Abbie Hoffman Moment

Between Mabon and Samhain

Back in the day, before the retail industry owned most of our holidays and before corporations had become "people", (could a presidential candidate have chosen anything stupider to say?) it was customary among European Pagans to give gifts of homemade food to relatives and friends on Winter Solstice. At that time of year in the northern hemisphere, harvest had been completed and Nature was at a loll, in between seasons. Food was a highly appreciated gift. The process of canning, of course, had not been invented, but our Ancestors dried herbs, brewed wine, distilled spirits, and baked. In fact, dried herbs and teas were the traditional ways everyone got enough folic acid during the winter.

The time between Mabon and Samhain is a very busy season for any type of agriculture, but the Ancients probably never had time to spare as the days got shorter, and Halloween, the last holy day of the year, got closer. The Goddess has blessed this Witch with a great garden and lots of creative ideas, and this year, the retail industry will have one less customer for Winter Solstice gift giving. Blessed Be!

A Kansas Customer Makes Retail Headlines

I forgot all about this! An Abilene, Kansas man happened to be in Washington on July 8, when Top Shelf, a store in Bellingham, opened and sold the first bag of recreational marijuana retailed there since 1937. It was heralded as the very first weed to be retailed in the state of Washington, but that seems unlikely, since the federal prohibition laws against it have only been in effect since 1937. The man's name is Cale Holdsworth, and since he only bought two grams, his purchase probably did not survive the trip back to Kansas! It's nice to see Kansas in the news for something other than Kris Kobach's latest legislative lunacies or Westboro Baptist Church's shenanigans.

* No, I do not support recreational drug use, so don't be running to your mama or your local pharmacist crying that I do. I simply prefer to see your tax dollars and mine spent on something besides the prosecution of victimless crimes.

Creativity, Hobby Lobby Style

What a double edged debate Hobby Lobby has provided for the nation! Two things retailers almost never cared to provide for their employees, back in the day, were insurance and lenience in when families required lots of an employee's time. Health insurance has been a highly debated issue for at least two years, and Obamacare has become law. Private insurance companies are running amok with ideas of their own on how to do business, and Hobby Lobby is apparently a Christian corporation. Not that corporations can be Christian, as if they were human, but it has been said that corporations are people, too. 

Because Hobby Lobby is Christian, it's love for it's imaginary icon is expressed by opposing abortion. Not that the bible addresses abortion specifically, among all the instructions to go ahead and kill, bully, and traffic humans, (yeah, slavery is human trafficking and America's economy got strong because of it) but because political lobbies (not to be confused with Hobby Lobby) such as the Moral Majority purport that contraception and birth control are the same as abortion, and as such, are murder. One must wonder what all the good christian corporations and people were doing before Buck v. Bell was abandoned, but NOT overturned, in the United States. One must also wonder why the Catholic Church did not excommunicate Adolf Hitler, who strongly supported abortion, eugenics, and murder.

Back to insurance and leniency in balancing children and work schedules: Hobby Lobby has refused to allow their employee health insurance providers to cover any type of contraceptives. This seems unusual, since most employers would rather not work with pregnant employees or the needs of pregnant employees. Indeed, a birth is a lot more expensive than contraceptives. So is a maternity leave. In fact, it was not until 1993 that an American woman had any guarantee of returning to her job, through the Family Medical Leave Act, after giving birth. Thankyou, Bill Clinton. 

And now, after a woman's maternity leave is over, what is Hobby Lobby going to do about her need for childcare when she returns to work? Retailers traditionally do not care much about the children of their employees, and will often pressure employees not only to neglect their own health needs, but to neglect their children. Sometimes, a retailer will even threaten to fire the employee who refuses to leave his or her children home alone when a choice has to be made. After saying "no" to birth control, will Hobby Lobby be the "creative center" it calls itself in the above picture and provide daycare for all those employees to whom contraceptives were not readily available? At the end of the day, it seems as if it might be more cost effective and simple to just enlist health insurance policies that provide contraceptives.

Holiday Shopping

 

Yet another reason to avoid stores and stay home on Black Friday!