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Archive for the 'History & Lore' category
Blog Post 215 – Recovering Magical Lore
In a recent discussion on our Patreon Discord channel, we had a really smart question from listener Fergus. He was noting that both Laine and I often mention bits of folk magic we remember from our families and wondered what we did to gather that lore. Broadly speaking, I think both Laine and I have been incredibly lucky in that as we discuss different magical practices and folklore, we are reminded of things from our childhood and upbringing that relate to magical topics at hand.
However, it's not always an easy process to get at magical folklore from your family or your community. With it being Pride Month, we are often reminded intensely that many people are cut off from their families and from their friends and neighbors by prejudice and bigotry. That means that opening the doors to magical discovery can feel a bit like an impossible quest.
For others, they may have strong family bonds, but figuring out how to ask about magic specifically is hard because any use of that word (or "spells" or "witchcraft" or similar terms) will instantly get shut down due to deeply-held religious convictions or other social stigmas. (Also, please note that while I'm using the term "family," the term "community" is just as relevant–your local social environment can provide a LOT of lore, as can any chosen family to which you belong).
So what's a person to do when they want to learn more about their own magical history (which is important, because we often see huge problems arise when people try to nab someone else's magical history or invent a magical history out of whole cloth)?
Thankfully, as I've been working on my upcoming book for Llewellyn, I've also been thinking about that question, and for one of my chapters I came up with some exercises that I think would be extremely valuable to anyone trying to recover community or family lore. The big trick? Don't focus on the magic and make sure you listen. Here are some practical exercises you might be able to try:
1. Ask for stories. Don't focus on magical stories, mind you, but instead stories from a person's life. In particular, you might try spending time with elders from your family or your community, and seeing what stories they have to tell. Get them to tell you about what life was like when they were growing up. Ask about their time at school, and what they remember about friends and neighbors growing up. Get them talking and truly listen to what they have to say. Write it down if you can (record it if they'll let you, and donate that to a local archive! There's a magnificent resource for doing this sort of ethnographic interviewing available from the Library of Congress called Folklife & Fieldwork: An Introduction to Cultural Documentation, by Steve Winick and Peter Bartis at the American Folklife Center. The full text of it is available as a PDF here, and they often will mail you a print copy for no more than the cost of postage). Remember that these interviews are about building a relationship. Make it a habit to ask questions and take an interest in them and their life. Even if they say things you don't always agree with, try to be generous in your listening and pay attention to what emerges from these conversations. Over time, you're going to find that there are stories that involve "a way of doing things" that doesn't follow any rational structure, which is frequently an indicator of magical thinking and practice.
When I was growing up, one of the places I often visited with my Dad as part of his church choir duties was a local nursing home, and I found lots of people there who wanted to share their stories. I learned patient listening and got some good tales (and jokes) out of that, as well as making a few good friends, too.
2. Tell your own story. Get someone to interview you. Don't think about the magical side of it or even focus on that part. Just let them ask questions about your life and the world you grew up in, and see what you say. Get them to record you, and listen back to your words later (I know, no one likes hearing themselves played back, so pretend it's someone else if you must). Use the same prompts as in suggestion one above and see just where your stories lead. You'll likely surprise yourself with how many little bits of magic, superstition, and folk belief you uncover with this process. I once did an interview with someone for my Krampuslauf research involving their role as a musical participant. They later told me that my interview opened up a whole cache of experiences, memories, and family connections that they hadn't been thinking about, and it was a powerful emotional experience. That research involved a parade, but uncovered a good bit of magical and ritual material as well, some of which emerged during interviews without me ever raising those topics.
3. Focus on specific folklore-rich topics. You'll often find as you do interviews and discuss lore that there are key subjects that generate more magical lore than others (even if, or especially if you don't actually mention anything about magic). Some of the best topics to ask about include:
weddings and marriages (especially the ceremonies/customs)
strange or important weather events/natural disasters
major religious rites of passage (like baptisms or a bris)
death and funeral customs
These subjects frequently involve subtle forms of folk magic, or point you in the direction of magical lore.
4. Pay attention to how people in your community respond to issues of stress. While major life events are great fonts of lore for general customs and beliefs, the way people deal with problems often involves a weaving together of rational and non-rational responses. Injuries, even something as small as a scrape on the sidewalk, often makes magic suddenly pop out in the form of a kiss or a gentle blow on the wound after the bandage is applied. How does the community or family around you respond when someone loses a job or faces a sudden loss? Are they turning to prayer? Are those around them doing so? Are they adding them to prayer lists, or giving them foods or objects of comfort? Do people trying to get a job have a lucky token they take with them to interviews? This is not an admonition to suddenly put on your social scientist glasses when you see someone suffering–far from it! Offering succor in times of strain is valuable, so if you can do so I encourage it, but also keep your eyes and mind open to what you can learn about the cosmology and enchantment in the world around you in those moments.
5. Finally, visit your local library! Do some research! Go to the archives! Libraries, and by extension local historical archives, often have absolutely scads of records, documents, diaries, and books of lore tied into the community around you. Remember, your magical practices are not solely about kinship, but community, and your teachers and magical heritage come from the places and people surrounding you. Dig into local lore and legends, and see what they tell you about the landscape you see every day. Are there places reputed to be haunted or cursed? Spots where wonders have been observed, or local legends of people who might have had magical powers? I happen to live in Pennsylvania at the moment, and this state loves its history and archives, which in turn allows for a lot of lore recovery. The lovely Urglaawe community–a regionally-based Pennsylvania German Heathen group–has been able to rebuild an immense amount of its lore and practices through research and interviews. Check into the folklore collections housed at your library, and look for local lore in particular. Does the library have genealogical records you can look into to find more information? Can you visit the places you read about, or even leave some flowers on the grave of an accused witch?
This is hardly a complete list of what you could do, but if you've been struggling with the ways you might get in tune with your own ancestral magic, consider giving these methods a try. I've been doing interviews for years now and my favorite thing about them is how often I find people want to keep talking long after the mic is turned off–we are a creature of narrative, and we love sharing stories. Remember that in no case should you approach this sort of research as an opportunity to exploit the people you talk to or study, but instead use these interviews and deep-diving inquiries to develop relationships and understand how you fit into your own magical (and cultural) landscape. You may be surprised just how rich it is.
Tags: ethnography, family lore, folk magic, folklore, history, holidays, magic, new world witchery, recovering lore, researching folklore, stories, witchcraft, witchery
Blog Post 214 – The Naked Witch
And ye shall all be freed from slavery,
And so ye shall be free in everything;
And as the sign that ye are truly free,
Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men
And women also: this shall last until
The last of your oppressors shall be dead;
-From Aradia: Gospel of the Witches, by Charles G. Leland
Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind, by Jean-Léon Gérôme 1896 [Public domain] (via Wikimedia Commons)
A lot of modern witchcraft intersects with our bodies. We expect to experience magic as a visceral force, dance ecstatically, use the remnants of bodies–both plant and animal–in our spells, or alternately slather or dab our bodies with magical concoctions to gain a little advantage in a harsh world. In particular, some branches of witchcraft religion, such as British Traditional Wicca, emphasize the importance of bodily acceptance and embrace the human body as a source of power. That power, according to Wiccan progenitor Gerald Gardner, is pulled from the freeing of an "electromagnetic field" by the removal of clothing (although Gardner did allow that he thought "slips or Bikinis could be worn without unduly causing loss of power," for what that is worth (and please note, I'm not particularly taking Gardner to task here, nor disavowing the traditions he launched, but pointing out that his theories about nudity were influenced largely by his own ideas and experiences).
Recently, people engaged with magic–especially magic and ritual where engagement means contact with other people–have been raising their voices over systematic and ongoing abuse at the hands of elders and community members. Women and young people seem particularly vulnerable as targets of groping, unwanted pressure for sexual initiation, or having bodies simultaneously treated as sacred and sexualized as objects. I am not going to recapitulate the entire discussion of these abuses here, although I will highly recommend spending some time really processing posts like the tough-but-vital ones posted by Sarah Lawless in recent months. Her writing has been excellent and influential, and I have seen countless victims (including many men who experience abuse in neo-Pagan circles) step forward to talk about what has happened to them and insist that it stop (and stop it should!).
That is not my aim today, however, although my topic is tangled into the net of that discussion. I was curious about the role of the witch's body, specifically the witch's naked body, as a component of her power or her craft. I knew well the line from Leland's Aradia quoted above, but I also know that Leland's sources do not always speak to a broad experience (or even an historically verifiable one, although I value much of his work). Leland's goddess insists that nudity is an unshackling from the bonds of slavery and a sign of freedom, and Gardner seems to have run with nudity as a liberating experience as well within his own coven. Yet we also see nudity being used to degrade witches, shame them, or force them into the role of living succubus or "red woman" seductress. Where does nudity fit into a New World magical practice? Are there precedents for nude practice, does nudity have any value in practical magic, and does nudity still matter today?
There are essentially two situations in which witches might practice nude in New World witchcraft: alone and in groups. However, even here there are some gray areas, because when a witch is "alone," they are often not entirely alone. They may be meeting an Otherworldly entity for an initiation rite, for example, and be expected to offer their body up for sexual congress, or even a simple washing ritual. In Appalachian lore, however, the favors were not always sexual, as some initiation rites involved offering a literal piece of one's body, where "the devil is granted your soul in exchange for some talent, gift, or magical power, it is thought that he then receives some gift of the body in return. This could be a fingernail or even a withered finger."
Just as often, these initiation rites involve a solitary witch stripping bare, but only as a precursor to other solitary action: cursing or shooting at the moon or (more practically) wading into a river or stream to wash away a previous baptism in some symbolic way. The sexualization of the witch in these encounters is virtually nil, except as perhaps a titillating detail for the listener or a matter of practical necessity for the witch. The act itself is symbolic because the witch is abandoning a previous life–usually a Christian one–and the removal of clothing is much like the washing away of the baptism.
Other parts of the New World also held that witches might strip bare on their own as an abandonment of social order. That was the common perception in Puritan New England, where witches were believed to travel into the woods to meet with "devils" or "Indians" (who were sometimes regarded by European colonists as essentially interchangeable). The idea that witches practiced magic in the buff, however, varied immensely from place to place. Sometimes it is included as a detail in stories of hag-riding, for example, especially in cases where the witch needed to apply a flying ointment of some kind before taking off.
AnonymousUnknown author [Public domain] (via Wikimedia Commons)
Group rituals are often a mixed bag as well, since witches might work in conjunction with another witch at times or meet up with a number of other witches for special events (such as during Walpurgisnacht-type celebrations). In one Ozark story, a would-be witch undergoes her initiation when she "removes every stitch of clothing, which she hangs on an infidel's [non-believer's] tombstone." This rite is witnessed by two other nude initiates, but the sexual congress is relegated solely to the witch and "the Devil," and not any human initiates. One tale of a pair of sister-witches on Roan Mountain in the Smokies tells of two witches removing their clothing before greasing up and flying up the chimney, for example. Other accounts describe groups of women slipping out of their clothes–or more potently, their skins–before flying off to perform dances. Details of sexual congress appear in European accounts, but are often minimized in North American ones, and frequently even the more diabolical descriptions of group nudity tend not to emphasize sexuality. A number of African tales about witches do indicate that they might have traveled naked to do their work (which was often desecrating graves or hunting children, work that hopefully contemporary witches are not doing). In these cases, however, the nudity was often solitary and never sexual, as the emphasis was on the witch's wildness and cannibalistic nature rather than her sexual one. I'd also note that in cases where groups of nude witches meet, they are often all one gender (with the exception being the presence of an Otherworldly figure like the Devil), and that when someone intrudes on magical nudity–as happens in the Roan Mountain story–that person is usually punished.
In Zora Neale Hurston's Mules & Men, she recounts an initiation ceremony experienced at the hands of Louisiana conjure-man Luke Turner (who claimed a lineage with Marie Leveau). In that ritual, Hurston was indeed stripped of her clothing and required to lie on a couch with no food for three days while she waited for a spirit to claim her. Then she was carefully bathed and had a symbol painted upon her, and finally "dressed in new underwear and a white veil…placed over [her] head" after which no one was allowed to speak to her until the ritual was concluded. The nakedness here is again symbolic, but Hurston very much demonstrates that there is no sexual component to it. She is most powerful during the ritual when she is veiled, then eventually has the veil lifted and she is given a "crown of power."
Some of the most sensational accounts that involve witchcraft-like practices and nudity are those that come out of places like New Orleans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or out of Europe in the early Modern period around the time of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In both cases, one group sought to exoticize another group and ascribing their rituals with depraved sexual fantasies made the stories of witchcraft all the more thrilling (in the same way that many horror films use flesh to both allure and repulse). Simply reading the Malleus Maleficarum opens up a realm of psychosexual fixations that reflect far more on the priest writing the stories than on any reported activities of witches. Scholar Ronald Hutton links some of these concerns to the long entanglement of witches as magic workers to night-stalking demons like succubi, who stole semen from sleeping men and tormented them with sexual dreams. The New Orleans press, in a similar vein, frequently featured stories of "primitive" African American "voodoo dances," in which scores of naked or nearly-naked black men would dance. The scandal of these stories would escalate–often with particularly dire consequences to the black men–when papers reported white women joining the dances, again often nude. In these sensationalized accounts, the stripping of the body was highly sexualized and often showed the readers of such stories that magic, witchcraft, voodoo, or other forbidden topics would inevitably corrupt those who came too close. Those who know much about Vodoun as a religion, however, know that nudity is not typical to the formal celebrations and rituals to honor the lwa or invite them into a practitioner's body. Clothing is often very specifically a part of the rites, with specific colors like white being appropriate when performing music or dance or offerings to invite divine interactions.
As often as there are stories of witches removing clothing, there are stories of witches slipping their skins off entirely–something I imagine most witches today won't do readily–or donning animal skins as a precursor to shapeshifting, as often happened with the skinwalkers of Dine/Navajo tradition. Such practices were also echoed by those who hunted witches, as in Zuni rituals designed to help cleanse a community of witches when witch-hunters wore bear skins to enable them to track witches wearing the skins of creatures like coyotes. It's worth noting as well that in the Zuni world, many of the accused witches were men, and contact with them required a special water-cleansing ceremony in which those afflicted with witchcraft would be stripped and bathed.
Albert Joseph Penot [Public domain] (via Wikimedia Commons)
So do witches go about in the nude? Absolutely. There's no reason to think that they don't. At the same time, do they have to go around in the nude? Absolutely not. Plenty of stories show witches putting on special clothing such as a fur or a veil in order to work witchcraft, and it does not seem to interfere at all with Gardener's "electromagnetic field" (which, to be fair, even he conceded was not absolutely bound by clothing). Most crucially, except in sensationalized accounts, the nudity involved with witch stories is not particularly sexualized in the New World. There are many tales in which a magic worker might be bare but their nakedness is a symbolic act for them alone, and never an invitation for another person to violate their body. There are always exceptions, of course, but in most cases, we see examples like Hurston's where a nude witch (or magical practitioner) is treated with extreme reverence and respect, rather than objectified for their body. Only when the nude witch is caught in the gaze of someone outside of her practice (and by someone untrustworthy) does her nakedness become a sexual problem, which seems to say much more about the one doing the gazing (and I, for one, am all for reviving a Euripedes-esque tearing asunder of those who would impose themselves on any gathering of witches in any state of undress).
Naked or not, the witch is powerful. Naked or not, the witch is not to be messed with. Naked or not, the witch does her work, and it is best to let her be.
References & Further Reading
Breslaw, Elaine G., ed. Witches of the Atlantic World. NYU Press, 2000.
Brown, Karen McCarthy. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Univ. of California Press, 2011 ed.
Courlander, Harold. A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore. DaCapo Press, 1996.
Darling, Andrew. "Mass Inhumation & the Execution of Witches in the American Southwest." American Anthropologist 100 (3), 1998. 732-52.
Deren, Maya. Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti. McPherson, 1998 ed.
Garcia, Nasario. Brujerias: Stories of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the American Southwest and Beyond. Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2007.
Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, and Maria Tatar. The Annotated African American Folktales. Liveright, 2017.
Gardner, Gerald B. Witchcraft Today. Citadel, 2004 ed.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Mules & Men. HarperCollins, 2009 ed.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Tell My Horse: Voodoo in Haiti and Jamaica. HarperCollins, 2008 ed.
Hutton, Ronald. The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present. Yale Univ. Press, 2017.
Leland, Charles. Aradia: Gospel of the Witches. Witches' Almanac, 2010 ed.
Milnes, Gerald C. Signs, Cures, & Witchery. Univ. of Tenn. Press, 2012 ed.
Paddon, Peter. Visceral Magic. Pendraig, 2011.
Randolph, Vance. Ozark Magic & Folklore. Dover, 1964.
Russell, Randy, and Janet Barnett. The Granny Curse and Other Ghosts and Legends from East Tennessee. Blair, 1999.
Sprenger, James, and Henry Kramer. Malleus Maleficarum. Public Domain (Sacred-texts.com)
Tallant, Robert. Voodoo in New Orleans. Pelican, 1984 ed.
Categories: Blog, History & Lore
Tags: African American folklore, Appalachians, Devil, folk magic, folklore, magic, Navajo, New Orleans, new world witchery, Ozarks, ritual nudity, ritual sex, sabbat, witch, witch flight, witchcraft, witchery, Zuni
Blog Post 211 – Holly and Ivy
The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
–From "The Holly and the Ivy," a traditional carol
We're deep in the Yuletide season, which means not only can you expect an episode of carols and stories from us soon, but that you're almost guaranteed to hear at least one or two carols mentioning holly, ivy, or both (in fairness, it's probably a lot better to keep your elf-ears tuned in for those topics than to be hyper-vigilant in your efforts to avoid Wham!ageddon, right?)
The above-mentioned carol, "The Holly and the Ivy," has been around for at least two hundred years, but likely dates back even further as a folk song, deriving from medieval traditions in England of associating the plants with various winter festivities and customs (see, for example, KIng Henry VIII's carol "Green Groweth the Holly").
In North America, we have several species of holly that are native to our continents, but ivy is a different matter. Most of the "ivies" associated with the holiday season are things like English ivy, which are imports and can be very invasive and destructive if not controlled (similar vines like Japanese kudzu are notorious for the damage they do and their proliferation). If you are in North America and using holly and ivy, it might be worth thinking about picking a twining vine native to the continent, like Virginia creeper, especially if you're planning to plant anything.
Holly has long been used to decorate for the winter holidays, including in Ancient Rome. Some stories claim that the Christian cross was originally made from holly, which is why its berries are often stained red like blood. Linda Raedisch tells of a hobgoblin named Charlie who haunted an inn in Somerset, England and liked to perch on a holly beam above the fire to warm his feet (when he wasn't hiding all the dinnerware to annoy the guests). Raedisch also notes several important appearances of holly in the lore and literature of the UK. She points out that in the classic Arthurian tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the titular swain appears at Arthur's court to issue his challenge bearing an ax in one hand and a sprig of holly in the other. The Blue Hag of Scotland hides her magical staff under a holly bush (which prevents grass from growing beneath holly bushes in general). And of course, when the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present appear to Ebeneezer Scrooge in Dickens' A Christmas Carol, they both bear holly as well.
While holly is often thought to be a good plant to bring in for the winter holidays, ivy is thought to bring ill fortune if carried indoors for winter festivities. Ivy is also associated with cemeteries and graves, as well as the wheel of St. Catherine, and thus, spinners and fiber workers (although it should be pointed out that St. Catherine's wheel is NOT a spinning wheel, but a torture device…however it's nice to see the imagery repurposed for better things). Some English lore says that ivy brought into a sick room will prevent recovery, and that taking ivy leaves from off of a church wall will doom the one who picks them to illness.
According to Judika Illes, medieval Europeans believed holly wood had the power to protect against wild animals. While the spell she references involves throwing a piece of holly at an aggressive beast, a contemporary alternative might be to take a small disk of holly wood and inscribe (paint, carve, or burn) it with the name of an animal friend or protector (a companion pet from your life or even one that you know of from books or stories). When preparing it, speak to the animal friend you have in mind and ask them to intercede with any creature you encounter and grant you safe passage. Wear the disk as a necklace or bracelet when going into wild places (possibly consider adding a couple of small bells to the jewelry, as that will alert wild animals to your presence long before you see them, and thus ensure they skedaddle before you make contact…they are usually far more scared of you, after all, than you are of them).
Holly was also thought to be protective against evil spirits. Churches and cemeteries planted holly around their perimeters in England as a way to deter pesky spirits who would get caught on the prickly leaves (this may also have worked to discourage vandals and some wild animals as well). If you do decide to plant holly, bear in mind that it is best left to grow on its own. It is considered very bad luck to cut down a holly tree.
One of the main uses of holly and ivy is in love work. A holly charm recommended by Judika involves picking nine holly leaves at midnight on a Friday. Without speaking, wrap them in a white cloth (like a handkerchief) and put that under your pillow. You should dream of your true love before daybreak. Ivy can also be used to determine who your lover will be. A Scottish charm involves plucking an ivy leaf in secret (not from a church, please) and uttering the words "Ivy, ivy, I pluck the, In my bosom I lay thee; The first young man who speaks to me, Shall surely my true lover be."
Men hoping to attract women should carry holly leaves, and women hoping to attract men should carry ivy (those hoping to attract their same gender would carry the plant that most corresponds with their attraction: to attract women carry holly, to attract men, ivy).
You can also use ivy to discern who is working against you by wrapping a candle in ivy and burning it. The identity of your foe will become clear (likely through dreams or other omens). Ivy can help determine future illness, too, as one New Year's divinatory ritual involves laying leaves of ivy in water on New Year's Eve, naming each leaf for a loved one, and leaving them there until Twelfth Night (January 6th). Any leaves that are still green indicate health for that person, while leaves with black spots or those that have shriveled up reveal who will suffer great illness in the year to come (it probably helps to mark each leaf in some way, as with a dot of nail polish, to ensure you know whose leaf is whose).
And both holly and ivy can be used for more severe spellwork, too. You can put a token from a target (such as their name, a photo, or even a bit of their hair) into a bottle with twists of ivy and sharp-pointed holly leaves. Fill the bottle with black ink and some swamp water or war water, then seal it and bury it upside down. I can even imagine doing a rather dark and wicked little "sinner's tree" of your enemies by taking a branch of holly and hanging little glass ornaments filled with your enemies' names, holly leaves, and ivy, with a bit of black ink (they make fillable ones you can buy at craft stores, or you could just save a few small spice bottles). Tell them they will spend the next year in perdition and torment if they do not change their ways, then burn the tree and the contents of the bottles, and scatter the ashes at a crossroads or in running water.
Of course, if they *do* change their ways, you should probably put them on your "nice" list next year and perform an equally powerful blessing on their behalf.
Thanks for reading, and a Merry Yuletide to you!
Henderson, Helene, ed. Holidays, Festivals, & Celebrations of the World Dictionary, 3rd ed. Omnigraphics, Detroit: 2005.
Illes, Judika. Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells. Harper Collins, New York: 2009.
Opie, Iona, and Moira Tatem. A Dictionary of Superstitions. Barnes & Noble Books, New York: 1989.
Raedisch, Linda. The Old Magic of Christmas. Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, MN: 2013.
Santino, Jack. All Around the Year: Holidays and Celebrations in American Life. Univ. of Illinois Press, Chicago: 1995.
Categories: History & Lore, Practice & Technique
Tags: bad luck, Christmas, curses, divination, folk magic, folklore, hexes, holly, ivy, love magic, magic, new world witchery, plant magic, witch, witchcraft, witchery, Yule, Yuletide
Video – Of Sea Witches and Merfolk
We've added something new over at our YouTube channel! We're continuing the thread of our Disney Magic episode by starting a series of videos that explore the connections between popular culture, fairy tales, folklore, and folk magic. We're calling it the Compass & Key Charm School. Our first installment is one of my favorite Disney witches, Ursula, and we look at the differences between Hans Christian Anderson's classic literary fairy tale and the animated film version. We also discuss some of the ways that seaside witches use their magic (and how you might style your own magical cupboard after Ursula's). Please feel free to comment, subscribe to the channel, and share the video around! Thanks for watching!
Tags: compass and key, conjure, disney, folk magic, folklore, hoodoo, little mermaid, magic, new world witchery, sea witches, stories, tales, weather magic, witch, witchcraft, witchery
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Blog Post 210 – What is New World Witchery?, Part VI (Witches Have a LOT of Talents)
This is the last post in a series in which I've attempted to outline a loose set of categorical criteria that might offer the hint of a shape to what I've termed "New World Witchery." So far, I've already looked at some of the ways that history, folklore, and contemporary behavior come together to form what we've termed "New World Witchery." If you're just starting with this series here, you might want to flip back the pages of this dusty old tome on the bookshelf and read the first of these posts on "What is New World Witchery, Part I (Irrational Pragmatism)." There are other posts that follow, on topics like the moral implications of practical folk magic in North America, and the spiritual entities that seem to hover at the edges of (or stand smack in the center of) New World magical practices, the physical "things" of North American witchcraft, and the processes by witches gain their magical experience and knowledge. You can certainly start here, though, and go where you wish, and let your intuition act as a compass for these explorations.
As I enter into this final segment, I should note that it will likely raise as many questions as it answers (if not more), but I believe that to be a good thing. If I say, for example, that witch-flight is a talent for some witches in the stories I cite, that inevitably leads to questions about which witches (hah!) do not fly, why some do and some don't, and just what do I mean by "flight" anyway? The benefit to leaving these questions only loosely sketched out is that they invite further investigation. They prompt more reading, more interviews, more questions, more experiments, and more questions (again)! Those don't have to be questions on my part alone, either, but can easily be questions that you explore for yourself (and hopefully share your findings with us, as that makes everyone's knowledge a little bit better). Some of the points I raise below will be interesting to particular readers and less interesting to others. That's fantastic, because it means you can explore just what interests you while still seeing it as part of a bigger whole. There's room around the cauldron for just about every type of witch, I think Which brings me to the final point in my rather over-stuffed taxonomy of New World Witchery.
Publicity photo of American actress, Margaret Hamilton and American Muppet, Oscar the Grouch promoting the February 10, 1976 premiere of Episode #0847 of Sesame Street. (via Wikimedia Commons)
Witches Have a LOT of Talents
When you picture your example of a "witch" in your head, you are likely seeing something different than what others around you see in terms of precise elements, but at the same time you could likely extract that image (by magic if that's one of your many skills) and show it to others, and at least a few people would say "Oh, yes! That's most certainly a witch!" Leaving aside the potential aesthetic elements such as the black pointy hat or cat and cauldron, you could also likely describe a person "casting a spell," "flying at night," and "summoning the dead" (or other spirits as has already been discussed) and you would evoke something that others recognized as a "witch." You might also mention full moon rituals, or the creation of herbal healing salves, or perhaps the dispelling of ghosts with piles of burning flora or a chant in an unfamiliar tongue and similarly draw forth the word "witch" from someone's lips. A woman at a coffee shop, quietly reading tarot cards in the corner? A teenage woman lighting candles and whispering a spell to make herself feel beautiful? A young man inscribing circles and lines on the ground in chalk, muttering in Latin? The mother of a friend who leaves salt lines across her doorstep and a broom turned up in the corner when the landlord visits? Some of these may say "witch" to you, and some may skirt the edge of that word. Some of these examples may fully slide by without ever even registering as "witchy" to you, but you might be able to think of a friend who would instantly label them that way.
A Witch, by E.R. Hughes (1902) (via Wikimedia Commons)
Whatever the case, we understand that witches do a lot of different things, even while we also understand that many of the things we see witches doing seem to be part of a spectrum of behaviors we identify as "witchcraft" or "magic." In stories, witches do things like pass on secret magical artifacts or turn people into animals. In history, we find people called witches who told fortunes (like Dorcas Hoar in Salem), healed their neighbors (as in the case of Grace Sherwood), or even seemed to have no direct connection to magic at all until their death (as in the case of "Old Kate Batts," better known as the Bell Witch). Trying to pin down every single talent we see in narratives about witchcraft would generate a list that grinds even the sharpest of pencils into a worn nub, while still leaving copious room at the bottom of the page for all that I've missed. Still, I can assemble a broadly inclusive set of practices that I have seen repeated in my research that might at least put a pin in key locations throughout the spectrum of witchy doings. So just what is a North American witch capable of?
Casting Spells – This may seem obvious, but it really shouldn't. There have been several examples where the active casting of spells has not been a main characteristic in a witch story (for example, several of the cases involved in the Salem trials were almost explicitly focused on demonic and spectral visitations that tormented victims, and so the accused "witches" were not necessarily seen as spell-casters but night-wraiths). Given those few exceptions, however, we do see the active use of intentional magic (a definition I will return to later) in myriad tales, legends, and accounts of witchcraft. Whether it's the act of burning candles, rubbing someone with eggs, or even "fixing" a luck charm of some kind for someone else's use, witches often work magic through specific spells (and as I've noted, those spells often involve "things" as well).
Witch-Flight – Again, not all witches in not all stories share this characteristic. The use of the word "flight" is also tricky and will require further exploration but taking it to mean any form of travel through the air, whether in body or spirit, we do see a lot of witches participating in this kind of magic. Interestingly, lots of stories involve other non-witches gaining the power of flight by following the rituals of the witches they observe, only to find themselves in hot water when the effects wear off and they don't know what to do (or how to get out of the wine cellar they're suddenly trapped in).
Using Magical Objects – I've touched on this extensively in the section on the physical "things" of witchcraft, and we've discussed the nature of magical objects in the everyday world quite a lot as well. Creating or empowering talismans or charms, using cards or coins or bones to read a future, or tying up someone's good luck (or reproductive functions) with a bit of cord all feature in multiple narratives of witchcraft, so it's worth repeating. Magical objects are often crafted, of course, in every sense of the word, but a number of witches also repurpose the objects around them or even purchase magical artifacts and tools for their use, none of which makes them any less of a witch.
Harming and Cursing – If we are to listen to the stories and not simply dismiss them out of hand, a great number of witches are engaged in the practice of cursing, hexing, and magical theft. Crucially, they often have very good reasons for acting the way they do, including responding to a community's failure to treat its members equitably or fairly, making witchcraft an informal method of "justice."
Healing and Blessing – We have simply massive quantities of stories in which witches do their worst to those who earn their ire, but we also have more stories than you can shake a black cat at featuring a witch doing something helpful or kind for someone (even if it is done in a somewhat grudging way). Witches may execute justice on behalf of someone left out of the community, or offer a healing ointment, or even remove curses placed by other witches. One of the most common talents of those practicing magic is finding lost objects or even treasure, for example, which is a service rather than a curse. The New World Witch has complex motivations and her actions require a lot of context, it seems.
Suffering – If you think of the stereotypical folktale featuring a witch, she often winds up getting the bum end of the dea She gets shoved into an oven, hung on an old tree, burned in the town square, or swallowed up by the forces of hell. She loses a hand while transformed into a cat or gets tortured because she has a pet rat and people don't understand that choice, or she gets scalded with hot liquid because she happened to be siphoning off some milk from a nearby farmstead (okay, that last one may be more about the repurcussions of theft than any particular act of cruelty by the neighboring farmers). Witches, however, seem to take the brunt of abuse in the stories where they are present. Their spells get reversed or undone, and they wind up the worse for casting them, even to the point of (frequent) death.
Surviving – Even in death, however, witches carry on. They may engage with the dead and the spirit world their whole lives only to become one of those spirits in the beyond. Tales of witches returning from the grave to seek revenge, as reputedly happened in the case of the Bell Witch of Tennessee or Mother Hicks of Maine, are many. Witches don't go away easily, and almost never go down without a fight.
Illustration of a witch, John D. Batten (1892) (via Wikimedia Commons)
As I stated earlier, this is hardly an exhaustive or even particularly detailed list, but it does provide some ideas about the ways we perceive witches in stories and the ways we understand what they do. A witch is likely to engage in an act of magical theft as a response to poverty, then be caught and punished for her spells, and finally return from the grave for vengeance. Or, she might quietly cast spells and divine fortunes with cards, finding lost goods and livestock as a nervous client sits in front of her.
Our understanding of witches is shaped by their actions and behaviors far more than by the pointy hat or the bubbly cauldron, even though we often signal the idea of "witch" with those sorts of symbolic cues. Seeing these behaviors in combination helps us to see the emerging "witch" of legend and history as an active participant in her own story rather than just a victim of mislabeling by the ignorant around her (although there are certainly plenty of cases of that happening, too).
Weather vane with witch (photo by Jordiferrer, 2014, CC License-Wikimedia)
As I move forward with this website and all its related projects, I hope that these posts will be ones that we can return to as to a crossroads, with a giant post full of various arrow signs giving us all sorts of potential directions to go. We have seen the ways witches engage with the world around them here. The problems they face, they face with practical—if not necessarily logical—approaches, using magic as a specialized tool for overcoming barriers including poverty or injustice (as well as exacting personal vendettas sometimes). They understand the world to be a wonderful one—not necessarily a "good" one, but a world inhabited by the uncanny and awe-inspiring. Witches engage with that wonder, form bonds with it and with the world it shows them. Witches go beyond wonder and belief, transforming their ideas into concrete reality through spells and charms, knotted cords, bones and skins from animals, and handfuls of gathered plants. They acquire their power and knowledge through struggle and effort, often developing it over a lifetime and passing it on to others sometime before they die. They do magic, cast spells, deal with curses, provide blessings, bewitch guns and cattle, find missing animals, brew love potions, get blamed when things go wrong (sometimes because they did, indeed, have something to do with it), transform into animals, suffer for their work, and often pay very high prices for the magic they do.
The life of a New World Witch, then, is one of action. Witches do work. Witches solve problems. Witches learn and grow. Witches make things. Witches talk to things that others don't or won't talk to. Witches see the world differently, and it changes them. Then, they change the world.
I look forward to seeing all the things that you all do with your magic. Please continue to share your own acts of witchery and enchantment with us and help all of us here to summon forth a little more New World Witchery in the years to come.
Categories: History & Lore
Tags: academic, cursing, folk magic, folklore, hexing, justice, magic, new world witchery, north american, stories, witch, witchcraft, witchery
Blog Post 209 – Gunpowder
It's hard to miss the sounds of constant explosions overhead near a number of U.S. cities during the first week of July. The Independence Day celebrations are loud, full of the sounds of wailing guitars at outdoor concerts, screams at amusement parks, and of course, the smoky shrieks and bangs of fireworks overhead. Canada Day, celebrated July 1st, is also a reason to break out the big bangs and send rockets into the sky. The substance fueling much of the fun at these celebrations is gunpowder. A volatile but useful blend of potassium nitrate (or "saltpeter"), charcoal, and sulphur, gunpowder was first developed by the Chinese in the Sung Dynasty over a thousand years ago, when rulers quickly found celebratory and military applications for the new alchemical mixture.
While incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands, gunpowder has also become a ubiquitous part of human life for better or worse, and that includes in the realms of folk magic. Today I'm sharing a few examples of the way that folk magicians in North America have found uses for gunpowder that rely upon its explosive properties to create uncanny results. A NOTE: Please do not take anything in this post as advice. Messing with gunpowder is, as already stated, DANGEROUS. Everything presented here is offered as folklore and history, and not as any sort of endorsement of the behavior described.
So how have practitioners historically put gunpowder to use? As you might have guessed, the destructive qualities of black powder have been a major part of its magical applications. According to several variations of folk spells in the regions running from the northern Appalachian Mountains down into the Gulf of Mexico delta and a bit west of the Mississippi, it has several uses. Gunpowder combined with lodestone and red pepper can be turned into a mojo that will increase business. Added to foods, it also has the power to increase potency, as one hoodoo recommendation involves feeding gunpowder to a guard dog to make him vicious (DON'T DO THIS). One Pennsylvania pow-wow remedy for treating urinary disease in horses involves mixing gunpowder with flour, gentian, and calamus and feeding it to the animal until the disease clears. Perhaps one of the most surprising applications is in the area of women's reproductive health, where gunpowder was once believed to stimulate expulsive contractions, with results varying depending on when the woman used the remedy. Harry M. Hyatt found that gunpowder was used as an abortifacient to induce miscarriage in Adams County, Illinois, including a topical remedy that required a woman to rub her breasts with it every night until the desired outcome occurred. A belief from the mountainous area of eastern Kentucky says that a small dose of gunpowder given right before birth will help to ease the labor, as well.
Most hoodoo and Southern conjure-based magical applications incorporate the magical properties of the particular ingredients, especially the bad luck-breaking power of sulphur, as a component of the spell. Mixed with ingredients like salt and sugar, it can be turned into bathing scrubs that take off negative effects in hurry. In some cases, only the ingredients (usually sulphur but sometimes saltpeter as well) would be added to a bath, and in other accounts, gunpowder itself would be added to other components to actively destroy the harmful effects of a curse, as in this example from Hyatt's five-volume collection of (mostly) African American magical practices [dialect left mostly intact from Hyatt's transcriptions]:
Mah husband , he wus witchcraft heah a little before Christmas , an' when he begin , he begin as a chills-an' fevah. An' course I didn't know, you know, right then…an' I had [the] doctor…They say he had the flu. An' so he wusn't whut you call real, you know, sick like a medical doctor [says], you know. The medicine he give 'im—he give 'im medicine an' it didn't seem to do him no good. So his mind led' im that he knew it wusn't pure sickness. So I had my fortune told an' it…wusn't pure natural. So they fixed 'im—a root doctor fixed him some medicine. An' it holp him, too; but you see, jis' like they put [something] down for yah, all the medicine you take it won't cure you. So I had someone to come to pick it [an object she found] up. I don't know exac'ly wut it wus, but it was down under the—kin'a in the south part of the house an' right in the middle, jis' like you walk over it. An' this filth, of course you have to step in it. An' they [the root doctor] taken it up, an' after takin' it up, you know, they kill it. They kill it with salt. An' then I had to—after takin' it up they put salt on it, wash it off, an' put it in a paper an' let it dry. Then I had to take it an' put lye, an' sulphur, red pepper, an' gunpowder, put it in a quart up an' put a quart of water in it an' boil it [every] bit of the water out it, right dry, an' then take an' [carry] it to a runn' water an', you know, put it in. That's called, that's turnin' back on the one that did it.
One of the best (and most explosive applications) involves mixing gunpowder and other ingredients with an enemy's footprint, then lighting the mixture on fire and watching it explode. This supposedly causes them to leave town in a hurry (possibly due to the strange explosions they keep hearing). Because it contains sulphur, variations on the hexing compound known as "Goopher Dust" can also have gunpowder mixed in. Mixed with other repelling herbs like asafetida the gunpowder could be worn in shoes or carried in a pouch around a person's neck to ward off harm. Jason Miller's Protection and Reversal Magick mentions a "jinx-breaker" mojo bag a person can carry which has sulpher and saltpeter (and thus everything but the charcoal in gunpowder) as well as lemongrass. Miller doesn't specifically mention using gunpowder, but it is likely that some extant variations of the hand would use it as a necessary substitution.
Of course, gunpowder's application in celebrations can also have a magical or spiritual significance. Spinning fire-wheels powered by gunpowder fireworks are often used in ceremonies honoring the dead or unseen spirits. The Urglaawe Heathen tradition uses such a "Catherine Wheel" in its Sunneraad (Yuletide) celebrations, and similar wheels can be found in Mexican Dia de los Muertos festivities. Similarly, many Appalachian people would celebrate the arrival of the New Year by "shooting in" the day with live ammunition fired into the air, which was also thought to induce good luck or scare away bad luck. Shooting in also happened in cities, where it could pose a significant safety threat, and often those not directly participating would sequester themselves indoors to avoid the "Calithumpian" revelries which also included costumes, masks, and a lot of heavy drinking. In some Vodoun rituals, celebrants may make the veve designs of a particular loa out of gunpowder, especially if that loa is "hot" in nature, such as the Petro spirits. In other cases, gunpowder may be specifically avoided to prevent inciting spirits to become destructive or to avoid any potential spiritual insults.
Gunpower was also sometimes employed to spark a sudden or rapid change in less personal conditions as well, for example in weather magic. In American Folklore: An Encyclopedia, the author notes that out in the frequently dry prairie areas of North America such as Nebraska and Kansas, "professional 'rainmakers' sought to earn their pay by firing explosions from balloons, building large, smoky fires, or setting off gunpowder explosions from high peaks" during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In most cases, the essential magical nature of gunpowder is driven by one of two factors: its ability to explode on ignition or its ingredients' magical properties. Many applications, such as the jinx-breaking in the hoodoo examples, rely on a mixture of both aspects: a symbolic rapid change and the physical presence or properties of the sulphur and saltpeter (the charcoal seldom gets a mention, but its "neutralizing" nature seems to be a good fit, too). The abortifacient uses of gunpowder also could be an extension of these characteristics. One of the most interesting things about gunpowder is its relative predicatibility for an explosive substance (as opposed to say, nitroglycerin, which can be incredibly volatile). Gunpowder is even used to create artworks in seriously cool ways because it can be controlled. At the same time, this substance continues to be dangerous, causing more than a few lost digits or limbs every year during July celebrations and fueling firearms that can do immense damage to life and property. In some ways, gunpowder is almost a perfect metaphor for folk magic more generally—deployed with intention and thought, it can do wonderful things, but carelessly handled it can cause irreparable harm.
So as the fireworks are booming overhead during this first week of July in North America, I hope you will look up at the bright and beautiful patterns and think about some of the magic in them that goes beyond the visual awe and glamor. Although, if you prefer to "ooh" and "aah" at them instead, I can hardly blame you.
Brunvand, Jan, ed. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Press, 1996.
Davis, Susan G. Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1986.
Corbett, Bob. "Eshin-Fun Answers: African Religion Syncretism." Webster University Website (http://faculty.webster.edu/corbetre/haiti/voodoo/syncretism.htm).
Hohman, John George, and Daniel Harms, ed. The Long-Lost Friend: A 19th-Century American Grimoire, Llewellyn, 2012.
Hyatt, Harry M. The Folklore of Adams County, Illinois. New York: Alma Egan Hyatt Foundation, 1935.
—. Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, Rootwork (5 Vols.). New York: Alma Egan Hyatt Foundation, 1970.
Miller, Jason. Protection and Reversal Magick. Franklin Lakes, NJ: New Page Books, 2006.
Milnes, Gerald C. Signs, Cures, & Witchery. Knoxville, Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2007.
Randolph, Vance. Ozark Magic and Folklore. Dover Publications, 1964.
Schreiwer, Robert L. "Yuletide Sunneraad 2017." Urglaawe: Deitsch-Pennsylvania German Heathenry Website. (http://urglaawe.blogspot.com/2017/12/yuletide-sunneraad-2017.html).
Thomas, Daniel, and Lindsey Thomas. Kentucky Superstitions. Charleston, SC: Nabu Press, 2012 (reprint).
yronwode, catherine. Hoodoo Herb and Root Magic. Forestville, CA: Lucky Mojo Curio Co., 2002.
Tags: Appalachians, conjure, folk magic, gunpowder, holidays, hoodoo, magic, magical ingredients, new world witchery, root work, witch, witchcraft, witchery
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SEE Exam Routine 2074, SLC Exam Routine 2074, SEE Final Exam Routine 2017
0 0 Lumbini Media Friday, December 1, 2017
The SEE exam 2074 will be held from Chaitra 2074 morning 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM. The time table for SEE/SLC exam 2074 has been released after organizing the press conference with the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE), Sanothimi, Bhaktapur.
The SEE exam 2074 will be held from Chaitra 2074 morning 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM. The time table for SEE/SLC exam 2074 has been released after organizing the press conference with the Office of the Controller of Examinations (OCE), Sanothimi, Bhaktapur. Normally the office of controller examination used to conduct SEE exam in first week of Chaitra. According to routine SEE examination is going to start from Chaitra, 2074. Here is the full routine of SEE Exam 2074. SEE Exam time table is very important for students appearing in SEE exam. As mention in the SEE routine the secondary level board exam will be completed within ten days. According to the information given in SEE Routine 2074 board exam of both the general and technical stream takes place at the same time. For further information about SEE routine 2074, you can check the official site of Office of the Controller of Examinations soce.gov.np
What is Secondary Education Examination (SEE) Exam?
Secondary Education Examination (SEE) which was previously known as SLC (School Leaving Certificate). The School Leaving Certificate, popularly abbreviated as SLC, is the final examination in the secondary school system of Nepal. As the new Education Act 2016 (2073) has been implemented, the SLC examination will be take place in Grade 10 as national level examinations whereas examination of Grade 10 will be known as Secondary Education Examination (SEE). Every student must take this examination for completing the 10th grade of their study, before they join higher secondary or intermediate level education (12th grade). The SLC or SEE examination is normally scheduled in April to June of every year. It was known as the "iron gate" in Nepal. In educational system of Nepal of building an academic career.
When is SEE Exam in 2074
SEE exam routine 2074 will start from Chaitra, 2074 morning 8:00 AM to 11:00 AM.
SEE Exam Routine 2074
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


To introduce and familiarize ourselves to writings and analysis of Afro-American and Caribbean authors from the black community.
The choice of the authors is made by IDHES and the members of the club.
The session has 15 minutes of presentation followed by 45 minutes of discussion.
The presentation is made by a member who volunteered or by the author himself/herself when possible.
The 2nd Friday of each month from 6 pm to 7:30 pm.
Certain of these books are available for purchase at IDHES Novels Books.
Yearly sign ups from October to May.


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Jack Todd: The sound of silence in Montreal seems post-apocalyptic
The city feels drained of its vitality from COVID-19 on this Sunday morning, leaden and weary under a greying sky that threatens rain.
Jack Todd • Special to Montreal Gazette
Apr 06, 2020 • Last Updated April 6, 2020 • 4 minute read
The sidewalks of St-Paul St. in the heart of Old Montreal are empty on March 19, 2020, because of the COVID-19 crisis. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette
It's early Sunday morning on Rue de la Commune at the Old Port and the emptiness is astonishing.
Even at 8 a.m., it feels post-apocalyptic. In 30 minutes looking around near Bonsecours Market, I see only one civilian automobile go by and a handful of walkers and joggers.
La Grande Roue de Montréal, the huge (and hugely expensive) ferris wheel in the Old Port, isn't turning. It's supposed to open April 16 but it won't. It may not turn all summer. Nothing else is turning, either.
When I listen, I hear something you don't hear in cities: silence. Cities are never silent. Never, day or night, no matter the weather. There is always a throb and thrum somewhere but on this morning three weeks into the great lockdown, it is silent. I hear nothing at all but the cries of the wheeling gulls.
There are walkers out here and there, the occasional jogger. Most of the walkers have dogs. Even they are few and far between. The average social distance this morning is about four blocks.
A cop cruises by, turns and parks down the way. An old man toting a bag pauses and talks to the cop from a distance of about 15 feet. Another cop pulls up next to the first, then a third police car. They sit three abreast, talking. They aren't blocking traffic because there is no traffic to block — there are more police cars on duty than there are people to police.
This is not Montreal. We are gregarious, out-and-about people, rarely rushed. Two glasses of wine folk, always with time for a second cup of coffee. We are masters of dawdling, skilled loiterers, connoisseurs of the convivial pause.
But the city feels drained of its vitality on this Sunday morning, leaden and weary under a greying sky that threatens rain. Abandoned to the gulls and pigeons. Even the statue of the Virgin as Star of the Sea atop Bonsecours Chapel holds her arms raised as if in benediction — but with the palms turned outward, as though she is trying to ward off some invisible threat.
I leave the Old Port to the cops and the wheeling gulls and head up the Main. Even the usual group of homeless men outside the Old Brewery is missing but farther along, a lone panhandler is working the corner. These are tough times for panhandlers, because there is no one around to fill that cup.
Out of curiosity, I decide to take a stroll along de la Gauchetière through Chinatown. It is nearly as empty as de la Commune and in far worse shape. Peeling posters droop off walls onto the ground. Mounds of garbage are strewn here and there.
Outside a sprawling Chinese eatery where we sometimes stop for bubble tea, a lone man wearing a mask shuffles back and forth as though on sentry duty. One hundred feet in this direction, one hundred feet back. I give him a bit more than social distance and carry on.
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The worst of it is in Parc Sun Yat-Sen. There is garbage everywhere. Two homeless men are asleep under parkas on benches, one of them with an impressive array of gear strewn all around him. A lone man in a red maple-leaf tuque comes walking through and kicks furiously at a seagull pecking at the garbage. Another sits alone on a bench, grooving to music from some invisible source.
"How are you doing?" I ask.
"It's ——- cold!" he says. "Got a cigarette?"
"Spare change?"
"Don't have a dime."
It's true. If I had any he would be welcome to it. He turns his back in disgust. No cigarettes, no money. In his world, I am utterly useless.
I carry on up the Main. The spine of Montreal, after all, is the Main, not the traffic sewer of the Décarie. I pass Schwartz's Deli, Moishe's Steakhouse where I have never eaten, the Slovenian market where we used to buy klobasa, the dozens of shuttered restaurants.
At Bernard Ave, I decide that I have seen enough of my silent city. I have no doubt that it will come throbbing to life again or that it would livelier later in the day even now — but I have chosen a time when I can keep my distance.
Still, I feel as though I've had a glimpse of a post-apocalyptic world, of a day when we are gone and our cities are left to the gulls and the pigeons, with no one to chase them away.
jacktodd46@yahoo.com
twitter.com/jacktodd46
Note to readers: We know the speed and volume of coronavirus-related news is overwhelming and a little frightening. To help with that, we will dedicate a Montreal Gazette reporter each day to devote their time to synthesizing the most important coronavirus-related news, especially as it relates to life in Montreal and Quebec. Follow their updates on April 5 right here. All our coronavirus-related news can always be found here: montrealgazette.com/tag/coronavirus.
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Q: Web.config partial search and replace I have App.config file in C# application.
I want to partially replace all Keys matching ".UAT" with ".PROD" using xdt tranform.
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    <add key="MyParam1.UAT" value="param1"/>
    <add key="MyParam2.UAT" value="param2"/>
    <add key="MyParam2.UAT" value="param3"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

Here is the output I want
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
        <appSettings>
            <add key="MyParam1.PROD" value="param1"/>
            <add key="MyParam2.PROD" value="param2"/>
            <add key="MyParam2.PROD" value="param3"/>
          </appSettings>
        </configuration>

So far I've tried this using CustomTransform but it replaces only one element instead of all element. How can i get this to replace all elements
    <?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- For more information on using web.config transformation visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125889 -->
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">

<appSettings>
    <add xdt:Locator="Condition(contains(@key, '.UAT'))" xdt:Transform="AttributeRegexReplace(Attribute='key', Pattern='.UAT',Replacement='.PROD')" />
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

A: I found the answer here where I had to replace the Apply method with this method that iterates over all attributes
protected override void Apply()
{
    foreach (XmlNode target in this.TargetNodes)
    {
        foreach (XmlAttribute att in target.Attributes)
        {
            if (string.Compare(att.Name, this.AttributeName, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) == 0)
            { // get current value, perform the Regex
                att.Value = Regex.Replace(att.Value, this.Pattern, this.Replacement);
            }
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Costa del Sol News - 6th August 2010
Nerja palm tree owners get council reminder
The red palm weevil has caused the destruction of thousands of palm trees along the coast
LOCAL gardeners in Nerja have been warned that they are responsible for checking the health of palm trees on their land and are obliged to pay for the treatment of any found to have been infected by the destructive red Palm weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus).
The insect originates from southeast Asia and Polynesia and has spread along the coast, now effecting Motril, Salobreña, Molvizar and Almuñécar in Granada plus Nerja, Frigiliana, Torrox and Vélez-Málaga in Málaga.
The town hall issued a reminder last week that gardeners who have, or plan to have, palm trees should be aware of changes to the Junta de Andalucía's legislation to try and stop the damage. All related costs including pruning, treatment against infection and the chopping up and removal of the palm are the responsibility of the owner, it says.
Anyone who finds an infected tree is instructed to contact an authorised garden company to dispose of it correctly.
An information sheet also warns that if the Guardia Civil's environmental arm Seprona discovers an infected tree which has not been reported, officers will arrange for its disposal and recover the full costs from the owner.
Air chaos looms
Spanish air traffic controllers vote to go on strike later this month
USCA secretary César Cabo announces strike (Photo:EFE)
SUMMER holiday plans are set to be thrown into chaos for millions after Spanish air traffic controllers voted for an official strike later this month. On Tuesday, they overwhelmingly decided to stop work as part of a continuing dispute over working conditions.
It will be the first time that the country's air traffic controllers have ever taken such industrial action and the move will cause disruption at the height of the summer holiday season. Over 2,000 of Spain's 2,300 controllers participated in Tuesday's ballot and more than 98 per cent of them voted in favour of stopping work.
Their trades union, USCA, did not immediately confirm the start date or duration of the strike but it is expected to be a three day stoppage scheduled after the holiday weekend of August 14 and 15. The government is expected to order the controllers to maintain a "minimum" service level, which in the case of recent strikes on Spanish railways, has resulted in more than half the schedule being operated.
The dispute began when the government, immersed in an austerity programme to reduce a huge budget deficit, called for controllers' pay to be reduced. Last year, their average annual salary was 350,000 euros with the top earner being paid 900,000 euros. Thirty more earned over 720,000 euros while 130 others were paid more than 600,000 euros.
Hunt on for English gunman
The Spanish police have issued an international arrest warrant for Darren O'Flaherty
JUST OVER a week has passed since Irish holidaymaker John O'Neill was gunned down at Coco's Bar in Benalmádena.
His family have said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he has been described in the Irish Times as being a kind person with no criminal connections.
The Spanish National Police are searching for 40-year-old Darren O'Flaherty in connection with the shooting.
John O'Neill was holidaying with his wife and two children for the first time ever outside their native country. They had come to the Costa del Sol to attend a friend's wedding on the coast.
Many of the late night revellers in the area were witnesses to the crime and have come forward to give evidence about what took place in the early hours of last Wednesday.
According to the National Police the incident started in the toilets of the bar where there was a confrontation over a locked bathroom door between the alleged slayer and his 41-year-old victim. This led to a row in the bar between the British and Irish group who were celebrating a wedding.
When O'Flaherty left the Irish group thought the fracas was over. But he allegedly returned to the bar with a handgun some 30 minutes later, opening fire as he entered the bar terrace and premises. Only John O'Neill was fatally hit. He tried to escape the scene but collapsed at a nearby bus stop.
Málaga's public comment on prostitution controls closes
Associations applaud the initiative but are skeptical that action will be taken
THE PERIOD of public consultation on proposed new legislation which includes controls on prostitution in Málaga closed on Tuesday.
Businesses based on the city's industrial estates and local residents' associations are amongst those who submitted opinions to the town hall.
One of the worst affected areas is the Guadalhorce industrial estate and the local association representing such parks, Apoma, has proposed that the text specifically prohibits the offering, acceptance and exercising of prostitution in these places and in other public areas.
Apoma's president, Ana María López, said it was an excellent opportunity to provide a legal instrument which could include sanctions for such conduct, and made it clear that she believed the concept of open space in the city should include its industrial estates. She has also called for a ban on burning waste on bonfires in public areas as well as the end of illegal sales of fresh produce on the estates, especially, she alleged, by the proprietors of Chinese businesses.
In the city centre, the Alameda de Colón area is known to attract prostitutes and their clients. Residents have now called for more controls with demands for a total ban near schools, housing and public or commercial centres. Some said that, while they were not calling for it to be completely outlawed, it should only be permitted in zones which are far from residential areas where it does not create a problem for local people.
Several respondents pointed out that other Spanish cities have managed to control the issues raised by uncontrolled prostitution with fines for those caught in public places and question why Málaga cannot follow suit.
However, Apoma's Ana María López was quoted this week as commenting, "It's a question of wanting to do it."
24 arrested in break-up of Costa card fraud gang
Shop and business owners were recruited by the gang and given a 50 per cent share of the proceeds
POLICE HAVE arrested 24 people linked with shops, restaurants, brothels and other establishments that allegedly colluded with bankcard falsifiers to make bogus charges. The Interior Ministry says the gang, centred in Alhaurín el Grande but operating throughout the Costa area, may have rung up as much as 3.5 million euros in fraudulent charges.
The investigation was launched in July of last year after officers received information pointing to the presence of an organised card-cloning gang in Alhaurín. In a first phase of the operation officers arrested seven alleged members of the cloning outfit, and collected information that allowed them to track down the businesses that worked with the gang and shared the profits on the bogus charges.
The 24 new arrests include the owners or managers of businesses ranging from designer clothes shops to brothels, from real estate agents to tobacconists.
Officials say the businesses, which were recruited by the cloners and were given a 50 per cent share of the proceeds, helped the gang get wireless GPRS card-swiping terminals so that they could perform the illicit operations from their car, without even having to go inside the establishment. The gang leader would drive his sports car around different towns, stopping near the partner businesses and ringing up charges.
David Cameron to holiday in Ronda
Both the British Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, will be in Spain this summer
FOLLOWING the excitement that the US President's wife, Michelle Obama, would be holidaying on the Costa del Sol with one of her daughters comes the news that the British Prime Minister will be in the Ronda area.
David Cameron and his wife Samantha are no strangers to the Serranía de Ronda having visited the area on past occasions. Just where they are staying and what they'll be doing has not been revealed but security will be heightened in the area to protect him and his family.
Cameron's past visits to the area went largely unreported by the Spanish media as he was then only the leader of the opposition. One place he was seen was at the Bar Alliolli in Estación de Jimera de Libar.
The British owner Paul Darwent said Cameron had been out walking with his wife and called in for a cold drink and a coffee.
He has invited the Prime Minister to the Fiesta de la Cerveza in October but Cameron politely declined because of official duties.
As Samantha Cameron is now heavily pregnant and given the high summer temperatures walking in the sun is an unlikely past time on this trip. It is rumoured that they will be staying with friends in the Gaucín area and are also expected to visit Ronda where they have dined previously at its internationally famous Tragabuches restaurant.
Guardia Civil officers rewarded for ticketing drivers
Union says 'bizarre' points-for-fines scheme pushes officers to issue more tickets
A TRADE union representing Guardia Civil officers has reacted angrily to the introduction of a points system to measure officers' efficiency - and that could push them to issue more tickets to drivers. The AUGC said on Saturday that the Interior Ministry's "bizarre" plan was "absolutely irresponsible."
The system being introduced this month will award points to an officer when a ticket is issued. While offering roadside assistance will win an officer just one point, ticketing a motorist for breaching road safety rules gains two points, while fines issued to drivers of heavy vehicles, buses and taxis will generate four points for the officer. Identifying a drunk driver is worth nine points.
The AUGC was highly critical of the scheme, arguing that some officers who wish to prove their effectiveness may be tempted to put more effort into chasing tickets than into their principal functions of maintaining road safety and helping motorists in trouble. The association, which represents the majority of Guardia Civil officers, claimed the ministry's decision was a reaction to a fall of 70 per cent in the number of tickets issued by its members during June, compared with the same month last year. The situation arose through the so-called 'downed pens strike' when officers deliberately reduced the number of tickets issued as part of a campaign to improve their working conditions and salaries to bring them into line with other police forces.
The union said that in May and June, road accident deaths were down 12.9 per cent on the previous year, and claimed this demonstrates that the ministry's scheme is all about generating money, not reducing accidents, and is designed to dissuade officers from holding strikes or work stoppages.
However, the AUGC said that despite the ministry's "irresponsibility" officers would continue to "follow their conscience," because helping people is the priority "in whatever circumstances."
Spain is number two in EU for traffic death reduction
Road death toll slashed by 54 per cent in last decade
SAY WHAT you will about Spanish drivers, but over the last decade Spain has reduced its traffic death rate by more than any other country in the European Union save Latvia, and now has a one of the lowest road fatality rates in the EU.
The statistics were released last week by the EC's Road Safety Commission as it outlined its strategies for halving road deaths throughout the EU by 2020.
Between 2001 and 2009 Spain slashed its traffic fatality rate by 54 per cent, from 136 per million inhabitants to 58. That puts it well below the EU average of 69 deaths per million inhabitants in 2009 (down 36 per cent from 2001), while just eight of the EU-27 member countries post lower rates.
The UK had the lowest road death figure, at 38 per million (down 35 per cent from 2001), followed by Sweden and the Netherlands, each at 39 per million. The worst countries were Greece and Romania, each with 130 deaths per million, followed by Poland, at 120 per million.
In 2009 there were more than 35,000 road deaths throughout the EU, "the equivalent of a medium-size town," said officials. Further, for every death it is estimated there are four permanently disabling injuries such as damage to the brain or spinal chord, plus 10 serious injuries, and 40 minor injuries. The estimated economic cost to society is 130 billion euros a year.
Tourist arrivals up despite Brits failing to show
Andalucía is only mainland Spain destination to see increase in visitors
ANDALUCIA has posted a slight increase in foreign tourist arrivals during the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2009, despite the British market failing to resurge.
Andalucía, with a rise of 1.4 per cent to 3.35 million visitors, was the only region of mainland Spain to show an uptick in arrivals during the first half of the year, according to the figures released last week by Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce in its Frontur report. The only other Spanish destination to see a rise was the Canary Islands, with a jump of 2.8 per cent, while Spain as a whole recorded a drop of 1.8 per cent, to 23 million foreign arrivals.
However, the trend could be shifting as Andalucía posted small drop - 0.4 per cent - in June compared to the same month last year while the Spain-wide figure for the month was up 1.7 per cent.
Andalucía's tourism chief, Luciano Alonso, said the region's stronger performance in the first half of the year came thanks to increased arrivals from Germany and France, but he said he is confident the British market will ultimately come around as well, as British tourists have "always had a special relationship with Andalucía."
Spain-wide, British arrivals were down 12 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period of 2009.
Overall, Andalucía was the fourth most-visited region in Spain during the first six months of the year, attracting 14.5 per cent of all foreign tourists. It was behind Cataluña (5.8 million visitors), the Canary Islands (4.2 million) and the Balearic Islands (3.4 million).


text:
Home»MLB»Andrew McCutchen Is Going From MLB's "Saigon" Straight To The Top
Andrew McCutchen Is Going From MLB's "Saigon" Straight To The Top
J.R. Gamble April 15, 2013
Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Andrew McCutchen gets general–baller status in the MLB.
Problem is he plays in baseball's Saigon, where players are forgotten, "playoffs" is a curse word, and being referred to as "perennial laughing stocks" is considered a diplomatic description.
McCutchen is like the super-nice rapper in a room full of sucker MCs. The fifth-year stud did everything but roll the infield grass for the Pirates in '12. He led the NL in hits (194) and slugged 31 homers to accompany his robust .327 batting average. He's got a souped-up engine on the base paths and runs with bad intentions.
The diamond rock in his ear is the size of a jaw breaker and glistens under the PNC Park lights as he breezes towards home plate.
If Pittsburgh's franchise wasn't such a plague on baseball's good name, it might get more national TV burn and more people would undoubtedly be rocking McCutchen jerseys.
The dread-headed, five-tool basher from Fort Meade, Florida is doing all he can to flip the script. He already made hell freeze over when he signed a six-year $51 million extension last March rather than escaping "The Pitt of Hell" as other stars have done in the past.
It was a bold statement and a watershed moment in Pittsburgh's snail-paced return to respectability.
With a little luck, the Pirates may actually be good this year. Some analysts say, "winning-record good." More optimistic souls say "playoff good."
Either way, it's sad that the Pirates ever got to this point. Their loyal fan base deserves better.
The Pirates haven't had a winning season since Barry Bonds led them to three straight NL East crowns from '90-'92 playing in Three Rivers Stadium.
Pittsburg was once a flagship MLB franchise with legendary players such as Roberto Clemente and Willie Stargell.
Clemente and Stargell built Hall of Fame careers as integral parts of World Series-winning Pirates squads.
Clemente is a .317 career hitter with arguably the best right field cannon in history. The Puerto Rican legend led the Pirates to three straight NL East crowns ('70-'72) and World Series titles in '60 and '71, before tragically dying in a plane crash while transporting relief supplies to the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.
Stargell stood a menacing 6´4 and hit tape-measure bombs with frequency. He was an inspirational member of the Pirates' '71 title team and validated his HOF worthiness by hitting .400 in the playoffs and leading the "We Are Family" Pirates to an improbable chip in '79.
A 12-foot bronze statue of Stargell sits at the leftfield entrance to PNC Park, as a reminder of a time when the Pirates were top dogs in the MLB rat race.
Historically, this is no chump franchise. The tradition-rich Pirates played in the first World Series in 1903 and own five World Championships and nine pennants.
In the last two decades, Pittsburgh's baseball mojo has slowly faded into oblivion. The Pirates became an organization that no free-agent all-star would consider signing with.
They spiraled downward as casualties of the numbers game and a prime example of how franchises who field teams led by "short arms and deep-pocket" owners – the type of shifty characters WuTang's GZA warns about on "Protect Ya Neck" – end up letting all of their studs go, to keep the payroll low.
Instead of securing their high-priced vets, acquiring competent free-agent cats and making legitimate attempts to compete – certain MLB clubs endure years of brutal losing in hopes of eventually developing home-grown, cost effective, championship talent.
It's an incremental, painful, unfulfilling journey, as Pirates fans know.
In their case, the waiting turned into more waiting and Pittsburgh now holds the current MLB record for consecutive losing seasons with 20…and counting (they're 5-6 so far in '13).
Pittsburgh's futility makes McCutchen's accomplishments even more remarkable. He's mentioned among the best in the game just like his HOF predecessors of yester-year.
McCutchen's goals are admirable and almost Joan of Arc-ish. He plays like he believes his team has a shot. Unfortunately, he's fighting the reality of being a Pirate, which includes knowing before the season starts that you will be out of playoff contention by the All-Star break.
Favorable preseason press and fast starts in recent seasons have made losing all the more painful for dedicated and distraught Pirates' fans.
A winning record has been elusive, but don't expect McCutchen to fluster easily and become a malcontent. He already acknowledges Pittsburgh's front office hustle of the last few seasons, and it's undeniable that the team is blazing a new path.
McCutchen's rise to elite status coincides with the arrival of manager Clint Hurdle in '11 and GM Neal Huntington's savvy in transforming the Pirates into buyers instead of sellers, while sticking to the philosophy of developing the farm system.
Under "Big Clint," the Pirates have increased their win total each season from 57 wins in '10 to 72 wins in '11 and 79 last season. In fact, the Pirates have been amongst division leaders and had a winning record at the midway point the past two seasons.
Huntington's been doing his part to get them over the playoff hump.
The signings of free-agent veterans prior to last season, including ex-Yankee A.J. Burnett, signified the Pirates' new commitment to dropping coin.
It wasn't enough to get them to the playoffs, but the moves earned credit with McCutchen, who says this off-season's acquisitions of Mark Melancon, Francisco Liriano, Jonathan Sanchez and ex-Yankee Russell Martin are further proof of a commitment to change the losing culture in the 'Burgh.
"It used to be that people didn't want to get traded to the Pirates and people didn't want to come here unless they were trying to redeem their careers," McCutchen told S.I.com in March. "Now we've got guys who come here and want to be here. They see what we have and they want to be a part of it."
McCutchen's got to know something we don't. Why else would he pledge his allegiance to a muddy pile of black and yellow gunk unless he was sure it was going to sprout oil?
Sports are cyclical and no team stays bad forever.
The Pirates tested our belief in that philosophy to the fullest until McCutchen came on the scene like Shaft and turned the operation upside down.
If a Pittsburgh Pirate can get the cover of the MLB 2013 video game, then it's totally possible for that same Pirate to keep reinventing a new winning civilization for lost fans of a "baseball town" that forgot what it's like to play meaningful baseball in September.
Andrew McCutchen Pittsburgh Pirates
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Carlos Beltran Should Be Fired
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Young Child Struck By Ball At MLB Game May Have Permanent Brain Damage


text:
News > Medscape Medical News > Oncology News
CAR T-cell Therapy Causes Heavy Financial Losses for Hospitals
Roxanne Nelson, RN, BSN
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been hailed as a game changer for advanced blood cancers because the treatment has elicited responses and complete remissions in patients who have come to the end of approved treatment options. At the same time, however, these therapies have redefined the meaning of expensive.
The list prices of tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah, Novartis) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta, Kite/Gliead) range from $373,000 to $475,000, but this is just for the product; administration of the drug often entails hospital stays and other expenses.
These new agents appear to be a losing proposition for hospitals, which may lose up to $300,000 for each CAR-T treatment administered, note experts in a commentary published online November 1 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
These costs are not sustainable under the current Medicare payment policy, write Christopher R. Manz, MD, of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, Abramson Cancer Center in Philadelphia, and colleagues.
Although the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that there will be a modest increase next year in their New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) for CAR-T when the therapy is administered to hospitalized patients, this "quick fix" does not go far enough, the authors comment.
Heavy Losses
The delivery of CAR T-cell therapy is similar to that of other autologous stem cell transplants in that it is a multistep process involving cell harvesting, followed by processing, then some type of conditioning chemotherapy and cell infusion. Medicare reimbursement for the various steps of autologous cell transplant depends on whether it is administered in the hospital or in an outpatient setting.
But for CAR-T, the difference in reimbursement is dramatic. "Differences on the basis of inpatient versus outpatient administration — and the implications for patients, hospitals, and payers — are stark," the authors write.
In the inpatient setting, Medicare reimbursement is complex. Essentially, the maximum NTAP payments have been determined annually to be 50% of the cost of the technology. For CAR T-cell therapy, this is $186,500. Hospitals can then apply for the so-called outlier payments that offer reimbursement for part of the remaining costs, but less than 80% of it.
Under this system, hospitals stand to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars each time they administer CAR T cells. The American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy estimated that when using an NTAP rate of 50%, hospitals will lose $63,000 if they mark up their costs by 400%. If they increase their price by only 10%, the loss would be about $304,000 for each inpatient infusion.
For outpatients, Medicare reimbursement is currently about $290 for CAR T-cell infusion, but Medicare also provides separate reimbursement for the CAR-T drug under the Part B buy-and-bill system. In this system, hospitals buy medicines and then charge Medicare a rate that is 4.3% higher than the average sales price. The end result is a reimbursement of more than $16,000 above the CAR T-cell list price (ie, 4.3% of $373,000).
Needless to say, the "financial incentive for hospitals to administer CAR-T as an outpatient treatment is clear," say Manz and colleagues. But that may not be optimal for the patient, because the treatment carries risks of life-threatening complications that require immediate recognition and medical support, usually in intensive care.
Most patients do receive CAR T-cell therapy as inpatients, even though it can be administered safely as an outpatient procedure by experienced hospitals and for select patients, the authors note.
"These payment policies have strong and unintended effects," they write. "In the inpatient setting, the losses that hospitals incur providing CAR-T are unsustainable and may limit the number of hospitals that are willing to offer CAR-T, affecting patient access to these potentially life-saving therapies."
Two Solutions
In response to these reimbursement concerns, CMS plans to implement a new NTAP policy in 2020 that raises the cap on NTAP payments from 50% to 65%. This change will raise payment from $186,500 to $242,450.
Although this is a step in the right direction, the authors write, the impact may be weakened because the higher payment would be partially offset by reduced outlier payments for the facilities that receive them.
Even more important is that an NTAP increase is only a short-term solution, and the CAR-T products that are currently on the market will no longer be eligible for NTAP payments in 2021.
New financial solutions are needed, the authors emphasize, and they offer two proposals.
Their first suggestion is that CMS continue to pay costs for cell infusion under the current inpatient or outpatient protocols, but also provide a separate supplemental payment for the full cost of the CAR-T drug. This solution would effectively fix the new technology add-on payment for CAR-T at 100% for inpatients.
"The initial add-on payment could be on the basis of the average sales price of comparable CAR-T products, which places pressure on manufacturers to compete on price nationwide and is also the basis for outpatient reimbursement policy," they write.
In the outpatient setting, CMS already provides a supplemental payment through buy-and-bill reimbursement, but for high-priced items such as CAR-T, the 4.3% markup should be reduced or completely eliminated.
In their second proposal, the authors suggest that CMS bundle the cell infusion and CAR T-cell therapy costs by creating a new CAR-T–specific inpatient diagnosis-related group (DRG) or outpatient equivalent that would realistically reflect the average costs of this therapy. A new DRG may encourage price competition, they add.
However, Medicare neutrality requirements for inpatients mandate that the cost of a new DRG be offset by lower payments somewhere else, which could result in payment redistribution to specialized facilities that can administer CAR T-cell therapy. Another issue is that congressional action may be needed to implement either of these two proposals.
"As others have recently discussed, the increasing prevalence of high-priced new cancer therapies, including CAR-T, will ultimately require tough decisions about who can afford to access new technologies," Manz and colleagues conclude.
The original article contains a list of the authors' relevant financial relationships.
J Clin Oncol. Published online November 1, 2019. Full text
Cite this: CAR T-cell Therapy Causes Heavy Financial Losses for Hospitals - Medscape - Nov 14, 2019.
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text:
package org.cybergarage.xml;

public class ParserException extends Exception
{
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;

	public ParserException(Exception e)
	{
		super(e);
	}

	public ParserException(String s)
	{
		super(s);
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub