"Under the new Wollumbin Aboriginal Place Management Plan, the whole of the mountain is considered a 'men’s site.'..."

"'Wollumbin is interconnected to a broader cultural and spiritual landscape that includes Creation, Dreaming stories and men’s initiation rites of deep antiquity,' the group said.... However, local Ngarakbal Githabul women have said placing male-only gender restrictions on the site, as proposed in the plan, would 'dispossess' Indigenous women with deep spiritual connections to the area. Stella Wheildon, a north coast Indigenous woman, told The Daily Telegraph that the contested area also contained scared female sites. She said she had conducted extensive research on the history of Indigenous Australians in the region and found that the Yoocum Yoocum ancestors, and the Ngarakbal Githabul people were originally from the area in question. 'The Wollumbin Consultative Group has discriminated against the women and our lores,' Ms. Wheildon said...."

From "Plan to ban women from Australian national park sparks outrage" (NY Post).

At the Ancestral Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want (and buy whatever you want through the Althouse Portal to Amazon).

I got my iPhone camera out at an exhibit called "Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art from the Kaplan & Levi Collection" at the Chazen Museum here in Madison. Australian Aboringinal artists work in what is a continuing artistic tradition going back many thousands of years— perhaps 40,000 years.



The painting that's in the center of the first photo and fills the frame in the second is by the Yuendumu Women's Collaborative and is called "Mina Mina Dreaming." The wall card says that "Mina Mina" means "home or living place," and it's a place "where ancestral women stopped to sit under desert oaks, get water, and collect snake vines to wrap around food bowls and cure headaches."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation applies for a permit to set up a "slightly blasphemous" solstice display in the Wisconsin Capitol rotunda...

... in response to the nativity scene already set up by Wisconsin Family Action.

Freedom From Religion is cagily referring to a display with "a different type of wise people." I'm not sure where they will get decent looking statuary, but I'm picturing figures of Charles Darwin, Einstein, and — why not? — Christopher Hitchens, gathered around... what?... a microscope and a telescope.

Meade suggests a depiction of a young couple camping out at Occupy Madison, sitting solemnly at a table stacked with brochures about abortion rights. Arriving at the scene, via bicycle, are 3 bearded UW professors.

You've heard of the Anti-Christ. This is the anti-creche. Let's generate some more ideas for what this display might look like.

"Aboriginal pawns in nanny state's porn game."

There's a headline. The underlying story is not funny, involving racially discriminatory censorship in Australia.

ADDED: There is no porn at the link, though I do find what's there highly objectionable: The government banned pornography not for everyone, but for Aborigines, for their own good.