This column is for public notices of interest to Northwest pagans. Births, deaths, birthdays, initiations, dedications, weddings, hand-fastings and so on will be printed in this space at no charge.
To run a public notice, please send information to the editorial address before the deadline for the issue in which the notice should run. Include a telephone number where we may reach you for verification of the facts. Thank you.
Happy birthday wishes to Leos and Virgos and to Miriam, Rob and Dedric, who all had birthdays recently. Hope you all get what you want!
Allena Gabosch and Denise Pedro, along with their husbands, Steve and Donn, will soon be opening the Beyond the Edge Café. It will be located next to the Edge of the Circle Books, at 703 E. Pike, in the space the Green Man Café formerly occupied.
The Beyond the Edge Café will be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a varied menu that will include oatmeal, waffles, pastries, soups, salads, quiche, sandwiches, pasta and, of course, decadent desserts. There will be lots of vegetarian food to choose from. Quality coffee and loose tea will be featured. At this time, there is not an opening date, but if you are in the neighborhood, drop by and say hi to Allena and Denise as they work hard getting the place remodeled.
Sylvan Grove, the local grove that publishes Widdershins, will be accepting applications for its upcoming beginning witchcraft class. The class is held 5 to 8:30 p.m on Sundays from mid-November through mid-February, a total of 13 weeks. Applications will be accepted November 1 only; for more information, see the resource listings or call 363-7896.
There has been some confusion concerning submissions for the calendar of events. Calendar listings are not ads; you cannot purchase them.
We will list your event in the calendar for free, if it meets at least two of the following criteria:
1. It supports our purpose and the pagan community.
2. It is free to attend, or there is a no-minimum donation charged.
3. It is featured in an advertisment in Widdershins in the issue in question and calendar space permits.
Events will be listed in order received, time and space permitting. Note that Widdershins is under no obligation to list events, especially those that charge a fee for attendance. Furthermore, event information must reach Widdershins by the copy deadline for the issue in question to be printed in the calendar.
If you don't understand this policy, please call Sylvana at 363-7896 for clarification.
We hope to make the calendar useful and informative to our readership, and we thank everyone for their contributions.
We have received several letters lately, which is really great. However, we have not been able to publish some of them, because the letter writers did not provide their names and phone numbers where they could be contacted. We welcome your opinions, feedback, criticism and praise, but if you would like your letter published, please enclose your name and phone number so we may verify the letter came from you.
At your request, we will publish letters anonymously, or under a pen name, but we do need your real name and phone number for verification.
In addition, we will not be able to publish in their entirety letters over 1000 words; such letters will be edited for length. We also reserve the right to edit letters for punctuation and grammar. We will when editing make every attempt to preserve the writer's meaning.
Thanks for your feedback. With your help, we hope to be able to publish more readers' letters soon.
In the Litha issue, Ed Fitch was credited with writing a book called Magical Rituals of the Crystal Well. The book's title is actually Magical Rites from the Crystal Well. Sorry, Ed.
In last issue's article "Hysteria for a New Millenium," the listserv witchhnt was listed as being affilitated with VOCAL. That was an error; there is no relationship between the two. Witchhnt@mitvma.mit.edu is sponsored by Jonathon Harris and is not affiliated with any group. All points of view are discussed there. Widdershins regrets the error.
If your group or organization serves the Northwest pagan community/s and you would like to be included - for free! - in our wonderful pagan resource guide, please send us a blurb describing your group or organization (a couple of sentences will do), along with your contact address and phone and any other pertinent information. We will be happy to include you in our resource listings.
If you are a business person, an artist or practitioner... we need your help! Widdershins really wants to expand and grow, and we need your advertising to support it. Our ads are reasonably priced, and they go worldwide on the Web - not to mention all over the Pacific Northwest. They're a great value, and by buying one, you support your local pagan publication, too.
If you have an ad that you would like to run, contact us at 363-7896 for rates and deadlines.
We also need submissions of articles, reviews, cartoons, artwork, interviews, letters and announcements. We really would like to have more participation from outside our staff, so please do contribute if you have an interest. For information or writer's guidelines, please call. Thank you for your continuing support.
by NightOwl
Many people are disgusted with "politics as usual" and despair that anything can be done. But there is an alternative! Several other parties now compete with the Repubs and Demos. These parties may be our best hope of reforming the system to reflect our needs, and not just the needs of the rich and powerful.
It's not always easy for alternative-party candidates. Rae Larson of the Patriot Party had to go to court to be allowed on the ballot for the 43rd District State Senate seat of the recently deceased Cal Anderson. The party followed all the rules to get on the ballot - except for the special ones it wasn't told about. The judge insisted Ms. Larson be allowed in the race. But she does not appear in the regular voters' pamphlet; keep your eye out for her special mailing, or give the Patriot Party office a call at 322-7454 to find out why she feels she is qualified to represent the 43rd District.
Alternative parties need your help if they are going to make an impact. You can contact the Libertarian Party of Washington State at 329-5669. Other alternative parties also run candidates; read your voters' pamphlet to learn about them.
by NightOwl
Would you like to know what the various groups who rate candidates have to say about those running in your district? Would you like to be able to access this information easily and cheaply? Dream no more. Project Vote Smart collects candidate biographical information and ratings from the 70-plus U.S. groups who assess candidates by questionnaire. This information is available free, although Project Vote Smart is supported by grants and membership donations, so joining is also a great idea. Contact Project Vote Smart at 129 NW Fourth St., #204, Corvallis, OR 97330, telephone 1-800-622-SMART.
by NightOwl
Radio Shack, the Tandy Corporation, has fired several employees for refusing to stop running hobby BBSs. All efforts on the part of those employees to discuss why a hobby BBS was labeled a "conflict of interest" were rejected and ignored by Tandy; Tandy has also prevented a newspaper discussing the issue from being distributed in a shopping mall in San Luis Obispo, California. Before you purchase anything from Radio Shack, you might ask them to explain why the company is attempting to control activities of employees unrelated to their jobs. For more information on this, contact Rochelle Skwarla, P.O. Box 5216, San Luis Obispo, CA 93403-5216, voice telephone (805) 549-9625, America Online address Rochelle1, Internet address 74007.1230@compuserve.com.
by NightOwl
Nearly 2000 people in Wenatchee, Washington, have signed a petition requesting a grand jury be convened to investigate the actions of Child Protective Services, the Wenatchee Police Department and the Douglas County Sheriff Department. Over 100 people have been accused, and several convicted, mostly via plea bargains, in ongoing child abuse sex-ring allegations.
The citizens presenting the petition were told there were no funds for a further investigation but that if they raised $25,000, an investigatiion could be done. The idea that a group of citizens should have to privately raise money to pay for such an investigation is rather strange, in my opinion. To ask a grand jury be called to investigate these cases, write to Governor Michael Lowry, Office of the Governor, Legislative Building, P.O. Box 4002, Olympia, WA 98504, or call (360) 753-6780. The unanswered questions surrounding this ever-widening prosecution are available from Concerned Citizens for Legal Accountability, P.O. Box 1872, Wenatchee, WA 98807, or online at cartmill@aol.com.
We wish to thank Rev. Paul Beyerl for listing us in his publication, The Grove Gazette. He said nice things about us, too! Thank you, Paul!
We also wish to thank Online Access magazine for publishing a blurb about our Web page; through this blurb, I am sure thousands more people found us! Thank you!
Also, thank you to all of you (you know who you are) who work so hard to produce and distribute Widdershins, and especially to all of you in the background, a special thanks! Kisses and hugs.
Widdershins is on the World Wide Web with a home page, whose address is http://www.sexuality.org/~shs/widdershins/
Check it out, and say hi to Dedric, who works really hard maintaining the page and getting Widdershins online each issue. Thank you, Dedric, we love you! Blest be your little redheaded heart.
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