Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," dusting off the Old Time Religions since 2005! If you can read this, thank Jupiter. The deity, not the planet. We may not use His numerals, but we sure use His alphabet.

These tough economic times have led many people such as myself to seek a livelihood in the teaching profession. As those of you who do it know, it's one demanding job.

Teachers like me are called "alternate route." Meaning that we haven't sat through 30 credits of tedious pedantry on metacognition, but have instead earned a living while retaining enough personality and vivacity to lead a classroom. (*snicker* "Metacognition" sets off the spellchecker! *snicker*)

Alternate route teachers have to attend 200 hours of classes on how to teach. While we're already teaching. Starting in 2010, the state of New Jersey will make wannabe teachers take 30 hours of classes before they can even get an alternate route certificate. (*snort!* "Wannabe" doesn't set off the spellchecker!)

Through a complicated process worthy of any state government, we stragglers in the "old" alternate route program must get two sets of classes finished by December 31. I'm squeezing in right under the wire with Phase I-A, which I should have taken before Phase I-B, but which I began after Phase I-B because I didn't qualify for Phase I-A before I was hired, and the school enrolled me straight into Phase I-B.

Yeah. I'll bet it's just like that in your state too.

Anyway, the classes for Phase I-A are held in Sewell, New Jersey. In order to get to Sewell, I have to take Highway 55 and get off at Exit 56A.

Alas and alack! Here's the very devil of a problem!

If I get off at Exit 56B by mistake, the road takes me straight into Wenonah, New Jersey. Buzzard capital of the Eastern Seaboard. Also known as Anne's Heaven.

Yesterday as I was careening down the highway, shoving cookies into my mouth in a fruitless effort to quell my stress, I nearly chose Exit 56B instead of Exit 56A. I remembered just in time that I was going to Alternate Route Teacher Class Phase I-A, and I took the correct exit.

As I rounded the cloverleaf, I gazed longingly in the direction of Wenonah. And there, in the dusky autumn sky, I noted a lone vulture, winding its way to the good ol' winter roost -- no doubt to be reunited with about 200 close friends and family.

Oh, to be buzzarding instead of sitting through a long class on Bloom's Taxonomy for Higher Level Learning!

I'm not one to hook class, though. I dutifully turned the trusty vehicle onto Delsea Drive and wended my way to class. Signed in. Nodded in all the right places, just like a student. Watched the gal next to me send surreptitious text messages, just like a student. Failed to recall a single thing from the prior week's lesson, just like a student.

At the end of the long evening, the peppy instructor checked his calendar and determined that next week is Thanksgiving. He announced that we would not have class next Monday.

There are Gods and Goddesses! O happy day!

Next Monday, when Mr. Johnson and The Spare think I'm at class, I will instead be in Wenonah, in spiritual communion with the Sacred Thunderbird. Rarely has Thanksgiving been more welcome!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where today the tables turned on us!

Not literally. I'm not lying under 75 pounds of varnished walnut.

What happened was this: Spare and I took a friend to the pet shelter where we volunteer. The friend wants to adopt a dog. A small, older dog who will enjoy city life and the company of two cats.

My daughters and I have fostered more than 60 kittens for this shelter. Usually when we enter the door, we're either picking up tiny waifs for a temporary stay at our home, or dropping off slightly larger, well-fed and healthy waifs for someone else to adopt.

As far as the pet shelter adoption process goes, I was totally in the dark, until today. My pets are all serendipitous acquisitions (except for Decibel the parrot -- my biggest mistake thus far in a long life). It was a whole new experience, walking into the familiar shelter in search of an animal to take home for good. And the shelter had a nice group of little dogs from which to choose. My friend liked two of them. I liked them both too. It's nice to know I'll get to see whichever one she winds up with.

As we played with the little dogs and sized them up, something occurred to me. Cats and dogs live with us for years, sometimes for a decade and a half. But when it comes to choosing them, we do so quickly. "I'll take that one, thanks. He's adorable!"

Funny part is, the ending is almost always happy. You walk into a pet shelter on any given day with your pet carrier, point to a kitty, bring it home, and for the next 14 years it sleeps peacefully at your feet every night and rubs your leg when you come home from work. It works just as well with a dog, if you know what size and mix you want. The first pooch you point to will adore you after the first bowl of Alpo.

Can you imagine it working this way with people?

Just imagine. You go to the people shelter, looking for a companion. The attendant brings out a man (or woman) meeting your age and size preferences. A quick perusal, an application fee, and out you walk with your new person!

Well, that's ridiculous, of course. We're the thinking species. We search and search for the perfect human companion. Some of us never find that person. Some of us go through a dozen rotten relationships before finding a decent partner.

To me this proves one thing beyond all doubt. Cats and dogs are superior to humans. On any given day, you can walk into any given pet shelter and cart home a fine companion who will bring you bounteous joy. Try doing that with Homo sapiens. Go ahead. I dare ya.

Love at first sight only works with shelter pets. Remember where you heard this, because some day I'm going to start charging a fee for such sound advice.

Image: Casey Jones, one of my favorite fosters.

The Christmas is near and you all has perhaps already begin to make your Christmas cards. This time we hope that you make a Christmas card and in pink color.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," Pagan and patriotic since 2005! I'll venture a guess that there aren't many Druids in the Daughters of the American Revolution, but there are some. At least one. That's me. I pay my dues every year.

You all know that I have trouble linking, so if you want to read the editorial I'm going to rant about today, just biff on over to The Wild Hunt to get all the details.

A journalist for the Chicago Tribune has suggested that religious tolerance, particularly of minority religions like -- oh, let's just pick one -- WICCA, might have contributed to the violent shooting at Fort Hood. Never mind that the shooter was a Muslim, or that he was unbalanced. Fort Hood has a reputation for multi-faith tolerance. Our friend at the Chicago Tribune thinks such tolerance in the military is a big, bad idea:


“Fast forward to 1999, when an Austin, Texas newspaper published photos of a Wiccan ceremony at Fort Hood. Theologically conservative Christian clergy joined with indignant Congressmen to protest the Army’s acceptance of Wiccan practice. As reported in Hannah Rosin’s contemporaneous account for The Washington Post, these clergy threatened to disrupt the protests, going so far as to call on Christians not to enlist or reenlist in any branch of the military until Wicca was banned from military posts. But the Army brushed off the threatened protests. Again, according to the Washington Post article, Fort Hood spokesman Lt. Col. Ben Santos said at the time that as long as a religious minority does not interfere with discipline, the military will help it find an off-base leader and a place to practice its beliefs … in light of the fact that the Army and various government agencies appear to have disregarded warning signs about the shooter’s contact with religious radicals who have since praised his murders, a tragic irony bubbles to the surface: might the emphasis on religious inclusion and interfaith acceptance have allowed the sinister to walk, undaunted, disguised as the spiritual?"

(Jason at "The Wild Hunt" added the emphasis. And the italics. Now I can't turn off either. I stink at computers.)

We at "The Gods Are Bored," whether we can adjust font or not, do not approve of using religious beliefs as a qualifier for military service. First Amendment issues aside, this is just ridiculous. It's an all-volunteer military force these days. Are you going to turn people away because they're Wiccan?

I know this is an incredible reach, but go along with me for a minute. If an invading army is advancing upon New Jersey, bayonets fixed, I personally will not care if those defending me are Christians, Jews, Pagans, atheists, or Believers in Alien Abduction. Thank you, soldier, for defending me. May your deity or deities bless you.

And with no due respect to the Chicago Tribune editorialist, Tom Levinson, I would simply ask: Has there been a single case of Wiccan violence against fellow Christian soldiers in the history of the U.S. military? Hey, we know how much press that would get if it did happen. So it hasn't.

Patriotism is not solely the province of certain kinds of Christians. That's what is wonderful about America. You want an all-Christian military? Go dig up Richard the Lionheart and set him in charge again. Medieval mindset and all.

I'm Anne Johnson, N.S.D.A.R. 723499, and I approved this message.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Do you have what it takes to rule a Principality?

This is my dear old friend, Niccolo Machiavelli.

I can't remember the first time I read The Prince. I know it wasn't in college, because I took The Divine Comedy one semester and didn't sign up for The Prince during the following term. Maybe because I felt like I was missing something, I picked up a copy of The Prince and read it, somewhere along the line.

The term "Machiavellian" has come to mean something sinister and manipulative. Actually The Prince is pretty pragmatic. Common sense, if you happen to be running a biggish show. The book is just dense enough that you forget most of it if you don't read it once a year, so after two or three years it's like reading a whole new text.

No offense to Niccolo, but The Prince is also an effective sleep-enhancer. Put that puppy next to your bed and turn to it at night, and you will save a fortune on lavender and white noise machines.

I'm thinking about The Prince tonight because I have a student who is struggling with the whole concept of school. As is often the case with such students, this one is exceedingly bright -- if not terribly well educated. I just ordered a copy of The Prince for him.

Now you're saying, "Wait a minute, Anne. You're going to give a kid with a middle-school reading level a college-level text so full of big words it puts you to sleep?"

Yep.

You see, it's not the substance of the gift, it's the suggestion. I would never tell the student this, but if you hand a teenager a book about how to rule, he or she might internalize the notion that ruling requires education and higher level thinking.

When I give the book to the student, I will tell him that the best thing to do with it is to put it by his bedside and read a page or two each night. I won't hide from him The Prince's magical, sleep-inducing qualities. But I will also hint that there's gold in them there pages. Gold that can be mined in little nuggets. The first of them being that an effective ruler has to exert self-control before trying to control other people.

We're having a bit of a blow here tonight. No better time to curl up with Niccolo Machiavelli. My lids are growing heavy just thinking about it.