UK

Festival of witchcraft seeks to educate people

BBC

The festival said it aimed to appeal to both families and experienced witches and pagans

A festival of witches is aiming to correct some stereotypes about witchcraft and pagan beliefs.

The event was arranged by a group in Warwickshire called the Coven of Gaia and is being held in woods in the county later.

The group said it hoped to create a fun family occasion and expected some 2,000 people to attend over the weekend.

And it said it aimed to pass on knowledge "to ensure the ways of the witch and pagan are not forgotten".

This is the first year the Festival for Pagans and Witches has been held

Rituals, spell-casting workshops and other classes are being held for experienced witches at the Heart of England Conference and Events Centre.

Julie Aspinall, from the Coven of Gaia, said: "If you have no interest at all, but just want a fun family weekend, that's fine too.

"It's a place to ask questions, learn a bit more, check out what we do, or just have fun."

The site near the village of Fillongley has 160 acres of land, with half of that woodland, and festival-goers have been given the opportunity to camp there and take part in night-time activities.

More on this story

• Pagans lose appeal against Stonehenge conviction

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  11 March

• Stonehenge Winter Solstice ban criticised by druid

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  19 December 2020

• 'Lockdown means our witches' coven can't meet'

  Published

  31 October 2020

• 'Being a Viking warrior helped me find my faith'

  Published

  23 February 2020

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• A Festival of Pagans and Witches – Heart Of England

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WRESTLERS NEED A UNION

Op-Ed: Media mystery gets nasty – WWE ‘meltdown’ as AEW heats up and gruesome WWE stories emerge


By Paul Wallis
Published September 19, 2021


WWE Wrestlemania, New Orleans, LA 2018 — Photo: Miguel Discart, via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The “motormouth factor” in wrestling is notorious for its non-information and slagging sessions. WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is the usual subject, and any amount of facts and garbage will be in the news at any given time. The trouble is that a lot of lifers in the business are now raising some big, totally unanswered, questions about WWE, and the look is not good.

WWE is ditching big stars like a clearance sale. People are complaining about abuse, misogyny, and even long-termers are talking about not getting paid. Whatever the merits of this information, it’s a truly godawful look for the company.

Meanwhile, AEW (All Elite Wrestling) is going from strength to strength. It’s generating enthusiasm not just from fans, but from the stars. AEW actually beat WWE in the ratings recently, another milestone after the many years of WWE domination.

The facts are brutally simple. AEW is definitely making real ground, and WWE is losing ground. Even CM Punk, longtime critic and exile from WWE, returned to wrestling after a long absence and went to AEW. The fans loved it, and he brought his fans with him. A lot of released WWE stars are also showing up on AEW with their fans.

It’s a whole catalog of marketing no-brainers, but is WWE paying attention? Nobody knows. The fans definitely don’t seem to be too glued to WWE when their guys are on AEW.

Some basics

Wrestling is entertainment. It’s supposed to be fun and it is when things go well. It’s also one of the most truly competitive areas of media. Becoming a star is incredibly hard. You’re competing with every other performer in the entire industry to even get noticed.

(You can be “manufactured” to a point, but even that ultra-free-lunch approach, so common in media, often doesn’t work at all. Generally, the top people are the actual top people, credible in the industry with other performers and often with astonishing backstories to tell.)

Wrestling for a living is very much no holiday for most people, particularly those starting out. Money can be very hard to find and jobs hard to keep. Even huge names like Stone Cold Steve Austin have stories of working for about $20 a night back in the day. It’s a tough career path, even by mainstream media standards. (That’s literally risking serious injury for $20, and it has happened to a lot of people, whatever the dollar range.)

WWE, the unchallengeable monopoly of the past, is now getting hideous flak as AEW rises. This is getting beyond ugly in some ways. These aren’t the usual petty gripes or personal peeves; they’re systemic criticism, targeting a lot of WWE core business.

The insiders aren’t happy. Mick Foley, the guy who marketed himself into superstar status against all odds, did a video called “WWE, we’ve got a problem”. It was a pretty low-key, friendly, video, but it clearly came from the heart. Foley got a lot of stick for that from the corporate can-kickers, but he’s Mick Foley, and you guys aren’t, in case you’d forgotten.

Foley is one of those guys who truly loves wrestling. He gave a lot to it, and the fans are still there, more than a decade after he retired. He’s famous for taking bumps nobody else would want to think about, and he’s a razor-sharp commentator. He makes a grim but entirely accurate point – The issue is trust, and talent has to balance against AEW’s spectacular level of acceptance in the business.

AEW

AEW has some of the very top, very best names in the business. The word “elite” isn’t a misnomer. AEW has been getting major talent for some very good reasons:
Flexible contracts. Wrestlers can work on much better schedules in multiple markets, generating better income streams and of course more exposure. They can’t do that in WWE.
No murderous year-long work schedules. WWE was notorious for a 300 day working year.
Great enthusiasm from the company, as distinct from WWE’s bizarre, almost relentless recent demotivational moves.

Meltdown

Doesn’t look good, does it? WWE, for some reason, is now making this obsolete, useless, situation a lot worse. Firings of top names with little or no explanation, morale problems with performers, inept storylines, and total lack of response to criticism beyond “I didn’t do it” are tarnishing the image. Even the sponsors didn’t like some of the firings, and they’re usually pretty apathetic.

The media criticism has been ferocious. The headlines tell the story very effectively. One of the more noticeable festering issues is the ongoing, baffling, NXT story. NXT is the “black and gold brand”, originally a sort of training ground for the main roster on RAW and Smackdown. It became a lot more under the guidance of Paul Levesque, aka Triple H, Stephanie McMahon’s husband.

Levesque, who’s also just had a “cardiac event” (hell of a place to put a euphemism) was apparently replaced as the head of NXT prior to the “event”. Again, no reliable information about why, inner workings, or anything else.

A point to be made here – A lot of people hate Levesque on a personal basis, but nobody can argue with the fact the guy is in the business to the bone marrow. He’s been in it for decades. NXT was a major achievement, and it did give a lot of people a good start. It was performing pretty well, on any sort of average, against the two major brands and competitors.

Another point – NXT wasn’t broken; it wasn’t beating AEW, but then neither is RAW. NXT fans actually are brand-loyal; the revamp could be anything, but nobody asked for it. Why?

There could be business reasons for it. Maybe WWE is looking at a market image makeover for investment purposes, etc. Dumber things have happened.

The nasty side is the corporate cutoff switches which are thrown at every criticism. Nothing, apparently, however staggeringly revolting, is worth a response. Anyone who knows anything at all about American corporate culture will know that this stonewall response is also usually a sign the buzzards have arrived.

The McMahon factor

Vince McMahon has been targeted for years as the cause of all WWE’s woes. He’s the decision-maker, yes, but in many ways, it’s more than a bit unfair. WWE is the third McMahon child, and he’s always been 2000% passionate about it. His motivation is always parental, good, weird, or indifferent.

It’s hard to tell. I’ve been watching the guy for decades, and I’ve seen him looking a lot better and a lot happier. Age, schmage. When you’re doing something you love, age isn’t even worth mentioning.

McMahon is a born competitor. He loves it. He risked a lot with Wrestlemania 1, and a long tough fight against WCW, which WWE then WWF was losing. There’s something wrong with not going all-out against AEW as the competition.

The younger McMahons, Stephanie, and Shane, are pretty tough cookies. They have to be a factor in whatever happens next in WWE. They can do that. They’ve had to manage being McMahons, and the baggage that goes with those roles. That includes the usually incredibly tedious backstabbing from the business. Nobody knows what they think about any of this, and in loyalty to their old man, they’d probably clam up on principle, if for no other reason.

The question is – Where is WWE going?

Wrestling is NOT a suits-only business. (Thank god!) There are many loyal genuine fans who’ve had 3 decades plus of unforgettable fabulous shows and who wish them and the stars well.

Of all people, the McMahons and the talent know that better than anyone else. That’s why none of this makes sense.

These questions now need to be added:
Who’s hammering the cutoff switch in communications on all subjects?
Why is there no direction for the talent, as Foley mentioned rather clearly?
Who’s making what money out of this ongoing cluster? These messes don’t usually happen for altruistic reasons.

Let’s just hope no worst-case scenario plays out; because whatever that scenario is, it will be terrible.

ABOUT TIME

US Soccer offers identical contract proposals to women’s and men’s teams


By Karen Graham
Published September 19, 2021

FIFA Women's World Cup 2019 Final - The US team receiving their champion medals. Image - Howcheng, CC SA 4.0. THEY LOST TO CANADA IN 2020

The US Soccer Federation (USSF) said it had offered identical contract proposals on Tuesday to the players’ associations for the men’s and women’s national teams, and the governing body said it would refuse to agree to a deal in which World Cup prize money is not equalized.

The unions for the men’s and women’s teams are different and under federal law, they have no obligation to bargain jointly or to agree to similar terms. The men’s contract expired in December 2018. The women’s agreement runs through this December.

According to Yahoo Sports, the offer isn’t an attempt to resolve the Equal Pay Act lawsuit brought by USWNT players. The players in the lawsuit were also demanding back pay and other damages stemming from terms in their current CBA contract that will expire at the end of December.

Laurel Standley, author


In a statement, according to Sports Illustrated, the USSF said: “U.S. Soccer firmly believes that the best path forward for all involved, and for the future of the sport in the United States, is a single pay structure for both senior national teams. This proposal will ensure that USWNT and USMNT players remain among the highest-paid senior national team players in the world while providing a revenue-sharing structure that would allow all parties to begin anew and share collectively in the opportunity that combined investment in the future of U.S. Soccer will deliver over the course of a new CBA.”

USWNT and USMNT players—who in a recent amicus brief argued that USWNT players should have received “higher pay” than the men—could negotiate in unison or go so far as to formally establish one union.

However, this is a doubtful solution because both national teams are represented by different unions (USWNSTPA or USNSTPA). Stripping a union of its bargaining power requires a decertification process which is lengthy, at best.

Most federations frame their payments to players for World Cups on the Fifa amounts, reports The Guardian. Under their labor contract, U.S. men got $55,000 each for making the 2014 World Cup roster, then split $4.3 million for earning four points in the group stage and reaching the knockout stage. That calculated to just under $187,000 per player.

The U.S. women split $862,500 for making the roster and $2.53 million for winning the 2019 World Cup, which came to $147,500 per player.

KNP Complex wildfire explodes, burning additional thousands of acres overnight in Sequoia National Forest


By Karen Graham
Published September 19, 2021


Firefighters wrapped the historic General Sherman Tree, estimated to be more than 2,300 years old, with fireproof blankets in California's Sequoia National Park. 

— Image: National Park Service / Handout

A shift in the weather fanned flames in Sequoia national park in California’s Sierra Nevada on Friday, with the flames reaching the westernmost tip of the Giant Forest, where it scorched a grouping of sequoias known as the Four Guardsmen and the General Sherman Tree, which is the largest tree on earth by volume.

Winds were expected to increase throughout Sunday, shifting from the west to the northwest by the afternoon, requiring a Red Flag warning to be issued. These shifting, gusty winds of up to 40 mph could cause challenges for firefighters.

“Once you get the fire burning inside the tree, that will result in mortality,” said Jon Wallace, the operations section chief for the KNP Complex, reports SFGate.

The fire began on September 10, sparked by lightning. On Friday, high winds exploded the blaze, which went from under 18,000 acres on Saturday to 21,777 acres, or 28 square miles (72 square kilometers) by Sunday morning. There is no containment.

The General Sherman Tree has lived and watched over thousands of years of California history. It’s believed to be at least 2,300 years old. While it’s not the tallest tree on earth, it is the largest if you calculate its volume. According to the National Park Service, the tree is 275 feet tall and over 36 feet in diameter.

The Windy Fire has grown to 18,075 acres with 0% containment. Firefighters faced very active to extreme fire behavior driven by the winds associated with the passage of a cold front. Source – Sequoia National Forest.




On Friday, firefighters wrapped the base of the General Sherman Tree in fire-resistant aluminum of the type used in wildland firefighter emergency shelters and to protect historic wooden buildings. It wasn’t immediately known how the Four Guardsmen, which received the same treatment, fared, fire spokeswoman Katy Hooper said.

The fire also had reached Long Meadow Grove, where two decades ago then-President Clinton signed a proclamation establishing its Trail of 100 Giant Sequoias as a national monument.

Last year, the Castle fire killed an estimated 7,500 to 10,600 large sequoias, according to the National Park Service. That was an estimated 10 to 14 percent of all the sequoias in the world.

The historic drought in the western United States has been tied to climate change and is making wildfires harder to fight. Scientists say climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

Mexico's suit against US gunmakers edges ahead


ByAFP
PublishedSeptember 19, 2021


Seized weapons are seen at a Mexican military base in the border city of Tijuana before being destroyed - Copyright AFP WAKIL KOHSAR

The US federal court examining Mexico’s lawsuit against top US arms manufacturers has set deadlines for the case’s first proceedings, foreign ministry officials said Sunday.

Last week, the Massachusetts court approved the calendar proposed by the relevant parties.

“The defendant companies will have until November 22, 2021 to present their response to the Mexican lawsuit and oppose the legal defenses they deem pertinent,” the ministry statement said.

After that, the Mexican government will have until January 31, 2022 to respond and the defendant companies will have to present their response before February 28, 2022.

The process is expected to conclude in the first half of next year.

In early August, the Mexican government sued nine US gun manufacturers and two distributors — including Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Colt, Glock, Century Arms, Ruger and Barrett — for what it deemed a “negligent and illicit” trade that encourages drug trafficking and violence in its territory.

The Mexican government maintains that between 70-90 percent of the weapons recovered at crime scenes in Mexico have been trafficked from the United States.

The lawsuit, unprecedented in the countries’ bilateral relationship, was accepted by the US justice about two weeks after it was filed.

The litigation seeks compensation for the damage caused by the firms’ alleged “negligent practices,” as well as the implementation of adequate standards to “monitor and discipline” arms dealers.

Mexico, with a population of 126 million people, has been plagued by widespread deadly violence since December 2006, when the government of then-president Felipe Calderon launched a controversial military anti-drug operation.

Since then, according to government figures, more than 300,000 people have been murdered in Mexico, the majority by firearms and in events related to drug trafficking.

Mexico tightly controls weapons sales; they are practically impossible to access legally.