Invited Guests

• Star Foster of Patheos.com and the Pagan Newswire Collective and whomever she wants to invite to this shin dig.

Announcements

• We are recording live for the first time in 6 weeks!

Discussions

• Dave rants about the amazingness of PSG 2010
• There is still a summer solstice gathering at PSG's old Ohio location, Wisteria.  This gathering is run by the infamous PaganSpace.net. 
• The summer stolstice gathering at PSG's older location: Eagle Cave in Wisconsin, is handled by the Earth House Project of Minnesota: http://www.earthhousemn.org/gather.htm
• Quick shoutout to the new CUUPS chapter in Northeastern PA (Wyoming Valley CUUPS): http://www.cuups.org/content2/chapters/state.php?state=PA&id=127 -- learned about this on the CUUPS podcast, yet another reason Pagan organizations should all have their own podcasts.
• Cool things going on: Operation Circle Care, benefitting the women and men in our military
• Cooler: 3 ADF groves are joining forces to collect items to donate - http://wildhunt.org/blog/2010/07/pagan-community-notes-adf-fundraiser-isaac-bonewits-sj-tucker-and-more.html
• What's with all the white people calling themselves shamans and belonging to a tribe?  Are native practitioners offended by this or are the terms Shaman and Tribe sufficiently neutral to not cause offense? 
• Guide to Pagan Groups to Write Guidelines
• There are two styles of guideline writing: 1) just a few items covering items you're afraid of and things that have happened, and a general "will enforce rules as we see fit" (AKA don't be an a-hole).  This requires trust and respect between rule followers and rule administrators; 2) explicitly regulate everything in inane detail to prevent abuse of rules and abuse of rule enforcement.  This is useful where trust and respect is unlikely (e.g. homeowners and a HOA).
• Be mindful that guidelines can chase people away.  If you have guidelines that sound like things you expect to hear about Jamestown, that will adversely impact event attendance.
• Enforce guidelines with empathy and a human touch and directly, unlike HOAs that hide behind legal paperwork like the HOA that took away the house of a depression-stricken spouse of a soldier: http://walkofthefallen.com/wordpress/2010/07/07/light-a-candle-homeowners-association-chutzpah/
• Come to think of it, HOAs are a prime example of how not to make and enforce rules.
• Ensure your guidelines don't contradict your invitations: don't invite podcasters to an event where you ban podcasting.
• Rule enforcement needs to be flexible so people not creating problems aren't hassled and those causing problems can be swiftly neutralized.
• Rule enforcers need to have the appearance of being fair and absolutely must be respectable individuals that actually help the community, not just patrol/control it.  
• Rule enforcers that are exempted from rules just creates issues, such as Law Enforcement that wants the right to abuse everyone: http://gizmodo.com/5553765/are-cameras-the-new-guns
• PCP Board has 1 rule: we're all adults, act like it.  It's worked quite well for us.  It may not work for everyone in all situations in all communities.
• For Pagan events where everyone is out of the closet, why is it okay for people to run around naked but not be recorded as such?  (This can be an interesting discussion)
• Dave Rant: Pagans saying that oil is Mother Earth's blood, so the gulf oil disaster is Mother Earth bleeding.  
• So Mother Earth's blood kills all life it touches?  
• What moron started this analogy of a life-giving substance with a life-destroying substance.  
• Did someone in the chain lose the irony? 
• Lesson: Don't fuck with Cherry Hill Seminary
• Serial con-artist pretending to be of *insert religion here* is bilking religious organizations of *insert same religion here* faith, including Pagan organizations like Cherry Hill Seminary, for charity donations.  The word is out, if you see this guy, report it!
• 
• http://snoozepossum.blogspot.com/2010/01/con-man-terry-johnston.html      
• Followup: PCP's changing thoughts about Witch School
• You may remember we bashed the crap out of Witch School when they moved to the rural midwest several years ago and the attitude (at least as portrayed in media) shown by Witch School towards their surrounding Christian community.
• People and organizations can learn and evolve
• Witch school is doing cool things nowadays.  Not just MagickTV and Pagans Tonight, but doing a Witch museum in Salem, Mass - where Witch School is now located.
• No drama from Witch School for the past few years, which is awesome.
• Followup: Global Consciousness Project
• First discussed in PCP Season 4
• Recap: this is a scientific project using quality equipment.  They place over 70 physical random number generators (the good stuff) all around the world to basically take an EEG of the globe.  Surprisingly, random number generators go nuts when there's major global events that draw live worldwide coverage (e.g. 9/11).  The data is weird - go see it for yourself.
• Details and data are publicly available at their website: http://noosphere.princeton.edu/
• Chris Orapello interviewed the doctor behind the project in Episode 14 of his The Infinite and Beyond podcast, go check it out.
• Followup: Kalman v. Cortez
• Federal district judge strikes down Pennsylvania law preventing the registration of the business name "I Choose Hell Productions" - http://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/LI/CT/HTM/15/00.013.003.000..HTM - because it contains "[w]ords that constitute blasphemy, profane cursing or swearing or that profane the Lord's name."
• Violates Establishment clause of the first amendment
• http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202463198055
• No Podcast awards this year?  PaganPodcasting.org relays a story about the People's Choice Podcast Awards may be overwhelming the organizers and losing money, threatening the possibility of a 2010 awards ceremony.