What's going on? What's happening? That's what people want to know about in the Pagan communities around our world! People do care about what's happening with other's. Should we be aware of what's happening around us? "Yes!" Being aware of what's going on around you is important.

You can't stop people from being curious about, "The Good, Bad and Ugly!" They want it all. If you feel the same way and you want other's to know abut new's worhty happenings that impact our community whether thre Good or Bad and want other's to know about it. Email it in. If you have comments and/or suggestions about any article e-mail it in and will post it.

April 29, 1998

Washington -- In an unprececented step to protect Amazon forests, Brazil announced a two-year commitment to bring under government protection new forest areas almost two-thirds the size of Texas.

The step on Wednesday is the first outcome of a broad-based alliance baetween the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund, a conservation group, for forest conservation and susttainable use.

"The pledge represents a very important step," Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil's president, said in a videotaped statement. "This is a testimony of our commitment to preserve the environment... I sincerely hope the steps we are taking will encourage other countries to do the same."

Cardoso said the protected areas will total 62 million acres. As a first step toward fulfilling his goal, Cardoso said he has signed decrees for two new protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon and two in the Atlantic Forest, together totaling almost 4 million acres.

James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, said he was thrilled with the announcement.

"We're concerned about forests. We're concerned about biodiversity," Wolfensohn said. "It's necessary for us environmentally in every sense, and if we don't do something about it...., then our kids are not going to have forests and the environment is going to be much worse than it is today."

he said he has informed the Brazilian government that the World Bank stands ready to support and finance the protection of the forests. Germany and other European countries also have made contributions, he said.

Claude martin, director general of the World Wildlife Fund International, said more needs to be done and urged leading industrial nations to participate in the alliance and contribute to forest conservation.

The alliance between the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund aims to help countries set aside 125 million acres of forests in new protected areas and bring 500 acres of production forests under independent certification by 2000.

Almost two-thirds of the earth's original forest cover already has been lost. In the past three months, forest fires have raged across an area of Brzail the size of Belgium. Home to one-tenth of the world's plant and animal species, the Amazon contains some of the planet's most important tropical habitat.

Troy, N.Y. - Experts at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute have won a $1.2 million grant to help rework and streamline the Internet.

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded the 3 year contract to four RPI scientists to develop a more efficient communications network.

The Nest Generation Internet Initiative was created by the Defense Department in order to save the network and its users time and money, said Kenneth S. Vastola, one of the RPI scientists working on the project.

Vastola, an associate professor of electrical, computer and systems engineering, said their work will focus on getting the many individual computer systems inside the Internet to communicate for efficiently with each other, a process known as routing.

"It is a humongous network, and no one manages the Internet," he said. "It was not built by a single organization but is made up of component systems spread all over and managed separately."

The Internet's multiple-component makeup was part of the government's original plan to protect the system in nuclear war, Vastola said. The Internet was developed in 1960s for the defense department, and now has 20 million regular users with more users added daily.

The initiative will invest $50 millionover the next three years in more than 27 upgrade proposals.

Boleslaw Szymanski, professor of computer science; and Shivkumar Kalyanaraman and Chuanyi Ji, professors of electrical, computer and systems engineering, will also work on the project.

April 27, 1998

Hatra, Iraq -- Archaeologist have discovered marble sculptures of a Greek goddess and a popular Roman hero in the ruins of this ancient city that flourished nearly 1,800 years ago, the head of an Italian excavation mission said Monday.

The statues and other artifacts were salvaged during excavations of a private dwelling that, among other things, exhibited "fascinating wall paintings," said Professor Roberta Venco of Turin University.

Venco is leading a group of seven Italian experts who defied U.N. trade sanctions on Iraq and resumed digs this year at Hatra, 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of Baghdad, early in March.

The statues were found in a small altar in the private dwelling, Venco said the inhabitants, probably 20 or more, used to pray at home and visit the main sanctuary only on special occasions. The sanctuary area, with up to 16 meter-high domed halls and arches, is the best preserved structure of its kind in the Middle East, according to Venco.

Both relics are in knee-length tunics and about half a meter (yard) in height. The first, she said, is of the popular Greek hero Heracles who was famous for strength and courage. The second represents Nike, the Greek goddess of victory.

Many of the walls, columns and arches in Hatra have survived intact. In antiquity, it was called Beit Alaha, Aramaic for "House of God."

Hatra rose to prominence in the early centuries A.D. Located in the semi-desert between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, it was a converging point for trade routes that turned it into a hodge-podge of Parthian, Greek, Aramaic and Arab civilizations.

The wall paintings of Hatran cavalry chasing lions and wild bulls are the first of their kind since ones dug up by a German expedition at Hatra before World War I. Stone inscriptions in Aramaic reveal the name of the house owner. From the decorations of the four other statues, Venco can tell that the residents were probably wealthy merchants and among the city's notables.

"They wear light-tunics and hold bags of coins," she said.

Another member of the Italian team, Anny Allora, 38, has been digging below the massive foundations of the temple to see who occupied the site before the sudden rise of Hatra in 200 A.D.

She has collected pottery sherds and human skeletons from two 6-meter-deep (6-yard) graves.

"I will take these to Italy for analysis," she said. "We need to know who first settled here before these massive stone buildings were erected."

Prior to U.N. trade sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990, Venco and her team used to come every year to Hatra. This year the university paid only for the team's travel and no other funds were made available because of the sanctions, she said.

"The sanctions are a bad thing particularly when they are applied to culture," said Venco.

"We are paid nothing and rely partly on our savings to pay for other expenses," she said.

April 26, 1998

Cassadaga, Fla. -- Browsing with her husband and a friend among the storefronts of Cassadaga, a community of about 200 people nestled in lush green and rolling hills off Interstate 4 between Orlando and Daytona Beach, Anna Christoff shopped around for a medium.

"Spiritual readings," read a sign on one side of the main road. "Past life regression, Tarot, handwriting analysis," read another on the other side.

But Ms. Christoff, a 52 year old telephone operator who claims psychic powers herself -- for example, she said she could tell who was on the other end of a ringing phone -- could not decide whom to trust for a chat with the spirits.

"I don't know why I go," Ms. Christoff said of the spiritual consultations she sometimes seeks. "It's scary." She had driven from Melbourne, 93 miles south of here.

Cassadaga, less than an hour from central Florida's beaches and amusement parks, is an unincorporated part of Volusia County and home to a century-old camp of mediums and healers who believe people retain their identities after death as spirits.

The spiritualist camp here attracts its own kind of tourists: those seeking answers that humans cannot provide, those wanting to connect with lost loved ones, the troubled as well as the curious.

Some visitors drive through only on Halloween, sometimes to harass or vandalize. But in the last decade, Cassadaga has grown in popularity with the New Age movement and tourism in the Orlando area.

Its growing acceptance is acknowledged by the West Volusia Tourism Advertising Authority, which promotes Cassadaga with a brochure that asks, "Looking for sme place unusual?"

"There are more and more people who are looking for some kind of cosmic comfort, whether angels or departed human beings," said Bret Carroll, a history professor at the University of Texas who is writing a chapter on American spiritualism for an anothology about Cassadaga to be published by the Univeristy Press of Florida next year. "People still look up for some kind of answer."

The core of Cassadaga is a 55 acre spiritualist camp founded in 1894 in part by George P. Colby, a New Yorker and a trance medium who said he was led to the site by his spirit guide, an Indian named Seneca. Although religious camps were common in the United States at the turn of the century, Cassadaga is the oldest remaining one in the Southeast; it is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Established as a winter retreat for spiritualists, Cassadaga is now a year-round commuity where about 100 residents practice spiritualism, a religion guided by the principle of continuous life. The camp has a church, a healing center, a lyceum, a privately run hotel and a bookstore, where a bulletin board lists those among the 25 camp-certified mediums who are accepting walk-ins on a particular day.

But just as Walt Disney World drew satellite amusement parks to Orlando, mediums of all stripes have moved into the area since the early 1980's to set up businesses near the spiritualist camp. But philosophical differences separate the two groups, and signs at Cassadaga's entrance tell visitors that camp-approved mediums, or healers, are only on the right side of the road. The camp's mediums say they do not use tools like tarot cards, palm reading or hypnosis.

"We're not fortune tellers," one medium said at the start of a spiritual reading. "No one can predict the future."

Instead, they say they channel the wisdom of spirits to guide their clients thorugh a particular situation. They always stress individual responsibility.

"Your life style basically changes when you realize you're immortal and you have accountability," said Nick Sourant, 71, a retired mechanical engineer and a camp medium.

Pat Weyer, 48, a nonprofit organization administrator from St. Petersburg, said she visited Cassadaga for the first time last year to accompany a friend. Ms Weyer said a series of coincidences convinced her that she was drawn to Cassadaga for a reason: to help the camp set up a research library. She now donates her time every weekend to a catalog more than 5,000 books, and takes classes at the camp "to become a better person."

"There's a force that connects us, and if you're willing to listen you'll find your path," Ms. Weyer said.

Mario Buscemi, 51 an accountant in Fort Lauderdale, commutes to Cassadaga on Fridaynights to take classes in psychic development. He recently began to give readings, but becoming a certified medium can take four to six years of study.

"I believe that this is just purely scientific," Buscemi said. "Everybody can develop this ability."

But the Christoffs and their friend, Deborah Crosby, 43 left Cassadaga without a consultation, saying they were put off by the high prices. Camp mediums charge $35 to $50 for sessions ranging from a half-hour to an hour, and other mediums in the area can go even higher.

"If it's a God-given gift, you ask for donations," Ms. Crosby said.

Most Cassadaga camp residents are retired or work as teachers, electricians or paralegals; they say they came together only to practice spiritualism with freedom.

They have not been spared earthly trouble, however. Feuds over real estate deals and the reorganization of the residents' association, a tax-exempt corporation, led to acrimony and lawsuits in the 1980's but failed to splinter the camp. The association owns the camp's land but residents own their homes, mostly rundown cottages that date to the 1920's, under lifetime leases.

Eloise Page, 88, a Cassadaga resident since 1948, moved out of the camp and built a house nearby because "this way they have no control over me." Ms. Page said the move had been orchestrated by the spirit of her husband, who died in 1953 but who she said had come to her periodically since then to warn her that she would have a stroke (she did) and to advise her to change jobs.

"Everyone who comes here comments about the serenity of the camp," she said. "People feel something here. That's the influence of some of the older residents."

But Cassadaga residents want to promote understanding, not eeriness. They welcome the public to church services and potluck dinners.

Some, like Sourant and his wife, Jean, 69, who have both taught parapsychology at Daytona Beach Community College, hope to establish a university here some day and turn the camp into a place of learning.

"People are afraid of what they don't know about," Mrs. Sourant said. "When you open it up, they see normal people."

Albuquerque, N.M. -- With tribal drums pounding, hundreds of American Indians circled in a rhythmic dance to form a sea of feather headdresses and begin the world's largest powwow.

The Gathering of Nations expects to draw 100,000 people for its two-day run. When the event began in 1983, about 1,200 attended.

More than 3,000 singers and dancers from more than 700 tribes from the United States and Canada are participating.

"We are all here to celebrate," said Princess Smilingwind, 58, of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.

In a voice loud enough to be heard over the beating of the drums and the traditional singing, Smilingwind explained the pleasure of watching children dance.

"It's beautiful. I see tomorrow's generation," she said on Friday. "I see proud families who took the time to teach their children their culture and to be proud of who they are and where they come from.'

Children may begin to compete once they're big enough to walk. The powwow has 26 dance competition categories that run from "tiny tots" to "golden dancers" -- those 70 years and older.

"We can't compete with the young, pretty girls. We compete in our own group so we can have a chance," said Sandy Spottedwolf, 55, a Cheyenne from Bessie, Okla.

Like her 6 year old granddaughter, Anna, Spottedwolf started dancing very young. Over the years, she has seen the gatherings grow and the outfits change. "When I was younger it was strictly traditional," she said.

Back then, the regalia was made of leather, eagle feathers, horse hair, beads and the like. Now, some dancers use sequins, fringe and satin along with the traditional items.

It's all in the name of competition. "You have to catch the judge's eye," Spottedwolf said.

The grass dance and the jingle dance are the fastest growing events, probably because their outfits are relatively simple to make, said Lita Mathews, an event coordinator.

The grass dance originated among Plains Indians when boys would head out to the fields and stomp down the grass to prepare for a powwow. Boys and men competing in the grass dance today wear outfits made of cloth and yarn.

Girls and women in the hingle dance wear a dress with hundreds of metal cones that jingle when they move. Tradition says a sick young woman dreamed that if she danced in such a dress she would be healed -- and she was.

Some say powwows began as a means to build courage among the tribe's boys before heading to war; others say they were tribal celebrations.

Today, the powwow is about seeing old friends, meeting new ones and spending time with family. The event had a festival atmosphere with vendors selling jewelry, a snack called fry bread and other items.

The event also keeps cultural traditions alive.

"There's a real need to find something to identify with. They find they can be proud of their Indianess by coming to the powwow," Mathews said.

April 25, 1998

Somthered by strangers whose ears take in every shameful detail, the young girl confessed.

Showers of gifts and kindness, like shopping spree at Wal-Mart where she got a shiny pair of size 4 shoes, yellow socks and a Raggedy Ann doll, nurtured her relationship with the 56 year old man -- a father-figure in her 12-year-old eyes.

Confused, she had obeyed his seductive whims, shielding herself in trust as she did thing -- behavior her young mind could not understand -- that were repeated each night inside a dark bedroom.

When court was over, she hugged Walker County, Ga., detective Caroline Cobb and looked up with tears and asked, "What am I going to be when I grow up?"

Mrs. Cobb could offer no answer. Child sexual abuse is her speciality and she sees hundreds of victims every year. What's frightening, she said, is knowing that child sex crimes are growing like a cancer.

"It's getting worse," she said. "I don't know what we're going to do."

In North Georgia, the Department of Children's Services in Catoosa, Whitfield and Walker counties have seen sharp increases in chld sex crimes over the last decade. In Catoosa the rate has shot up 30 percent in the last few years. Chattanooga's caseload is up more than 10 percent since 1996.

And it may be even worse than it seems. Investigators say the figures are often misleading.

"Oodles are not reported," said Debbie Morse with the child abuse division of the Hamilton county Sheriff's Department. "Sometimes these people go to their church for some salvation and the church will handle it. This is hush-hush and it's frustrating that it's not slowing down. People don't fear the consequences."

Catoosa County Det. Teresa Wengert said her office gets about 20 calls a week, although on average only about two of those turn up enough evidence to launch an investigation. Sometimes, the investigations unearth horrible secrets.

Dennis Greeson, 44, Catoosa County was arrested last month and charged with 100 counts of rape and aggravated child molestation after authorities found a box full of Polaroid pictures of him with young children. Parents had trusted Greeson enough to babysit their children. In Walker County, Kermit Ray Trantham, 56, preyed on fatherless children whose mothers, working protitutes, left them alone in bars while they turned tricks.

"For most people, it's hard to believe anybody would see a child as a sexual object," said Janice Atkinson, child abuse detective with the Chattanooga Police Department. "Years ago, it was a family secret that we didn't talk about. But things are changing.

Ms. Atkinson, a 21 year police veteran, has 11 files stacked on her desk that she is investigating. Most calls dealing with sexual abuse are siphoned from the Department of human Services hot line, while others come from tipsters and suspicious doctors and nurses. Last year, more than 300 cases of sexual abuse were reported in Chattanooga.

No one knows for certain why child sexual abuse has become more common, but they mention several factors. Marriage tensions, stress and control are the leading reasons adults abuse children, experts say.

Although alcohol and drug abuse are often used as excuses, studies have shown child abusers and pedophiles will continue their deviant behavior when sober if given the opportunity. Some mask their acts in witchcraft and black magic.

Greg and Michelle Laymon of Walker County were arrested last month after they allegedly raped and molested two girls. The Laymons claim to be worshipers of nature spirits, and by interviews with victims and the ritualistic items found at the apartment -- swords, blood, daggers and literature -- authorities believe the abuse took place during a dark ceremony.

Child sexual abuse seems to have no racial, social, economic, gender or age barriers. Teenagers, adults, and the elderly are committing the crime.

A Walker County girl was raped by a group of teenagers after they got drunk playing basketball. Don McCrary, convicted of having sex with four boys, was a Sunday school teacher in Hixson. Darrell Wayne McCollister, a former TV weatherman, allegedly picked up boys at a store parking lot and paid them money to have sex with him. This week, Randy Warren Burson, a 28 year old unemployed East Lake man, was charged with molesting five boys ove the past seven years.

Mrs. Cobb said she has investigated a case where a lesbian couple allegedly beat their teenage son so often that he could not sit down in school.

To curb shild secual abuse, many counties and cities have created special detective units that conduct investigations with the Department of Children's Services. Schools and various agencies, such as the popular puppeteers Kids on the Block and the DARE anti-drug program, also are teaching children about "good touches" and "bad touches" while urging them to tell someone if they've been fondled.

Hamilton County has gone a step farther by creating a regional Child Advocacy Center to examine children who may be victims of abuse. A trained medical staff performs forensic examinations and chldren are offered counseling under one roof instead of being dragged around town to see doctors, psychologists and detectives.

North Georgia counties now are trying to obtain grants to build advocacy center that would ahndle cases from Dade, Walker, Chattooga and Catoosa counties. Walker County offers parenting classes that help at risk families cope with their anger through counseling. One program, First Step, can provide help for children up until the age of 6.

"I don't have a clue how to stop sexual abuse," said Mrs. Cobb. "I do know that no matter how much abusers threaten children or how hard they try to buy their trust, that child will eventually tell. Maybe accidentally, but they will tell."

April 20, 1998

Washington -- The Supreme Court today refused to force a New York City public school to rent its building for a church's weekly worship services.

The court, without comment, rejected an appeal in which the church's lawyers argued that the school cannot refuse to allow worship services on its property while allowing some community groups to rent rooms after hours.

The appeal said the school district's policy violates the church's constitutional freedoms of speech and religion.

The Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical Christian church, meets in a house and has bought land to construct a church bulding.

In Sept. 1994, the church sought permission to rent the Anne Cross Mersereau Middle School in the Bronx on Saunday mornings for worship services. The school district refused, citing its policy and a state law that bar religious worship services in public schools.

The school district does allow community groups such as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to rent space for after-hours meetings. Church groups also rent rooms for non-religious events or to discuss religious material.

The church sued, and a federal judge ruled for the school district. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.

The school district's decission to let community groups meet after hours does not make a school an unrestricted "public forum," the appeals court said.

In 1993, the Supreme Court said schools that give some groups access to school buildings after hours may not discriminate against religious groups. The case involved a religious group that wanted to use a school building to show a series of movies about Christian family values.

In the appeal acted on today, the Bronz church's lawyers said the New York law and policies unlawfully "singled out religious services ... for treatment worse than other expression by community groups."

The school district's lawyers said it wants to avoid having any school identified with a church, adding that a ruling for the church would create the "actual, as well as the symbolic, union of church and school."

The case is Bronx Household of Faith vs. Board of Education of the City of New York, 97-1361.