Excellence #2: Zeus-Worshipping Greeks

This photo depicts a Greek priestess worshiping Zeus and Hera at a temple built nearly 2000 years ago. Apparently it's a holiday in the Ancient Greek religious calendar: the celebration of Zeus and Hera's wedding. If you weren't aware of that, don't beat yourself up for your ignorance--this is the first time Greek rites have been celebrated there since the ancient religion was banned in the fourth century. CNN has more.

Apparently, until last year the Ancient Greek religion was banned in Greece, of all places (someone please explain that to me). Then last February Ellinais, a group of Greek pagans, won a court case they had brought to get the ban overturned so they could come out of the closet about their religious practice. (More on that here.) And a few months later, Greek law made another nod towards religious tolerance: the Greek Orthodox Church, which used to have the legal authority to prevent other religious groups from building places of worship (!), was stripped of that authority. (I bet the planning meetings for building non-Orthodox places of worship used to be pretty short: "Can we build a synagogue?" No. "Mosque?" No. "Catholic church?" No. "Ancient Greek temple?" No way, and if you ask again I'm calling the police on your pagan ass.)

Any evidence that the world is getting weirder and more pluralistic, that organized religion is losing its grip on political power, and that weirdos are coming out of the closet... baby, anything like that is a breath of fresh air to me. Yay Greek pagans!

*Edited to add this link to a Guardian article on the virulent reaction of the Orthodox church.* Interesting quote from one Pagan: "The Christians hated pagans so much that from the fourth century to the ninth century they destroyed their temples and libraries, killed their priests, closed their philosophical schools and, in one case, set up a death camp. It was genocide but priests don't want to talk about that today." Instead, he says, the Orthodox church insisted that Christianity had been spread, and accepted, peacefully.

Quote of the Day (on the Art of Living and Dying)

"Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times,
it's the only time we've got."
- Art Buchwald

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Here's an article, best described not as an obit but as a celebration of the art of living, as exemplified by Art Buchwald. I don't ever recall being impressed by the way someone died, but now I am: the way he spent his time in hospice sounds like he scheduled his wake early, actually prior to his demise, so he could play host to friends and loved ones and better enjoy his last few weeks on earth. The New York Times described his deathbed as the "hottest salon" in D.C. Kudos, Buchwald!

Glamor Shots From My LA Vacation

Things to Do in Pasadena:
Go to Huntington Hospital, which despite the do-gooder vibe of its website is, in fact, some kind of Hospital-to-the-Stars. It's got a pink marble fountain in the entry hall; it's got pink marble everywhere it possibly can. The gift shop (featuring pink marble checkout desk) must be the only hospital gift shop in America with no cheesy stuffed animals or nauseating Precious Moments figurines; instead it sells Japanese objets d'art too expensive to have price tags on them, fine jewelry, and kitchenware from ultra-kooky Paris boutique Pylones. (Nothing says "get well soon" quite like an anthropomorphic cheese grater.) These glamor shots were one of my forms of self-entertainment while waiting in the examination room.

Most surprising of all: I showed up in the ER and spent barely half an hour in its sunlit waiting room. This inconceivably short delay includes the time spent being taken from the life-threatening trauma ER to the garden-variety complaints ER (yes, they have two ER's, each separately staffed). Everyone I encountered-- doctors, nurses, et al--listened, took their time so things got done right, and in all other ways behaved like human beings genuinely interested in my well-being! What magic is this? How does Huntington do it? More to the point, why doesn't anyone else do it?