From the Britannica Blog

Last year about this time (just in time for Halloween), George Eberhart of the American Library Association posted on this blog a list of libraries that are said to be haunted. Now the library ghosts are back, by popular demand.

Each entry has been completely updated and about a dozen new libraries added. George has also included links to the websites of most of the libraries mentioned (as requested by a reader last year), as well as references to relevant entries in Britannica and other sources that have extra information. 

The paranormal has a strong hold on the imagination of many people, and for them this series should be especially attractive.  But who doesn’t enjoy a good ghost tale?  These posts will run Monday - Friday this week, according to the following schedule:

Monday: Libraries in the Northeast, U.S.

Tuesday: Libraries in the Midwest, U.S.

Wednesday: Libraries in the South, U.S.

Thursday:   Libraries in the West, U.S.

Friday (Halloween):  International Libraries

Coming 126 years after his death, the church’s apology will focus on how wrong it was for senior bishops in the past to misunderstand and attack Darwin’s theory about man being descended from apes.

Senior church officials will post the apology in the form of an article written by the Reverend Dr Malcolm Brown on the church’s website tomorrow.

“Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth (in 1809), the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still,” the article says, according to extracts printed by The Mail on Sunday newspaper.

“But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.”

But the apology by Dr Brown, who is the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops’ Council, has been dismissed as “pointless” by Darwin’s great great grandson Andrew Darwin.

“Why bother? he said.

“When an apology is made after 200 years, it’s not so much to right a wrong, but to make the person or organisation making the apology feel better.”

But Dr Brown says everyone makes mistakes, the church included.

“When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights,” he writes.

“The church made that mistake with Galileo’s astronomy and has since realised its error.

“Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

“So it is important to think again about Darwin’s impact on religious thinking, then and now.”

Dr Brown said there was nothing incompatible between Darwin’s scientific theories and Christian teaching.

From the blog Hill Heat:

Here is some fantastic journalism by the St. Charles Journal which I saw on the Post Dispatch website. What a joke. The only bright spot was the thrashing the article got in the comments section. I am so tired of local news media outlets basicly giving free advertising for these frauds. I don’t even want to know what she does at the local highschools she visits.

ODD JOBS: Psychic loves the unknownBy Eric Becker
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 11:42 AM CDT
She sells gift certificates, bottled water, and you can contact her via phone or Internet. No, it’s not your local Target customer service agent. It’s Cynthia Faye, St. Peters psychic and life coach.

If you’re looking for good luck on the go, you could buy her patented Fortune Water. Love? Job prospects? Communicating with deceased loved ones? Faye thinks she can help you. And according to her widely diverse clientele, which stretches from as far away as Massachusetts, it may not be a bad investment.

When you walk in the door, Faye doesn’t even want to know your name. She wants to tell you herself without any help. She says she is a medical intuitive whose accuracy rate at determining the area of bodily ills is 98 percent.Faye’s office is littered with psychic paraphernalia, including a table-top witch with a crystal ball and a fountain that releases new age-y plumes of smoky dry ice. From the computer in the corner of the office, ambient music with mystical tones plays just loud enough to register in visitors’ ears. You slump down in a dark leather chair and confront the cosmos.

Faye says she first started giving psychic readings when she was 18, after discovering she could predict when medical problems would arise with family members. She’s been doing it for 36 years. She says she sees visions and auras, and is capable of remote viewing, an exercise where one leaves to body and is able to view events in places where the body is not physically present.

Originally, the plan was to be a nurse, Faye acknowledges. Her schooling in that area, she says, helps her as a medical intuitive. But it’s much more than physical aches and pains that bring customers through the door.

“It’s love, it’s business. Love is the biggest,” Faye said.

Of course, being honest requires Faye to sometimes report bad news to clients, too. “I know how to talk to people,” Faye said. “I’m honest with them.” Pisces, she says, are direct and honest.

It’s a tough part of the job, but Faye says she has faithful clients, some of whom have been with her for 20 years. If the testimonials on her Web site and via a simple Google search are any indication, she’s a crowd-pleaser.

Those who seek her insight, too, are varied. Just a few weeks ago, she did a bachelor party. She’s been to local high schools. Like any business, past work has led to future opportunities.

The Internet has helped her career along, too, Faye said, opening a new way to reach out to potential clients previously unreachable due to geographic obstacles. Her Web design (www.cynthiafaye.com) touches on the same cosmic tones as her office: beaches at sunset, candles with starfish, and starry nights. There, the offerings are nearly endless. Faye advertises phone readings, parties, communications with the deceased, corporate events, and speaking engagements. One can even make a purchase through PayPal, a secure online payment service. She’s migrated to MySpace, too, where her friends include Amy Winehouse, Sarah McLachlan and Madonna.

Reporter’s note: By the way, she told me I’d meet a John or a Paul who would have an impact on my career. Wherever you are, I’ve been waiting a week.

Link

From Cnn.Com/US

(CNN) — A policeman and a former corrections officer say that on Friday they will unveil evidence of what they claim is their biggest find ever: the body of Bigfoot.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, a pair of Bigfoot-hunting hobbyists from north Georgia, say they found the creature’s body in a wooded area and spotted several similar creatures that were still alive.

The carcass of the furry half-man, half-ape is 7 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs more than 500 pounds, they say. However, the two are not disclosing the exact location of their discovery to protect the remaining creatures.

Tom Nelson, chairman of the biology department at North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega, said he’s “pretty skeptical” the world will feast its eyes on a new species Friday.

“That would certainly rock mammalogy,” joked Nelson, who specializes in the study of mammals. “I see a research grant in my future.”

Whitton and Dyer plan to unveil what they say is DNA and photo evidence of the discovery in Palo Alto, California, in conjunction with a group called Searching for Bigfoot Inc.

A photograph on that group’s Web site shows what appears to be the body of a large, hairy creature with an ape-like face, stuffed into a large freezer.

According to a written release, the two announced the discovery on an Internet radio show, “Squatch Detective,” several weeks ago. iReport.com: Do you believe in Bigfoot?

“The only person we would allow to come down and verify the body was ‘the Real Bigfoot Hunter,’ Tom Biscardi,” Dyer said, referring to Searching for Bigfoot’s CEO, who has been looking for the elusive, legendary creature in the United States and Canada since 1971.

Whitton is a Georgia police officer who is on administrative leave after being shot in the wrist during a pursuit. Dyer is a former prison guard.

DNA tests on the body have begun, said the statement, and “extensive scientific studies” will be done on the body by scientists, including a molecular biologist, an anthropologist and a paleontologist.

Nelson, the university professor, acknowledged that new species of animals have been discovered in recent decades and that, in science, “we always acknowledge the possibility of something new.”

But he said that even in north Georgia, home to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the foot of the Appalachian Trail, it stretches the imagination to think a family of 7-foot-tall creatures could have eluded hunters, hikers and creeping development until now.

“To the average person, these places just seem like extreme wilderness where you’ll find lions and tigers and bears,” he said. “The reality is that you’re never more than a mile from a road.”

The group says the animal is male, has reddish hair and “blackish-gray” eyes and human-like feet, hands and teeth.

CNN’s Doug Gross contributed to this report.

A federal judge in Los Angeles has thrown out the remaining claims of Calvary Chapel Christian School, which sued the University of California alleging university officials rejected some courses for credit because of their Christian viewpoint.

U.S. District Judge James Otero said in a summary judgment ruling released Friday that the school had failed to show evidence that UC officials had violated the First Amendment rights of the five Calvary students who sued along with the school and the Association of Christian Schools International.

Read the whole story here:
Article in The Californian

Chris Hedges has good piece on Truthdig about the real implications of embracing creationism.  I am not a huge Hedges fan but I think this column really gets it right.  I really love the following paragraph.

When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard to determine truth, in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text.  This is the goal of creationists.  Read the article here