A “positive” note?
I’m not big on religion, particularly organized religion. In fact I’ve said numerous times throughout my life that I consider organized religion, and in particular monotheistic religions, to be absolute evil, the ultimate source of most of what is wrong on our planet today. Having said that though I am also a staunch defender of a person’s right to befuddle their intellect by holding those beliefs. To that end I find these two articles to be heartening:
Nevada OKs Wiccan Sign for Soldier’s Plaque
RENO — The widow of a Nevada soldier killed in Afghanistan a year ago won state approval Wednesday to place a Wiccan religious symbol on his memorial plaque, something the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs had refused.
“I’m just in shock,” Roberta Stewart said from her home in Fernley, about 30 miles east of Reno. “I’m honored and ecstatic. I’ve been waiting a year for this.”
Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart, 34, was killed in Afghanistan on Sept. 25 when the Nevada Army National Guard helicopter he was in was shot down. He was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs does not recognize and so prohibits on veterans’ headstones in national cemeteries.
First Rabbis Ordained in Germany Since Holocaust
Germany took another long stride out of the shadows of its history today as three men became the first rabbis ordained in this country since the Holocaust.
In a ceremony that blended hope for the future with a somber homage to the past, the three — a German, a Czech, and a South African — stood before a senior rabbi in Dresden’s starkly modern synagogue as he told them they had been singled out, just as in scripture Moses had chosen Joshua. “All of Germany celebrates with us today, and all of Europe as well,” said Rabbi Walter Jacob, the president of a rabbinical seminary in Potsdam, near Berlin, where the three men studied
