Homosexuality in Voodoo is religiously acceptable and homosexuals are allowed to participate in all religious activities. However, in countries with large Voodoo populations (such as Benin or Haiti) Christian influence has given homosexuality a social stigma, at least on some levels of society. The Voodoo religion itself has remained open to people of all sexual orientations.

Voodoo is primarily an ecstatic and not a fertility-based religion. This means that members are not required by any religious law to reproduce, and homosexuals are not pressured to do so. Voodoo views sexual orientation as a part of the way God makes a person; homosexuals are free to pursue members of the same sex just as heterosexuals are free to pursue members of the opposite sex. (…)

During Voodoo ceremonies, the houngans (priests), mambos (priestesses), and hounsis (initiates) dance around a poteau-mitan until one of them becomes possessed by one of the loa. A person can be possessed by any loa, regardless of gender.

Many people have observed that gay men are more frequently possessed by female loa, and lesbians are more frequently possessed by male loa. During possession, the possessed dancer will begin to behave like the loa they are possessed by and they are treated with the utmost respect.

Interestingly, when a homosexual is possessed by a heterosexual loa, they begin to behave as heterosexuals.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading }

The package arrived at NBC headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

Pond-dwelling virus writers have crafted a malware attack that poses as camera phone footage of the shootings at Virginia Tech University that claimed 32 lives on Monday. Spam email messages carry a photograph of gunman Cho Seung-hui and claim to link to a Brazilian movie website carrying footage of the campus shootings.

Surfers who click on the link will find only a malicious screensaver file (TERROR_EM_VIRGINIA.SCR) that attempts to install a banking spyware Trojan horse on the Windows PCs of prospective marks, anti-virus firm Sophos reports. The Packer Trojan horse attempts to steal online banking credentials. This login information offers cybercrooks the chance to subsequently clean out online banking accounts. (…) Past malware and spam campaigns have taken advantage of headline breaking news stories such as Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Concorde aircrash, and terror bombings in London. { The Register }

AOL News has obtained two plays a classmate says were written by Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui.

+ { Iran condemns killing rampage at Virginia Tech, offers condolences }

A gunman opened fire in a dorm and classroom at Virginia Tech on Monday, killing 31 people in the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. { Continue reading }

A surge in online promotion and the proliferation of unrated DVDs has eroded the entertainment industry’s promise not to entice youth with violent fare, according to a Federal Trade Commission report on the marketing of violence to teenagers.

Movie companies have been routinely pushing R-rated films on Web sites with a high number of young users, even while largely honoring a commitment not to buy ads on TV shows with a similar audience, according to the report.

And despite industry controls, buyers from the ages of 13 to 16, unaccompanied by adults, were able to purchase tickets to R-rated films in 39 percent of their attempts, and successfully bought unrated or R-rated DVDs 71 percent of the time.

The 140-page document, released Thursday, was a follow-up to the commission’s 2000 report, which censured the entertainment business for selling violence to the young. The most recent previous follow-up, in July 2004, had found some improvement.

But the years since have brought increased spending on Web advertising, rapid expansion on social networking sites like MySpace, and an explosion in the R-rated horror market, driven in part by films like “Hostelâ€? and “Saw,â€? which some in Hollywood have called “torture porn.â€? (…)

The bigger problem for the film industry appeared to be its developing relationship with Web sites and chat rooms. The demographics of these sites are not always clear, and marketing, once unleashed in a so-called viral environment, can quickly slip beyond a studio’s control.

The report noted that studios seldom placed full rating information on their MySpace profile pages. It also said it found that visitors to MySpace under the age of 16 made up less than 24 percent of the total, but accounted for 40 percent of page views in 2006. { NY Times | Continue reading }

poster { Rodriguez/Tarantino’s Grindhouse }

A lawyer leaded to his death from a 69th-floor office at the Empire State Building yesterday, severing a leg that crashed to the sidewalk in front of horrified onlookers.

Cops raced to the 102-story landmark just before 3 p.m. after several witnesses called 911 to report a body part on the ground on W. 33rd St. A police source identified the dead man as Moshe Kanovsky, 31, of Brooklyn.

The left leg, severed below the knee, was bare except for a gray and black argyle sock. Police said the rest of Kanovsky’s body was found intact on a 30th-floor landing.

Investigators questioned employees at Levine & Blit, a personal injury practice, and at Ashok Karmaker. Both law firms share a suite on the 69th floor where Kanovsky “did odds-and-ends work” for Karmaker.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted Kanovsky’s suicide.
“He was interviewing a client,” said a man who works in the suite. “He just got up, opened the window and jumped.”

At least 30 people have jumped from the Empire State Building since it opened in 1931. { NY Daily | Continue reading }

+ { Would a penny dropped from the Empire State Building kill someone on the ground? }

A Minneapolis city worker is worried about blood in the sewer system because he said, while he was cleaning the system, blood sprayed out of a hole and got all over him. “We could tell it was blood, I mean large amount of blood,” said Minneapolis Sewer Maintenance Worker Ron Huebner.

It happened about two weeks ago in Northeast Minneapolis near a lab that does medical testing and dumps blood into the sewer. It is allowed but the city is now making changes to help protect workers in the future. “Blood just all over my face, in my mouth, I could taste it. It was terrible. I had it in my mouth and I kept spitting and I couldn’t get rid of it,” said Huebner.

Huebner said he hasn’t been sleeping much. He’s worried about the blood that he swallowed when he was operating a jet machine to clean out the sewer. The Met Council said it was a mix of human and animal blood used in medical testing at this nearby lab. In fact, the company, R & D Systems, does have a permit to dump blood in the sewer system.

{ WCCO | Continue reading }

Both of the human legs that washed ashore on Long Island this week had pink polish on some of the toes, police said Thursday. But it may be a week or 10 days before there is more scientific evidence about whether the legs came from the same person, said Detective Sgt. Robert Holland, of the Village of Mamaroneck police in Westchester.

Mamaroneck police are interested in the case because of the possibility that the legs match a woman’s torso that was found in a suitcase on a Mamaroneck beach on March 3.

“It does appear similarities are present indicating the lower extremities recovered in Nassau and Suffolk are that of the torso,'’ said Lt. James Gaffney, a Mamaroneck police spokesman. Police believe the torso was from a Hispanic or light-skinned black woman no more than 5-foot-6 and 180 to 200 pounds. The victim had a tattoo of two red cherries on a green stem above her right breast. { 1010WINS | Continue reading }

The color (and condition) of a person’s nails has long been an indication of social status. Mainly because in ancient times women would be identified and separated from men by the colors of their nails. The Inca’s were well known for the eagles decorated on their fingernails. The colors chosen by Chinese royalty (600 B.C.) to enhance their nails was gold and silver. Among the Egyptians, Queen Nefertiti colored her fingers and toes nails ruby red and Cleopatra favored a deep rust red. Women of lower rank who colored their nails were permitted only pale hues, and no woman dared to flaunt the color worn by the queen. { Wikipedia | Continue reading }

A Japanese man who arranged suicide pacts via the internet with three people he subsequently killed has been sentenced to death, AFP reports. Hiroshi Maeue, 38, met a 25-year-old woman online and “proposed that they kill themselves together”. However, when they entered the car chosen to host the suicide, he “bound her with ropes and choked her to death”. His other victims were “a 21-year-old college student and a 14-year-old junior high school student”, similarly dispatched. Maeue filmed the murders and even issued a ransom demand for the high school student’s return after killing him.

A court-ordered examination confirmed Maeue did not suffer “any mental disorder and that he was mentally competent”. He pleaded guilty to the charges. In sentencing Maeue to hang, Osaka District Court presiding Judge Kazuo Mizushima said: “The crime was cruel, harsh, and outrageous. This was a crime aimed at fulfilling the accused’s sexual desire. It is difficult for him to change these unusual characteristics. We cannot help but give the extreme penalty.” { The Register }