White House Aide Angers Pagans (washingtonpost.com)

White House Aide Angers Pagans (washingtonpost.com): "White House Aide Angers Pagans
Towey Suggests Groups Lack Concern for the Poor
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 8, 2003; Page A23
H. James Towey, director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has stirred up a pot of trouble by suggesting that pagans don't care about the poor.



Wiccans, Druids and other pagans across the country, along with the Washington-based advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are demanding an apology from Towey for his remarks in a White House-sponsored online chat Nov. 26.
According to the official transcript, Towey was asked by someone in Centralia, Mo., whether pagan groups 'should be given the same considerations as any other group' that applies for government funds.
'I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor!' Towey wrote.
'Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be used to promote ideology,' he wrote, 'the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work, and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it.'
Outraged pagans have since bombarded the White House and Internet chat rooms with scores of examples of their charitable activity. Particularly common, they say, are food drives in conjunction with Pagan Pride Day celebrations from New York to Wyoming, Arkansas and Nebraska.
In the past three years, Pagan Pride groups have collected 74,000 pounds of food and donated $51,000 to homeless shelters, interfaith food banks, the American Red Cross and other charities, according to the Indianapolis-based International Pagan Pride Project.

In Chicago, pagans support a battered women's shelter. In Massachusetts, they have given $20,000 for children with AIDS. Towey "obviously doesn't have his finger on the pulse of the pagan community," said Fritz Waltjen, 42, of North Hollywood, Calif. "I don't think the man was being malicious. I think he was just ignorant."

As retail manager of Raven's Flight -- "the only pagan book and tchotchke shop within a 20-mile radius" -- Waltjen is at the center of a West Los Angeles pagan community of about 1,000 people that collects food and personal-care items for the homeless on every one of its eight annual "sabbats," or holidays.

According to one major study, Wiccans -- one of several subgroups of pagans -- made up the fastest-growing religion in the continental United States in the 1990s. The American Religious Identification Survey, based on a randomly dialed telephone survey of 50,281 households by the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, estimated that the number of Wiccans rose 17-fold, from 8,000 to 134,000, between 1990 and 2001.

The survey also estimated that there are 33,000 Druids and 140,000 other pagans in 48 states. That adds up to about 300,000 people in what pagans call their "family of religious and magical paths."

Contrary to stereotypes, pagans say, they do not worship Satan or cast evil spells. Although Wiccans practice witchcraft with exotic herbs, chanting and dancing, most of their rituals and beliefs -- which a federal court recognized as a religion in 1986 -- revolve around the cycles of nature, such as equinoxes and phases of the moon. Aside from a belief in magic, the witch next door is likely to hold a pretty mainstream set of concerns -- environmentalism, gender equality and compassion for the poor, said Shea Thomas, a Hyattsville lawyer who is the chairman of Open Hearth Foundation, a nonprofit group raising funds to build a pagan community center in the Washington area.

Before heading President Bush's initiative to allow religious groups to compete with secular ones for government grants, Towey founded Aging With Dignity, a nonprofit organization that helps families plan for the care they want during times of serious illness. He also ran Florida's health and social services agency under then-Gov. Lawton Chiles (D) and served as counsel to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Calls to his office for comment were returned by Claire Buchan, deputy White House press secretary. "The president believes that the faith-based initiative is an important initiative that is not about religion but is about results," she said. "Mr. Towey did not intend to convey any ill will toward anyone."

Although pagans across the country have sent letters and e-mails to the White House calling Towey's remarks hateful and discriminatory, Cather Steincamp, a pagan author and activist in Richmond, said the furor has also led to "some self-criticism within our community about what we should be doing."

Steincamp said he was not aware of any pagan groups that receive government funding to supply social services. "We're not eligible for that money because, in short, we haven't applied for it," he said.

Thomas, of the Open Hearth Foundation, said Towey was half-right.

"You will not find any pagan hospitals or universities or shelters for the homeless. Capital intensive things like that do not exist yet, partly because of our size and because we're still getting organized," he said.

"But [Towey] kind of implied that we don't have a charitable heart or a charitable focus or purpose, and that's where it got insulting and inaccurate."

I went shopping today (FINALLY) for a pair of jeans to replace mine that were all ripped up. They had a tear in the butt and the hem had torm off. :( So we went to Meijer's to shop. Found a couple of jeans in my price reange. Tried them on. Hated them. Found ONE pair of jeans EXACTLY like the ones i used to have ... but in a size smaller. I whispered a prayer, took them into the fitting room and VOILA! they fit!!! YAY!!! They look so good!!! And it's nice to know that i lost a size in a year, i mean, even if it did take a year, it's not a bad thing. So I'm happy.

I'm also happy cuz my fave neopets help site is back up and running. VERRRRRY SSSSSSLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWW... so if you have dial-up, don't even think of going here NEOGUIDE ... I love the way they list the items on Neopets tho... it looks like your SDB and they're all in order and with it being listed in a column instead of rows (like on neoitems.net... altho i love that site, it makes it hard for me to update anything. I just don't like the layout in particular) i can compare side by side what i have already to what i want! YAY!!!

Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories

Joe R. Lansdale, Totally Free Stories: "LOVE DOLL: A FABLE
I buy a plastic love doll because I want something to fuck that I don’t have to talk to. Right on the box it says Love Doll. I take her home and blow her up. She locks pretty and sexy and innocent.
I fuck her. I sit with her on the couch and watch TV and put an arm around her plastic shoulders and hold my dick with my other hand.
I fuck her some more. In the morning I let the air out of her and fold her up and put her in a drawer.
When I come home from work at night I give her a blow job and she is full and stiff again. I take her into the bedroom and fuck her. I watch TV with my arm around her, one hand on my dick.
This goes on for a while.
I start to talk to the doll. I never wanted to talk to a woman, but I talk to the doll. I name her Madge. I had a dog named Madge that I liked.
I stop letting the air out of her in the mornings. I leave her in bed. I fix breakfast on a tray, enough for two. I come in and eat beside her on the bed. There’s plenty of food left when I stop and get ready for work.
When I come home the tray is where it was and the doll is gone. There’s no food left on the tray.
I find Madge in the shower. She smiles at me when I slide the shower door back.
'I was going to clean up for you,' she said. 'Be sexy. I’m sorry the house isn’t clean and dinner isn’t ready. It won’t happen again.'
I get in the shower with her. We have sex and soap each other. We dry off and go to bed and have sex again. We lie in bed and talk afterward. She talks some about girl things. She talks about me mostly. She has good things to say about my sexual prowess. We have sex again.
Next day she drives me to work, picks me up at the end of the day. All the fellas are jealous when they see her, she’s such a good-looking piece.

She always looks nice. Wears frilly things, short skirts. For bop-around she wears tight sweaters and T-shirts and jeans. She smells good. She puts her hands on me a lot. The house is clean when I get home. Dinner is ready in a jiffy.

A year passes. Quite happily. Life couldn’t be better. Lots of sex. A clean house. Food when I need it. Conversation. She tells me I’m a real man when I mount her, that she needs me, calls me her stallion, makes good noises beneath me and scratches at my back, she makes a lalala noise when she comes. She likes my muscles, the scruffiness of my beard. We watch movies on the couch, my arm around her. She holds my dick in her hand. When I tell her to, she gives me a blow job while I watch the movie. She always swallows my load.

One night we’re laying in bed and she says, "I think maybe I should go to school."

"What for?" I ask.

"To bring in more money. We could buy some things."

"I make enough money."

"I know. You’re a hard-working man. But I want to help."

"You help enough. You be here for me at night, keep the house clean and the meals ready. That’s a woman’s place."

"Whatever you want, dear."

But she doesn’t mean it. It comes up now and again, her going to school. Finally I think, so what? She goes off to school. The house isn’t quite so clean. The meals aren’t always ready on time. I drive myself to work. Some nights she doesn’t feel like sex. I jack off in the bathroom a lot. We sit on the couch and watch movies. She sits on one end, I sit on the other. We wear our clothes. I have a beer in one hand, the remote control in the other. We argue about little things. She doesn’t like the way I spend my money.

She gets a degree. She gets a job in business. She wears suits. For bop-around the stuff she wears is less tight. She doesn’t wear makeup or perfume around the house. She keeps her hands to herself. No kissing goodbye and hello anymore. We have sex less. When we have it, she seems distracted. She doesn’t call me her King, her Big Man like she used to. After sex she’ll sometimes stay up late reading books by people called Sartre or Camus. She’s writing something she calls a business manifesto. She sits at the typewriter for hours. She goes to business parties, and I go with her, but I can tell they think I’m boring. I don’t know what they’re talking about. They talk about business and books and ideas. I hear Madge say a woman has to make her own way in the world. That she shouldn’t depend on a man, even if she has one. Thing to do is to be your own person. She tells a man that. Guy in a three-piece blue suit with hair spray on his hair. He agrees with her. I feel sick.

I tell her so in the car on the way home. She calls me a prick. We don’t fuck that night.

I watch a lot of movies alone. She yells from the bedroom for me to turn them down, and why don’t I watch something else other than car chase movies, and why don’t I read a book, even a stupid one?

I feel small these days. I go to the store and look at the love dolls. They all look so sexy and innocent. I think I might buy one, but find I can’t. I don’t feel man enough. I can’t control the one I have. I get a new one, she might change, too. Course, a new one I could let the air out of when I finished fucking her, never let her have a day alone full blown.

I go home. Madge is there. She’s writing her book. I get angry. I tell her I’ve been patient long enough. I’m the man around here. I tell her to stop that typing, get her clothes off and get in bed and grab her ankles. I'm going to fuck her unconscious.

She laughs. "You skinny, little, stupid pencil-dick, you couldn’t fuck a gnat unconscious. You’re about as manly as a Kotex."

I feel as if I’ve been hit in the face with a fist. I go into the bedroom and close the door. I sit on the edge of the bed. I can hear her typing in there. I get up and go over to the dresser and open the bottom drawer. I take off all my clothes and find the air spigot on the head of my dick and pull it open and listen to the air go out of me. I crumple into the open drawer, and lay there like a used prophylactic.

An hour or so later the typing stops. I hear her come into the room. She looks in the drawer. No expression. I try to say something manly, but nothing will come. I have no air and no voice. She moves away.

I hear the water running while she takes a shower. She comes out naked. I can see her pubic hair above me. I note how firm and full of air her thighs are. She opens the top drawer. She takes out panties. She puts them on. She goes away. I hear her sit on the bed. She dials the phone. She tells someone to come on over, that her thing with me is finished.

Time passes. The doorbell rings. Madge gets up and goes past me. I get a glimpse of her, her hair combed out long and pretty, a robe on.

I hear her laugh in the other room. She comes back with a man. As they go by the drawer I see it’s the man in the business suit from the party. I hear them sit on the bed. They laugh a lot. She says something rude about me and my sexual abilities. I can tell she has his dick out of his pants because they’re laughing about something. I realize they’re laughing about sex. He’s making fun of his equipment. I never like being laughed at when it’s about sex. I don’t like being laughed at at all, especially by a woman.

The bathrobe flies across the room and lands in the drawer on top of me and everything is dark. I hear the bedsprings squeak. They squeak for hours. They talk while they screw. After a while they stop talking. He grunts like a hog. She sings like a lark. Afterward I hear them talking. He asks her if she came. She says only a little. He says let me help you. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s doing something to her with his hand. I can’t believe it. She doesn’t seem to mind this at all.

I hear her sing again, this time louder than ever. Then they talk again. She tells him she never really came for me, that she always faked it. That I was a lousy fuck. That I didn’t care if she came. That I got on and did it and got off.

A little air caught at the top of my head floats down and out of my open mouth.

They talk some more. They don’t talk about him. She doesn’t talk girl things. They talk about ideas. Politics. History. The office. Movies–films they call them–and books.

In the middle of the night the robe is lifted off of me. It’s Madge. She’s down on her knees looking in the drawer. She smiles at me. She picks me up and folds me gently. She has a box with her. It’s the box she came in. The one that says Love Doll on it. The words Love Doll have been marked through with a magic marker and Fuck Toy has been written in above it. She puts me in the box and seals the lid and puts me back in the drawer and closes it.


Love Doll: A Fable" was originally published in Borderlands 2. It later appeared in Writer of the Purple Rage, a collection of Lansdale’s short stories published by Carroll & Graf. "Love Doll: A Fable" © 1991 Joe R. Lansdale.