Desperate. Crystal this and that, robe something or the other, appauling stuff. I spent my youth in Shrewsbury and can tell you, it is a large town surrounded by villages with more non-religious venues than you can shake a stick at. I wish Paganism had a test you had to take before you got in. <not-entirely-ironic>

One of us, one of us, one of us.

From a UK perspective, Heather, you'e put your finger on it. It's simply *extraordinary* that abortion causes such hysteria anywhere, and particularly in the US, a country that has a developed education system. With all the wizz bang technology that comes out of the US, so many of its citizens seem to be wallowing in the Middle Ages - probably the same lot that yell about dragging Islam out of it or bombing it into the stone age. In the UK we have our own babbling snake jugglers but they're percieved as embarrasing and/ or on the verge of mental illness. How has it become so out of control in the US?