Now, ya'll know that I don't usually just post other peoples' writing in my blog, but this is a special occasion because I'm in the newspaper! Please note that the picture is not of me! Just one of the humorous touches by the author, Jesse Froehling! Or perhaps an editor added the funny twists because the title and picture differ in the author's blog post. He has a picture of a Christmas stocking, rather than a fat lady with a snow globe, and the title "Psychic Free Holidays" is there rather than "Psychic's Donation Not Accepted" with the subtitle "Surprised you didn’t already know that." I only wish he had mentioned my business name or web-site!
Last year, when Alexandra Chauran sought to teach her students at the Kent Phoenix Academy about the benefits of composting, she turned to the King County Solid Waste Division for help. Chauran ended up using the agency's curriculum to help her students start a vegetable garden and donate the fruit—or in this case veggies—of their labors to a local food bank.
"Thank you for your application," Megan Sety of the division's Recycling and Environmental Services department wrote to Chauran on Aug. 11. "However, we are not able to include offers of this type because of their controversial nature."
When pressed, Sety wrote in subsequent e-mails that fortune-telling is controversial because some people do not believe in such activities. "We have decided that businesses that deal primarily with psychic phenomena are not an appropriate fit for a county program," she wrote to Chauran.
"I do birthdays [and] bridal showers," Chauran counters. "It's not like I'm a pornographer."
Chauran notes that program participants include yoga studios and wellness spas, among other types of business. As a teacher, Chauran says, she was not allowed to include yoga in her curriculum because some parents saw it as religion. So, she wonders, if yoga is included in the county program, why not fortune-telling?
Sety explains that yoga isn't as controversial as psychic phenomena, adding that program participants are divided into eight categories: dance, fitness, museum/visual arts, music, sports and recreation, rest and relaxation, restaurants, and theater. When the Waste Free program started 12 years ago, organizers had to seek out businesses to participate. Now, Sety says, solicitation is no longer necessary. Hence some businesses, such as financial planners and tutors, are turned away because they've been deemed inappropriate for the program.
"We try to limit it to something you would see on a wish list," Sety explains.
While fortune-telling may appear on someone's wish list, Sety says the discipline is too controversial to include. "We could see a lot of reactions from the program and they could be very positive or they could be very negative," Sety says. "We want the program to be successful, so we have to worry about how it is perceived in the public. It may be construed as an endorsement, although it is not."
A cat psychic was turned down for the same reasons, Sety notes. Nevertheless, Chauran says she'll apply again next year.