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Witchvox Weekly Update for 6/28/1999
Author: Witchvox Central
Posted: June 28th. 1999
Times Viewed: 5,744
"I don't think that Witchcraft is a Religion".
  (Texas Gov. George. W. Bush)
Politically speaking this was another very busy week. Republican presidential candidate and Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, stated that he believed that Witchcraft wasn't a religion, hence not worthy of being treated as such in the military etc. Even by conservative estimates, close to a million U.S. Witches, Wiccans & Pagans would strongly disagree. Get this George, we are not only a religion but we are also voters, and vote we will.
Texas Pagans (who never do anything small) were both insulted and furious by their Govenor's statement! Surf to Texas Pagan Awareness Online or Wren's Nest for continuing coverage on this issue. The times they ARE a changing, YOUR local Pagan awareness campaigns ARE working. We are waxing NOT waning. For the absolute latest on World-Wide Pagan political issues... Visit Wren's Nest on the Web
Contact information for Governor Bush to respond to his comments against Wicca: Snail Mail: Governor George W. Bush, Office of the Governor, PO Box 12428, Austin, Texas 78711-2428. Fax: 512-463-1849. Governor's Switchboard: 512-463-2000. Online E-Mail Response Form Address: http://www.governor.state.tx.us/email.html
The "Pagan Vote" image to your upper right is just one of many new images for the grabbin' over at the W.A.D.L. Web Site (image by Sascha).
Two NEW Festival Reviews: 1999 has been an explosive year for Pagan festivals in both sheer numbers and size. This week we honored to present detailed reviews of two veteran Pagan Festivals, the FreeSpirit Gathering in Maryland and Ancient Ways in California (pictures just up 6/29). Big time thanks to Gaia IvoryWitch and Diotima for their fine reviews. For daily updates on upcoming Pagan Festivals visit our The WitchVox Festivals Page.
  Pagan Online Shops & Services: Our second busiest links section is Pagan Products Online (Can anyone guess the first?). Due to this page's "out of control" size, (200 detailed listings) and our past commitment to better promote this section, this week we did some major work.
WitchVox has celebrated the Pagan shops both on and off line since our site launch in '97. Sadly our listings have grown TOO large (212 online shops and 596 local shops) to be easily digestible. For months we have been promising the vendors and crafts-people that we want to find a way to better promote their work (lack of time is always our biggest frustration). We DO know that is hard to make a living selling this type of merchandise. The Staff at WitchVox encourages you to support our community shops both on and off line.
WitchVox NOTE: The Witches Voice IS a non-commercial site and accepts NO compensation or "Free" gifts from any vendors, shops or services with any implied obligation (this doesn't include Home-made cookies or Truffles). This enables us to promote products and services that we deem of interest to the Pagan community. We are not in anyone's back pocket nor do we have any desire to be. WitchVox is funded by our sponsors, free and clear of any "obligations". If you like what WitchVox offers, surf to YOUR W.O.T.W. page and THANK your local sponsor.
Changes this week in our POSS section:
New Name: Our first decision was to rename this section "Pagan Online Shops and Services" (POSS) in an effort to better describe its contents.
Random 13 Our Databases live to run calculations and every two days THEY will chose 13 POSS sites for you to check out.
Now on 5 Pages This is our first attempt to break up and better define POSS. Future plans *still* include; powerful search capabilities buy product or service type, and articles on safe online shopping.
Click on the logo just above to visit our listing of 212 Pagan ONLINE Shops and Services.
 WitchVox Quarterly Email Sent
Major Clean up Completed: This week we emailed our "Solstice Blessings" to 13,629 folks that are specifically listed as contacts on our Witches of the World Pages. We do this to say thank you and to cleanse our listings of undeliverable email addresses. It's been 6 months since we last attempted this and thanks to a daily automatic routine that we run (2,000 you know about this) the list only rendered 10.47% undeliverable email (1,427 pieces). If you did not receive this email AND were listed as a contact on the WOTW pages we kindly ask you to resubmit your listing at WOTW Listings
WOTW Web links Audited: Over 2,000 of the personal listings on our WOTW pages have links to their web site. This week we ran a verification on them all and eliminated the broken ones. To add or change your web site on our people pages Click HERE
Systems Save the Day: The Main reason our Quarter emailing cleansing ritual (noted above) was 3 months late was that we cringe at the thought of having to manually adjust 1,500 bad email address. THIS time we invested the time to write a routine that does this automatically (4 hours of R&D instead of 3 days of manual adjustments). The good news is that it worked. We are no longer fearful or sending a global email. Someday we may even have a WitchVox Email list.
Thank YOU and Happy Solstice! Our Global email of this past week was meant to be a simple thank you and we stated that there was no reason to respond (the last thing we need is more email to answer). Hundreds of you did respond with messages of love and hope. We take this opportunity to thank YOU and to say that we did read them all. We are very proud of the impact of W.O.T.W. and the following (un-edited) email from Spain was typical of some of the many wonderful responses.
"Thanks for your pretty e-mail. I'd like to wish you a wonderful Solstice to you, too. Here, in Spain, I spent it with an American girl that came to our country for her studies, and had contacted me thanks to your "witches of the World" list.
We went to a public demonstration in my town (Pinto, 20 km. near Madrid, the country's capital) in which a local coven of witches called "Las brujas de Iris" performed the whole solstice ritual in the town's auditorium... for over 7.000 people! Many of them are not pagans anyway, but the interest they demonstrated in the ritual was enough, even if they don't understand many of the symbols and phrases they viewed. It's the second year that this takes place in our town, a town of 20.000 inhabitants. The feeling that here we the pagans are "outing of the wardrove" is very good for me. I'll pray Her to it may repeat all over the World".
A loving kiss from a Spanish pagan. May the Mother bless you with Her creating energy! - Oscar (Shen)
Future Plans for WOTW Last weeks creation of "Young Pagans of the World" gave us close to a 30% reduction in the size of our state/country pages. California, Texas and several others are still too large for some of you to load. Until we become our own server and can do a proper search engine we plan on splitting these pages up into sections.
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 Blessed Be and Meet me in DC: Last week we were honored to increase awareness on BBMMDC's coming out 1999 (see details & links below on this page) by helping to announce this event. The BBMMDC staff is committed to render this event "correct and for the good of all" and have been working on this since 1997. They are open to community feedback and it is clear that they aren't afraid of the hard work that will be involved. Visit the BBMMDC Main Site for the latest
BBMMDC fever is spreading and other states are doing a version of this in their major cities. Check out what they are doing in Detroit and Chicago . (Thank You Aldous Tyler for making us aware of this). Stay tuned to this page (and to your state events pages) for new info on BBMMDC and its sister events as they come in.
 Pagan Pride Day '99
The International Pagan Pride Day this year is September 18, 1999!
Pagan Pride Day is a celebration of PRIDE in whom we reverence and how we celebrate our spirituality! International pagan communities are planning events, picnics, walks and more to help promote understanding and tolerance among all religions, and to share our abundance with others.
Media kits, suggestions for planning a Pagan Pride Day event and support available on the International Pagan Pride Day
Human Day - Globally - July 15th 1999
It is with great hope that human beings all over the Wourld will set aside their differences to recognize and celebrate OUR similarities, OUR very common roots and bonds, OUR essential needs. The fact that we all, everyone of us, has blood coursing through our bodies, has the potential to enlighten the hardest of hearts to the realization that we are more alike than we are not... please join me, brothers and sisters, in Celebrating HUMAN DAY. We are all individual, unique, special, beautiful, talented, different... BUT, no matter how you look at it, no matter where you are from, what language you speak, the colour of your skin, how tall you stand, the shape of your body, the food you eat, there is one thing that you share with EVERYONE... YOU ARE A HUMAN!
For additional info surf to the Human Day Website
Staff Note: Wren and I were heartbroken to hear of the demise of THE pioneer in Pagan Web links "Arachne's Web" earlier this year. This was one of the first PAGAN sites that we ever saw on the Web. It was our launching pad to the 60 pagan sites that were on the web in late '95. We love you Arachne and we will always hold your work near and dear to our hearts.
In closing, let us (again) apologize for the delays in responding to your email. For 3 years we have managed to answer 99% within 2 days but in the past couple of months the sheer volume has been impossible to deal with. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Always in your service.
 
Wren Walker & Fritz Jung
The Witches' Voice
June 28th., 1999 c.e. |
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