I would have responded, "Wiccans are somewhat limited in their powers. About the only thing we can do with any regularity is to get assholes to demonstrate their existence and location on the body. See how well my powers worked with this jerk?"

Draggie-babe, one of the things I have learned over the past 10+ years of Internet communications is that, just as in real world relationships, there are many obnoxious asses out there. Some of these cretins, for reasons unknown or unfathomable to those of us with two or more active brain cells, seem to take real pleasure in being the miserable, pitiable, low moral character schlemiels that they really are in everyday life. They are idiots. Ignore them. Unless you have a specific need for a draft animal, you don't need a jackass cluttering up your world.

For some reason also, there are yet others who don't have the cojones to dare be so sleazy in the real world. These jerks hide behind their computer monitors and keyboards so they can do, and say, the things they don't have the courage to say to another person's face for fear of getting a well-deserved ass-whuppin'. These people are cowards. They deserve nothing from us except disdain and pity, the greatest put down of all.

When I was a youngster, I spent almost every summer working on my grandparents' South Carolina low country tobacco and cotton farm. We grew other crops too (corn, watermelons, and a "kitchen garden full of potatoes, tomatoes, beans, spinach, corn, cabbage and a great number of other vegetables and such - we even grew sugar cane and had it refined into sugar and syrup once a year) as well, but those were the cash crops that supported the needs of the rather large clan of family members that crammed that small frame house until the seams were bursting. We needed the cash from those crops mainly to purchase what we couldn't grow or raise for ourselves.

My brother and I shared a double bed with at least one or two other male cousins - head to toe - in the bedroom that was closest to the mule barn where there were several massive draft animals (mules) and several male donkeys as well as a few horses (mares) to replenish the stock from time to time.

Every morning around 3:30 - 4:00 AM, without fail it seemed, those damned donkeys started braying and raising a ruckus. Since farm life gets an early start on its day, with a normal awakening time of 4:30 AM to as late as 5:00 AM on holidays, this raucous racket robbed me of at least an hour to a half-hour's sleep every day. When I complained to my grandfather about it, he told me something I remember to this day. I think the advice holds true for you as well.

"Boy," he said to me with that omnipresent pipe between his teeth, "Jackasses make noise just to let the world know that they are jackasses. The only one ever paying any attention to the braying of a jackass is another jackass. You are never going to get any peace in your life until you learn to start ignoring the braying of jackasses." I did and I was soon able to sleep right through all the meaningless noise every morning.

In this instance, your mule barn and bedroom just happen to exist in cyber space. The principle remains exactly the same. Jackasses make noise just to show the world that they are jackasses. No one with any sense at all pays much attention to their braying except other jackasses. May I suggest you simply classify this jerk as the jackass he or she is, turn over and grab an additional thirty minutes to another hour of sleep? It has worked for me all these years since then. It will for you too!

One of my distant cousins recently wrote me an e-mail recently that discussed "the rich threads of (my) life as I have lived it up until now that wove such a wondrous tapestry for (me) to contemplate in joyful memory as (my) time on this plane grows shorter." I kind of like that description because it is so true.

To the best of my memory, no one here has dared attack you for your Wiccan beliefs. Some may have questioned out of curiosity, certainly, but there has never been a case of anyone attacking your right to believe in a polka-dotted, calico-tailed, left-pawed, cross-eyed, homsexual alley cat as the deity you worship or honor, if you so choose. Just think, you and your beliefs are a part of that tapestry of many wonders for all of us who visit here - me especially - and that makes you pretty damned special to all of us.

Of course, not every one here will share your beliefs as you knew when you embarked on a Wiccan lifestyle. Some may even reject them for personal reasons, each in his or her own way, but they are your beliefs and we honor your right to hold them as we respect their right to their own beliefs. Anyone who doesn't uphold that unalienable right you have does not belong in our group for I hold no truck with haters of any sort or bigots of any stripe... as everyone here well knows by now.

"Unalienable" means a right that was granted to you by your "Creator," whatever your concept of that "Creator" may be and no one can take away that right you were born owning. You have to allow them to take away that right. Our Constitution simply makes certain that the experiment in self government our Founding Fathers established in 1789 was well aware that those rights were not given, or granted, to the individuals who were our citizens by any government and they are sacrosanct rights, off limits to the machinations of political windsockery and the government they formed and the basic principles that were written in the blood of private citizens standing up - shoulder to shoulder - to a foreign potentate. The only way any government can deny you those rights is if you, or unthinking others, allow them to do so in a false quest for a nonexisting sense of a "security" that doesn't exist.

So long as I continue to draw breath, I am willing to sacrifice my life to see to it that those foolish beings never succeed. I have proudly demonstrated my willingness to do so. So have many others here. A lot of American men and women have made just that sacrifice throughout our history so that you can hold dearly to those rights throughout the brief (by international standards) 227 or so year history of this nation.

Let me remind you of something. An Internet message board (forum)is NOT the government. It is a privately owned and operated entity. You have no Constitutionally protected "rights" there other than those recognized by the owner(s) of that forum and its users. For myself, I would never wish to belong to such a group if they have no respect for those rights and would count myself lucky to walk away proudly from participation in such a thinly-veiled Klan meeting. Who would want to be a part of a group whose computer monitors wear hoods, have a mouse draped in a sheet and burns crossed keyboards regularly?

Here there is light and it does not point glaringly in accusation. Rather, it is a soft, welcoming and all-encompassing light. Feel it. Know it. For it is here for you and every other visitor and contributor who drops by. These are common values that Secretary Sage and I share. They will long survive my demise for she is as adamant about that light as am I.

Being a poor country boy who grew up equally poor and still country at heart, I never got around to building a mule barn on the rich and fertile landscape and farmland of my life, so we have provided no place for jackasses here. Craven cowards and obnoxious jerks aren't welcome here.

Whenever you venture forth into this cyber world, always look to see if the owners built a mule barn first. If they did, then you make the choice to stay and ignore the braying of their resident jackasses or simply keep traveling.