist in whatever way possible as they move toward healing,” Bolen said.

Hmm. In other such cases I’ve read about, the Catholic church’s first concern has been to move the priest and/or pretend it never happened. Like in Memphis, and France, and Ireland and elsewhere. And, in a lot of cases, possibly all of them, it was a Vatican approved decision. These days the Vatican is under fire for not doing enough to protect victims and people are demanding a change. A New York Times article posted yesterday notes a conference finishing up in Europe where this has been the main issue being discussed.

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org , said the conference was intended to “change the subject and look like progress.”

“The Vatican is afraid, and it has reason to be,” he said, in light of recent charges against the church, including a complaint filed against the Vatican with the International Criminal Court.

The conference, which began on Monday and runs for four days, drew about 200 delegates, more than half of them bishops but also victims, rectors of Catholic universities and religious superiors. Cardinal William J. Levada, who heads the Vatican office that deals with allegations of clerical abuse, said Monday in his keynote speech that over 4,000 cases of sexual abuse of minors had been reported to his office in the past decade as the church toughened its responses. “We are still learning,” he said. “We need to help each other find the best ways to help victims, protect children,” and to educate priests “to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood.”

Would step one be to boot out the priests known to be doing it and let the police and courts make mincemeat out of them? Put the ones suspected on some kind of probation where they’re never allowed to be alone with young boys? Apologize profusely for letting this get so out of hand and then offer to build and fund (but not operate) real counseling centers where real psychologists and other professionals won’t resort to prayer as a band-aid fix-it-all? That’s just off the top of my head, of course. I don’t know what they’ll actually decide on as a course of action.

It’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, comes of this.

Plans for Darwin Day Saskatoon are coming together

Circle February 12th and if you’ll be in the city, you can join the Saskatoon Freethinkers and Saskatchewan Skeptics for their third annual Darwin Day party. This year the event will be on the University of Saskatchewan campus in the biology building (home of the dinosaur exhibits) starting at 1:00 that afternoon. There are a couple speakers lined up and talk of a scavenger hunt for the little kiddies, and maybe for the old farts, too. And there will be cake. Can’t have a birthday party without cake.

Freethinkers have a meeting this weekend so I should be able to provide more details after that.

Io Saturnalia!!

Instead of Festivus this year, Saskatoon Freethinkers chose to celebrate the ancient traditions of the Roman festival known as Saturnalia. Including gift giving.

Originally the gifts were symbolic candles and clay dolls – sigillaria – purchased at a colonnaded market called Sigillaria which was located in the Colonnade of the Argonauts, later in one of the Colonnades of Trajan’s Baths. Something similar is still practiced in Rome’s Piazza Navona today. Gifts which could also include food items such as pickled fish, sausages, beans, olives, figs, prunes, nuts and cheap wine as well as small amounts of money grew to be more extravagant over time – small silver objects were typical – as did their acquisition. How modern the first century writer Seneca sounds when he complains about the shopping season: “Decembris used to be a month; now it’s a whole year.” At the same time, Martialis may have been the first sage to remark “The only wealth you keep forever is that which you give away.”

I missed the note about bringing a gift for exchanging but fortunately a few people brought extras. I came home with cupcakes and cast-off smelly candles someone didn’t want. I also took home a couple pieces of the fabulous cake ordered for the party:

Those of you in the Saskatoon area would do well to consider contacting Cakes By Jen next time you want something awesome for your celebration. That thing was gingerbread and the best cake I’ve eaten in ages!!

All in all a good time. We skipped out on sacrificing animals (beyond the wings and the ribs) but koinosuke did something quite unique instead, an anti-sacrifice. She bought chicks.

Looking for unique gift ideas to give friends, family members, or teachers? Plan Canada’s Gifts of Hope directly benefit girls by ensuring they receive nourishment, education, and a safe environment.

Give a Gift of Hope on behalf of someone close to you and change the world for a girl. In turn, she’ll work to raise the standard of living for herself, her family and her community.

Your gift comes with either a personalized printed card or eCard that lets the recipient know the difference that is being made in their name.

The three birds will be raised by women who’ll be able to sell their eggs for a bit of income later on. Consider this kind of thing for that person on your list who already has everything.

Unrelated, but good news: left hand typing has become doable again. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed blogging. The angle winds up a tad awkward so I think posts might still have to be short ones but you should see my fingers go. Hooray! Progress!

Not Your Momma’s Sex Talk runs tonight in Saskatoon

It starts at 8:00 and here are the details as provided on their Facebook event profile (links added by moi):

The 1950s are back for a night of drinks, dancing, and (responsible) debauchery!
Not Your Momma’s Sex Talk is a one-night-only fundraiser for the Sexual Health Centre Saskatoon (SHCS), featuring:

1950s costumes!
1950s music!
1950s sex ed films!

Sex toy raffles!
Themed cocktails!
Giveaways!

All door proceeds until 10p.m. go directly to SHCS, so please come early and show off your undoubtedly fabulous get-ups!
Also, anyone in before 10 will be entered in our early bird door prize draw!

$5 at the door, 19+, Queer-positive

Sponsored by the Sexual Health Centre Saskatoon and the 302 Lounge & Discotheque.

You can tell them at the door that 1minion sent you. They’ll give you a completely blank look on account of having no clue who I am, but wouldn’t that be kind of hilarious?

Last night the Saskatoon Skeptics told ghost stories

It was a small turnout compared to some nights but the six of us had a merry spooky time telling tales anyway. Sucks to be one that missed the fun…

David brought along a printout of a story Pliny the Younger told of a haunted house back in his day (his day being AD 61-115) which can be read here. Todd brought several folk tales about trolls that weren’t scary, but cool all the same. I provided special effects of the “clippity clop” variety for his quick retelling of the Three Billy Goats Gruff (see a version here). A newcomer whose name I’ve forgotten told us a story of a haunted house here in Saskatoon that a friend of hers had visited where a poltergeist wasn’t a fan of Canada AM and didn’t care to have company in the house either, making something of a pest of itself by rocking chairs and slamming doors. David asked us if we’d ever been in the Marr Residence here in the city. Apparently it has a couple ghost residents, one of which is a misogynist in the basement who doesn’t like having women down there. Dale mentioned a ghost train, or at least ghostly lights visible north of Saskatoon near a town called St. Louis, which I’d never heard about before. Dale also brought some Korean tales with him, which I’ll get to momentarily.

I thought of a few stories myself, one being about a family mausoleum somewhere in the States, probably, where there was a mystery surrounding the coffins inside moving under their own power. The door would be sealed between uses but every time people went in there again, it seemed the coffins would be moved, or tipped over, or what have you. It was really freaky for the family. Later on, it was discovered that the mausoleum was prone to flooding at certain times of year and enough water would get in to raise the coffins off the ground and deposit them elsewhere in the room once the water receded. I also told one of a spooky face hanging in the bushes near a bog that later turns out to be a cow who liked eating the grasses that grew there. I don’t know if that was a true one, or if I found that in some fiction story and have forgotten that’s where it originated. Minds play tricks, after all.

Like minds that insist on seeing ghosts where lights or bugs are creating disruptive images on cameras. After story time we talked about the work people do to debunk this kind of thing and the challenges they face. Jeremy mentioned some superhero style guy who has a series on Youtube and that’s his popular/unpopular mission. A quick Google gets me CaptainDisillusion, which looks to be the guy, based on Jeremy’s description of his mask.

I mentioned watching That’s Incredible as a kid and insisting on sitting through the weekly ghost story even though I knew it’d mean three nights sleeping with my back to the wall and my closet light on. I also brought a book of “true” tales assembled by John Farman, called The Short and Bloody History of Ghosts. It has several entertaining stories in it about ghosts from around the world. I didn’t read this part last night but it winds up leading well into Dale’s Korean tales so here it goes (from page 23):

Old Japanese spirits, particularly from the 1100s to the 1300s were very odd. There were women ghosts with bad haircuts wearing long white robes and legless Samurai warrior-ghosts. There were foxes that could change into beautiful women and then bewitch anyone who crossed their path.

Dale brought a printout of Heinz Insu Fenkl’s collection about “Dangerous Women” from which he and David read. “The Fox Sister” is very well known in Korea and according to Fenkle:

It is a cautionary Confucian story about the dangers of wishing for a female child. She literally destroys the family, and it is up to the disowned brothers to restore the order of patriarchy by killing her.

Nice.

Korean fox lore, which comes from China (from sources probably originating in India and overlapping with Sumerian lamia lore), is relatively straightforward compared to the complex body of fox culture that evolved in Japan. The Japanese fox spirit, or kitsune, is remarkably sophisticated, probably due to its resonance with the indigenous Shinto religion, and the fox spirits of Japan can be male or female, malign or benign. In Korea, the demonic fox is called a kumiho; they are almost exclusively female, and almost always evil. Korean fox women are generally seductive creatures that entice unwary scholars and travelers with the lure of their sexuality and the illusion of their beauty and riches. They drain the men of their yang (their masculine force) and leave them dissipated or dead (in much the same way as the fairy woman in Keats’s poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” leaves her parade of hapless male victims).

All in all, it was a very entertaining evening.

If you care to, feel free to share some of your favourite ghostly tales or other creepy stories in the comments.

Saskatoon Freethinkers thanks James Randi for an amazing evening of fun and learning

A magician by trade and debunker of woo-woo by reputation, the Amazing James Randi provided last night’s audience with plenty of laughs and thoughtful moments as he explained why critical thinking and skepticism are so crucial to getting to the truth of a thing and why it’s so easy to fool everyone, whether they claim they think critically or not.

Some examples he provided that I still remember well enough to paraphrase:

You’re a stranger sitting on a park bench in a small town you’ve never been in before and spot a sign advertising a riding academy with an arrow pointing in the direction it lies. A local’s seated on the bench as well and after a little while you hear the “clippity clop” of hoof beats coming from somewhere behind you. “Must be someone riding their horse to the Academy.” The local laughs at you and says, “That might not be a horse. It could be a zebra!” I forget exactly what the terminology was, but Randi pointed out that there are varying levels of deception. Another person may have believed the hoofbeats were evidence of unicorns, for example. It’s simple enough to debunk the zebra claim: there’s no zoo around for them to break out of, no circus in town, and the town isn’t smack dab in the middle of typical zebra country. While it’s certainly possible, the probability of the hooves belonging to a zebra is ridiculously minute. (And a walk in the direction of the sound would provide visual confirmation of either theory soon enough anyway.) Unicorns, though — Randi reminded people that we can’t prove negatives. You can scour South Africa for proof of unicorns. If you don’t find any, it’s not proof of non-existence. They just don’t appear to exist in South Africa…

He receives hundreds of queries every day from people who’d like to pick his brain and use his expertise. He also promotes the James Randi Educational Foundation and their million dollar “prove it” challenge where he encourages anyone who claims to be psychic or capable of other supernatural tricks to put their reputation where their mouth is. A reputable educational facility jam-packed with intelligent degree-owners contacted him once offering up some guy from Israel who could do this amazing thing with his mind that baffled everyone in the building. He’d asked these scientists to provide him with a random matchbox (hilariously described by Randi as being rigorously and ridiculously over-tested by said scientists beforehand to make sure “no trick” was going on with it) and he could make it rise and fall on the back of his hand without physically touching it. Randi sent them a fax of a copy of page of an old magic trick book he had on hand that outlined just how simple the gag was to perform. Those clever people had been completely fleeced by a foreign charlatan. They also hung up the phone in a hurry.

He played a couple of videos from his days on the Johnny Carson show. In one, he performed the psychic operation trick that thousands of people have spent serious money on because they believe it to be a real cure for what ails them. In another, he had absolute proof a faith healer named Peter Popoff was scamming his audiences. He’d hired a private detective with a decent radio receiver of some sort who recorded clear evidence that Popoff’s wife was feeding the man information about audience members through an ear piece: names, home towns and what ailed them. With this secret stash of facts, he’d claim (and still does claim) that God himself gives him the clues for who’ll be cured next. With just a few minutes of research, anyone can easily find out he’s a huckster, yet the man continues to get rich off this scam ministry. Randi said he’s making more now than he did when he was revealed on television as a fraud.

Randi pointed out the difference between himself as a magician and these other guys. Randi tells you flat out that he’s going to deceive you and then does just what he said he’d do. These other folks tell you flat out that they can cure you, or read your mind, or sell your house or whatever the hell their ruse might be and then go through with their deceptions and rip you off. Randi is honest about his intent to trick you. The rest are not.

So, all in all, that was a very fun evening. The questions at the end got a little less fun, unfortunately, when a local author tried to shill his kooky tripe and hoped to denounce what he thought were Randi’s claims that the supernatural doesn’t exist. It was a bit of a challenge to get the man to relinquish the microphone so someone with an actual question could have a turn. Randi handled the situation with aplomb; no doubt it’s a common type of audience member, the one who thinks he can prove Randi wrong. Randi admitted that he’d love to have someone approach him with that one thing he can’t explain… but it doesn’t happen. He knows the tricks. He’s done the research. He’s immune to the typical tomfoolery that tends to throw people, be they doofuses or geniuses. He even sounded kind of bummed about that, poor guy.

The key point he wanted to drive home with all this was the need to be aware of just how easy it is to be tricked — but also how easy (relatively speaking) it can be to protect ourselves from the worst of it. We all need to educate and train ourselves to look for the real truth, not just the (possibly dubious) truth someone else claims is there.