Playing at violence and war is nothing new. So why does Ron Jeremy, of all people, feel the need to call out violent video games while promoting porn? (photo from blackandwtf.tumblr.com)

I’ve been away from the blog for a while. Needless to say, lots going on. One of those things, I’m sad to admit, has been video games. When there is a lot going on in your personal life that you don’t want to deal with might need a break from dealing with, it’s not uncommon to seek some escapism in a fantasy world. It’s why entertainment still does well in a recession. It’s why millions of angst ridden teenagers get involved in epic fantasy series. It’s why I like video games.

After a week of working 9 hour days under the hum of fluorescent lights in an inconsistently heated office, it’s fun to get lost in the life of a wood elf. Or a 12th century assassin. Or the commander of a space ship. I still love to read. I play my drums. But there isn’t much on TV that interests me. Same with movies. My only real interest in the TV is, “can I hook my PS3 up to it?”. I built my last computer so it would run World of Warcraft better. (In fact, I might not even be writing this if C weren’t using the PlayStation to stream Lost.)

But while I’ve been away, working and trying to decide which from an incredible slate of winter games to focus on first, some crazy things have been happening in the world that remind us that, man, people are just plain weird!

Exhibit A:

Ron Jeremy writing on Kotaku about why porn is more natural and healthy than violent video games.

What he fails to address, in all of this, are the underlying reasons for violence. Why do people commit violent acts? Why is it (seemingly) more common in some regions than others? Is violence really any more common in the US? Is it more common today than it was in days of yore? And, most importantly, do video games cause violence, or are violent games merely a reflection of a cultural obsession with, and glorification of, violence that is already in place?

I’d say, to me anyway, it’s pretty obviously the latter. We, as a society, fetishize and celebrate violence. Perhaps because it really is one of those things that most will never actually engage in, unlike sex, and that is why it is so fascinating. Blaming violence in society, especially American society which has always celebrated violence in pulp novels, movies, etc., on products that are simply a reflection of that obsession, is putting the cart before the horse.

Likewise, claiming that porn doesn’t cause sexual deviancy misses the point. Of course porn doesn’t cause sexual deviancy, but it does most definitely enable it. People look at pornography for many reasons, but a healthy sexual appetite isn’t the only reason. Many undeniably turn to pornography precisely because they can’t accept those things they are attracted to, but they can watch or look at pornographic images of it. And I’m not even saying this is necessarily a bad thing. I’m attaching no moral judgment to it. I’m simply acknowledging that it isn’t so black and white.

Mr. Jeremy, I respect your work (such as it is). You give hope to the dreams of fat, hairy-backed men around the world that they, too, may someday have a threesome with two gorgeous strangers who will seduce them on an airplane. But you gotta realize you’re reaching here.

Exhibit B:

My new favorite photoblog, and source of the images used in this post, Black and WTF? Proof positive that people are not only weird now, but always have been weird.

Exhibit C:

Saudi Arabia is still sentencing people to death for witchcraft and sorcery. This is one of the many stories I meant to post about during my absence; but Saudi Arabia, late last year, sentenced a Lebanese television personality and “psychic” to death for sorcery. Ali Hussain Sibat was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2008 after making a pilgrimage to Mecca when religious police recognized him from his television show. This isn’t the first time the nation has sentenced people to death for sorcery. You may recall that in 2008 Saudi authorities were under fire from human rights groups for the scheduled execution of an illiterate woman accused of cursing a man with impotence. Sibat was still alive at last report, while accused witch Fawza Falih remains on death row.

So yeah. People are weird. And violent. We always have been. We’re violent in nations with loose controls on how violence is portrayed in the media. And we are no less cruel in nations where violent and objectionable material is highly censored.

We always have been weird and violent, and we will be until we kill each other off.

So…  I guess I really have to admit that the Thursday blog has turned into an Every-Other-Friday blog as of late. I had a good friend who used to say “a bad excuse is better than no excuse.” Right now, though, my only excuse is “I’ve been crazy busy and preoccupied.”

Lame, I know. But an excuse, nonetheless.

So for this edition of the links of the week I only bring you one; a story of widows in the Indian state of Jharkhand beaten, dragged through the streets, and forced to eat human excrement for being “witches”. The grand irony, of course, is that “spirits” supposedly possessed other women in the village, alerting them to the practice of witchcraft in their midst. But this somehow isn’t considered a form of sorcery or witchcraft in and of itself.

It’s very odd, the way the human animal does these things. It strikes me as especially odd considering a conversation that I was having last night with an online gaming friend. An ethnic Hmong, he comes from a very different background, spiritually, than the charismatic Pentecostal Christian family I was raised in. But despite these differences, we were able to find a great deal of spiritual common ground when the conversation turned in that direction.

It was refreshing, in that way that only spirited conversation can be, to see that there was still some spark of that youthful hope I once held that all problems could be solved if we only spent enough time talking, seeking common ground, and truly trying to understand one another. Of course, now that I’m old and cynical, I know that that is not usually the case. These recent, and many older, incidents of violence against witches (or Jews, or Christians, or Buddhists, or Sunni, or Shiite, or adherents of the Baha’i faith, or “insert group of your choice”) prove that. But it was as nice to have that small spark reignited as it was repugnant to watch the video of these women being degraded.

Humanity has an immense capacity for both love and hate, cruelty and kindness. Which will you choose in your day-to-day?

Some of my favorite news stories come out of sub-Saharan Africa. When looking at African newspapers (or news sites in our modern digital world) it isn’t uncommon to see a story on the development of environmentally friendly technology solutions like solar powered laptops and cooking stoves that run on recycled paper pellets sharing space with reports of monsters, witches, and hexes.

Recently I saw this report of a mysterious beast tormenting the goats of Namibians living in Onheleiwa and Oikango villages. While reminiscent of the chupacabras in their preferred choice of prey, whatever is attacking the Namibian kraals has a taste for more than blood. While some animals have been found with only the soft, internal organs eaten, in other cases all that remained of the goats were hooves, heads, and horns. While following up on this story at the Namibian New Era Newspaper website I decided to trying searching for the word “witch” just to see what I could find. I’ve recently been reading various 19th century travel diaries and articles on the spiritual beliefs and superstitions of south African tribal people, and was curious to see if tales of witchcraft would still be as common as belief in night-stalking monsters. The results were interesting, to say the least.  Here now, in chronological order, are four random headlines chosen from that search for your Thursday reading pleasure.

Villager Punished for Violating Grave — December 2008

Relates the story of a villager fined $400 (Namibian dollars) and six-head of cattle by the Masubia chief for employing the services of a Zambian witchdoctor for personal gain. According to wtinesses and the confessions of the accused, Jackson Timothy Siyeta, the events that unfolded near Caprivi, Namibia included a cow giving birth to a humanoid baby that Siyeta buried over the grave of his recently deceased son. While Siyeta initially claimed he was performing a ritual to protect his family, under questioning before the tribal khuta he admitted that the ritual was meant to multiply the size of his cattle herd.

Hundreds Kidnapped in Gambian Witch Hunts — March 2009

Gambians Reveal Horrors of “Witchcraft” Purge — March 2009

In these two related stories Gambian victims of government sanctioned witch hunts tell of being rounded up and fed hallucinogens before being raped and victimized by supporters of Gambian president Yahya Jemmah, who blames witchcraft for the death of a beloved aunt earlier this year. Despite cries by organizations such as Amnesty International condemning the actions, this case of superstition fueled torture on a grand scale somehow flew under the news radar in nations obsessing over Susan Boyle and Wall Street bail-outs.

Witchcraft Claim in Farm Eviciton — July 2009

Finally we have an example of Namibians reacting much in the way Americans would if more of us believed in witchcraft; by protesting and casting allegations of racism at a white landlord accused of using witchcraft to unfairly evict a tenant.

So, there you go; a nice cross section of witch stories coming out of one country over the past year. Do you have any others you’d like to share? What’s your favorite Fortean news story from Africa? Comment here, or visit the Anomaly Forums, and let us know.

I’m going to try and start a new tradition around here. Every Thursday we’re going to post random links to strange tid-bits in the news that you may have missed, may have seen elsewhere, or may know more about than any of us could begin to.

I’ll need your help to keep on task.

Sometimes there will be a theme. If I can’t come up with a cohesive theme, it’ll just be random. The point is, here are some weird things that I don’t have the time or inclination to write a full article about, but they’re interesting.

Hope you enjoy:

We’ll start with a little news of feng-shui impeding international relations in Hong Kong. These sorts of beliefs, straddling a line between sciences and superstitions, have always fascinated me. Asian traditional medicine is full of this. The Doctrine of Signatures, for instance, that says because a food is kidney shaped it is good for the kidneys, colon shaped it is good for the colon, etc. These ideas were abandoned in the west long ago, and while we may at times scoff at macrobiotic classification of foods as yin and yang, the healing aspects of such diets are well-documented, as are the effects of ayurvedic remedies, acupuncture, etc.  It’s also interesting to note that “pseudo-sciences”, such as dowsing, are considered legitimate means of scientific investigation in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (see Jacques Vallée’s Ufo Chronicles of the Soviet Union : A Cosmic Samidzat for examples).

In the same vein of superstition, but on the more primitive end of the spectrum, we have this report of a witch/goat accused of armed robbery in Nigeria. Naturally, culture dictating norms, the goat is being held in custody until the story can be confirmed.

Jumping back to the former Soviet Union, we have this story, one some western scientist are sure to raise an eyebrow at, of a man with a tree found growing inside his lung.

And finally, just because I thought it was adorably hillarious (and because I have a weak spot for facial hair) we have this story of a finely mustachioed horse from Gloucestershire in the UK.

Enjoy!

In addition to the various folk tales and fairy stories they collected in their publications, Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm also collected supposedly true stories of tragedy, such as the infamous Children Play at Hog Killing, from the first edition of their book and dropped from later editions as too grisly. In these types of stories a group of children, usually after witnessing a butcher slaughtering a hog, play a game to reenact the spectacle with the end result being the tragic death of the child playing the role of the pig.

The butcher boy story may or may not be an exaggerated tale based in actual occurrences, as analogs are found in other regions and cultures. But regardless of the butcher boy’s veracity, there are real life tragedies, ones we can read about in our hometown newspapers, that occur often enough to reinforce the importance of these folk stories as cautionary tales. They may even give us some clues to the origins of some of the various prototypical fairy tales that have maintained perennial popularity and invited repeated revisitation and reinterpretation.

The recently reported story of a teenage boy, held captive with chains about his ankles in a perfectly kept suburban home in one of the safest communities in Northern California, tells us as much about the nature of our species and our society as any folk tale. Hollywood couldn’t concoct a more chilling tale. Here is your stereotypical “they looked like a normal happy family” from the schlocky Saturday matinee horror feature, in the flesh. Here is your warning about the dangers that can lurk behind a pretty facade. Here is your wolf in sheep’s clothing, Snow White’s beautiful but poisoned apple, your fallen morning star tempting you with pretty sin. Here is your gingerbread house, with white collar witches inside, waiting to gobble you up and strip away innocence like marrow sucked from a bone.

That last post about Sarah Palin’s involvement with Pastor Thomas Muthee got a lot of us talking about witchcraft, the ongoing belief in, and fear of, witches in various parts of the world, and the consequences of mob rule and even legislating faith and morality. I’ve recently been reading “Passport to Magonia” and I’m sure the various writings of Jacques Vallee, no doubt, could place this in a greater historical context than I could hope to do in a simple blog post. The fact remains though, that occurrences that most of us would attribute to happenstance, coincidence, or, if it were something truly spectacular, maybe even to UFOnauts or extra-dimensionals, are still interpreted as witchcraft by others (and not just in far off, exotic locales like Kenya, although reports from Africa are more common, either because the media ignores such claims in the US press, relegates them to the “strange news” queue, or because social pressures keep more people from discussing their beliefs openly).

At some point in the future, I may even tell you about some of my own family’s stories regarding contact with malignant spirits they attributed to witchcraft (for instance my late grandmother Bailey always attributed misplaced objects in the home to “those little imps”, a clear ideological descendant of the brownies, boggarts, and house sprites her Scots and Irish ancestors would have believed in), but for now, we’ve got witchcraft links.  Below you will find several links to news stories discussing witchcraft in these various forms.

On the political front we have Palin blessed to be free from witchcraft.

In the cultural differences department, we’ve got African albinos persecuted as witches and witchcraft rumors sparking a soccer riot.

We’ve got a little of both, a smattering of xenophobia, and that legislation of faith and morality we discussed, with a witch trial in Saudi Arabia.

Finally we come full circle, and back to our concerns about separation of church and state, and legislating faith (an issue that concerns me, too, as that rare beast, a progressive, liberal Christian) with this commentary on, and video of, Pastor Thomas Muthee praying for Sarah Palin to help tear down the barriers that separate church and state. (Also embedded below.)