Read! Because "They" Say You Shouldn't.

It's Banned Books Week again, folks, so let's consume some of that evil literature! Take the coming week to enjoy a book that "they" - whiny parents, mostly - successfully or unsuccessfully challenged. See what that book's all about, for yourself, before you make a decision about it one way or another. Read. Think. Learn. It's fun. Trust me.

Some of my favorite banned books include:

"1984" by George Orwell. Big Brother, the Thought Police, total government control...it's all here. On a related note, you might like Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" - another novel about oppressive government.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, a.k.a. Samuel Clemens. Apparently, writing a realistic novel set in a time when people dropped N-bombs and owned slaves is...bad. Heaven forbid we keep American history in our minds by reading about it, right? That might, you know, offend someone.

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. Yes, Holden - the main character - is an antisocial, swearing twit...but that's what makes him so likable if you're the right age when you pick it up for the first time. I loved this novel when I was in my early teens, and still enjoy rereading it every now and then.

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess. Yeah, the film was all right, but the book is a lot better - as is typically the case.

"A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Seriously...this was challenged? I can't even begin to understand why that would be the case, but whatever.

The "Harry Potter" series. Say what you will about the series or the author, but you can't deny that J.K. Rowling convinced an entire generation of people all over the world to put down the video games, DVDs, and computers and READ.

Oh, and Stephen King novels tend to receive challenges. Even though I'm not a big fan of most of his latest work, his older books are still great reads. I'd give "Dolores Claiborne" and "The Stand" priority if you're trying to get into King, but you might also like "Carrie" as it's classic Stephen King.

Enjoy the reading!

You know what sucks about MS Word?

You know what I really hate about MS Word? Besides the obvious answer that the '07 version was designed by a team of crack-addicted monkeys?

Clippy. I despise that insolent little paper clip and his smarmy, "May I help you, moron?" attitude. Like I REALLY need an animated office supply's assistance to draft a letter. And it's NOT like I asked for his help in the first place - but there he is, waiting to pounce on my Word document until I turn off his "helpfulness."

However, there's hope. A contributor over at Cracked.com gives Clippy what he really deserves.

Joyce Carol Oates; Ted Kennedy; Chappaquiddick

For a real piece of work, check out Joyce Carol Oates’ recent article about Ted "Stone Cold Killer" Kennedy:

'There are no second acts in American lives'– this dour pronouncement of F Scott Fitzgerald has been many times refuted, and at no time more appropriately than in reference to the late Senator Ted Kennedy, whose death was announced yesterday. Indeed, it might be argued that Senator Kennedy's career as one of the most influential of 20th-century Democratic politicians, an iconic figure as powerful, and as morally enigmatic, as President Bill Clinton, whom in many ways Kennedy resembled, was a consequence of his notorious behaviour at Chappaquiddick bridge in July 1969.

Yet, ironically, following this nadir in his life/ career, Ted Kennedy seemed to have genuinely refashioned himself as a serious, idealistic, tirelessly energetic liberal Democrat in the mold of 1960s/1970s American liberalism, arguably the greatest Democratic senator of the 20th century. His tireless advocacy of civil rights, rights for disabled Americans, health care, voting reform, his courageous vote against the Iraq war (when numerous Democrats including Hillary Clinton voted for it) suggest that there are not only "second acts" in American lives, but that the Renaissance concept of the "fortunate fall" may be relevant here: one "falls" as Adam and Eve "fell"; one sins and repents and is forgiven, provided that one remakes one's life.

Kennedy was 36, a senator from Massachusetts whose political career had been managed by his father Joseph Kennedy and facilitated by family wealth, as his expulsion from Harvard as an undergraduate for cheating on a final examination was rectified by family pressure. Like George Bush, another spoiled younger brother of a well-to-do and influential family whose subsequent success in politics had little to do with his own evident talent, intelligence, or ambition, Ted Kennedy was groomed for public office despite dubious qualifications.

At Chappaquiddick, having been drinking and partying with young women aides of his brother Robert Kennedy, Senator Kennedy, at this time a married man and a father, slipped away with 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped in his car after he took a wrong turn off the Chappaquiddick bridge, lost control of his car which was submerged in just eight feet of water.

Kennedy chose to flee the scene , leaving the young woman to die an agonising death not of drowning but of suffocation over a period of hours. Incredibly, it was 10 hours before Kennedy reported the accident, by which time he'd consulted a family lawyer. The senator's explanation for this unconscionable, despicable, unmanly and inexplicable behaviour was never convincing: he claimed that he'd struck his head and was "confused" and "exhausted" from diving and trying to rescue the young woman and had gone home to bed.

There followed a media circus, as all of the world rushed to Chappaquiddick to expose Kennedy's behaviour and to speculate on his future. Yet, appealing to his lawyer and not rather seeking emergency help for the trapped Mary Jo Kopechne would seem, in retrospect, to have been a felicitous move.

If Kennedy had summoned aid, he would very likely have given police officers self-incriminating evidence, which might have involved charges of vehicular manslaughter or homicide. The local prosecutor was not nearly so outraged by Kennedy's behaviour as other prosecutors might have been: the charges were "failing to report an accident" and "leaving the scene of an accident." The punishment: two months' probation.

That the Kennedys had always been a family operating outside the perimeters of the sort of legal restrictions that bind other citizens to "moral" behaviour publicly, is well known; no occasion so exemplifies this than Chappaquiddick and the subsequent cooperative silence of the Kopechne family who agreed never to speak of the tragedy.

One is led to think of Tom and Daisy Buchanan of Fitzgerald's the Great Gatsby, rich individuals accustomed to behaving carelessly and allowing others to clean up after them. It is often in instances of the "fortunate fall", think of Joseph Conrad's anti-hero/hero Lord Jim as a classic literary analogy, that innocent individuals figure almost as ritual sacrifices is another aspect of the phenomenon.
Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?

The poet John Berryman once wondered: "Is wickedness soluble in art?". One might rephrase, in a vocabulary more suitable for our politicized era: "Is wickedness soluble in good deeds?"

This paradox lies at the heart of so much of public life: individuals of dubious character and cruel deeds may redeem themselves in selfless actions. Fidelity to a personal code of morality would seem to fade in significance as the public sphere, like an enormous sun, blinds us to all else.

Wow...man. That's, like, deep...and, you know...trippy, man.

So...in other words...it's totally okay to cruelly cut off a young woman's life, as long as you spend the following decades doing "good" things. You don't have to be sorry, and you can allow your worthless, oxygen-thieving family to help you stay out of trouble, but it's all good anyway, because you're obviously more special, influential, and important than the likes of Mary Jo Kopechne.

H/T to Snark and Boobs for this’n.

Goodbye, Mr. McCourt

Frank McCourt died today at age seventy-eight. He's already missed.

"Angela's Ashes" was one of the first truly-wonderful memoirs that I read - and McCourt's amazing, detailed, hilarious writing made it easier for me to see the power that creative nonfiction can possess.

Thank you, Mr. McCourt, for the fantastic writing.

Keyboards Piss Me Off (Ranting, Nostalgia)

I’m officially pissed off at keyboards in general right now, because it’s occurred to me that I’ve had to replace mine every 1.5 to 2 years. Writing, school, and work keep me typing for a few hours every day, if not longer. Around my house, I’m notorious for wearing out, breaking, and replacing keyboards, because the modern designs are not nearly as good as the ones that companies like IBM used to crank out.

Let’s see: I’ve been doing lots of typing since about age thirteen or fourteen. With only a few breaks (like when I joined the Army and, obviously, left home) I’ve been mostly responsible for several keyboards’ sad, sad deaths.

There were two early-generation Microsoft Ergo Boards that died. There were at least three cheap, ten-dollar keyboards somewhere in there that I flat wore out. I’ve gone through two of my own, ergonomic keyboards, including a fairly-rugged Belkin that actually held up for a little more than two years despite heavy usage.

Silk-screened letters wear off. Spacebars crap out. Whole sections of the keyboards just stop responding. Even when I routinely clean out these things, and even when I’m very careful to keep crap out of them – liquids, food crumbs, that sort of thing – they still wear out and break long before I think they should.

Right now, I’m using a Microsoft ergonomic model that I’ve had for several months. This thing is starting to piss me off, because the keys aren’t responding like they did when this first came out of the box. These stupid tactile-mat, “dome” ‘boards get that “mushy” feel after awhile, because they’re foreign-made, cheap pieces of garbage. The really-sad part is that I’ll pay ten, sixty, seventy dollars for these pieces of crap.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the IBM “M” model keyboard that I got with an old IBM 286 PC when I was in my mid teens. Even back then, all of this was outdated equipment, but the computer got online and ran Microsoft Word just fine, which were my two main concerns. And the keyboard…oh, my goodness, the keyboard! It weighed several pounds because there was a solid-metal base to it, and the removable key caps were etched: IBM didn’t use silk screening, or stickers, to put the characters on the keys. Even when I pulled off the caps and dumped them in a bucket of soap and warm water, the letters stayed because they were etched.

I could take apart the ‘board, too, and give the plastic top a good scrubbing. Putting the thing back together didn’t take long, and I was good to go for another several months, if not longer, without any work on my part.

Oh…and mine had a coiled cable, much like old telephone cords. Sweet? You bet.

So, I’m on the lookout for another one, and hope that I find an old, dusty one for a few bucks. Otherwise, I’ll have to cough up sixty, eighty bucks at this site for a refurbished model. As much as I appreciate the fact that these people have done all the work for me…I’d really rather save my money and clean up the ‘board myself.

By the way: if I ruled the world, I’d have the rare, ergonomic version. Yes, they did exist. They’re very difficult to find, though, which is sad because that would be absolutely perfect as far as I’m concerned. If you just happen to have one lying around, wasting space in your garage or attic or something, I would LOVE to talk with you about possibly acquiring it. Just saying.

Fart Jokes

You know...I might be 27 years old, and I might be a somewhat-conservative female but...I really, really like a good fart joke. Maybe it's because I have three brothers, and grew up trying to out-fart them after Mom made beans or cabbage for dinner. Perhaps it's because I'm a fairly-flatulent person by nature, and figure that I might as well find humor in the affliction. Or maybe I'm just a typical human being.

However, I spent last week in British Literature class, discussing a fart joke in Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales." As it turns out, the flatulence in "The Miller's Tale" is not merely some dude letting one rip. Oh, no. There's symbolism...literary meaning...a deeper point...behind farting, at least in that instance.

It's discussions like this one that make me not hate school so much.

Punctuation Ban in London

England's oppressive nanny, a.k.a. the government, loves to ban things, like firearms. And crossbows. And swords. My thinking is that this not-so-free nation is going to eventually outlaw pointy sticks, because their socialized health-care system can’t afford to pass out eyepatches to all the people who are too stupid to keep their sticks pointed in a safe direction at all times. Liberty? Please – not in England, where there are plenty of security cameras watching all the citizens and tourists.

But what’s hilarious, in a pathetic way, is the recent move to ban the apostrophe. No. Really. It seems that the powers that be in London are tired of arguing over the lowly apostrophe's place on road signs. So, they’ve decided to stop using this particular punctuation mark, regardless of whether that’s the grammatically-correct choice or not.

One Councilman, Martin Mullaney, offered the Stupid Quote of the Century about the decision to ignore proper grammar:

Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," he said. "More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it.

That’s right, folks. Finding streets is too "hard" when the signs contain apostrophes. The person who said that? A government official. This is just more proof that governments are full of morons.

Then again: this grammar-related insanity isn’t a huge surprise. The United Kingdom is known for moronic reactions, such as last year’s outrage over a citizen choosing to spray paint a wall specifically erected for…spray painting. (You know, that graffiti-wall idea that so many ‘hoods have tried in the past? Yeah, that thing.)

I Blame The Van.

One theory about Stephen King is that his writing was a lot better before a reckless driver's van nearly killed him back in '99.

I'm in the middle of Just After Sunset: Stories - an eagerly-anticipated collection of his shorter work - and am really starting to agree with this theory.

Stephen King is one of my very-favorite authors, and I really enjoyed most of his older work. But On Writing was the last truly-good thing that he put on paper. Almost everything that he's put forth since that was published has been disappointing in one way or another.

Cell had potential, but fell short. From a Buick 8 was just stupid - the whole concept blew chunks. And I didn't even finish Lisey's Story. I've never failed to finish a Stephen King book in my entire life, and I've been reading his books since I was seven years old.

Oh, I don't expect any writer to have a perfect batting average, so to speak. I mean, I didn't forsake the dude after I finished Thinner - which was, by the way, a horrible novel, with an ending that made me want to get all stabbity with the pen that was clipped to my t-shirt at the time. I understand the occasional dud, and I'm not going to give up on a writer just because one or two books out of, oh, more than fifty, suck hard.

Man, I was even okay with the little bad streak that King had when he was sucking up cocaine and chugging beer faster than his agent could count the bucks that he was bringing in. Writers are only human, and have problems, which I understand to a certain extent.

But...this slump of King's is...certainly dragging on and on.

I totally blame the van.

Man, I Hate Chewing Gum

For last semester's creative-nonfiction class, I concluded the term with an essay about my search for chewing gum that does not suck. It seems that, in the several-year period in which I did not even glance at chewing gum (having a mouthful of busted teeth will make this choice rather appealing, but heartbreaking at the same time if you love gum like I do), the chewing-gum market exploded. Now, there are more brands and flavors on the market than there are lies in a politician's speech. Amazing.

Chewing gum is frickin' disgusting because manufacturers have, for the most part, begun adding phenylalanine as a flavoring. Oh, yes. We have yet another sugar substitute in our food. This one tastes slightly bitter. Does real sugar taste that way to you? No? Me neither. So how is this a good substitute? Oh, right. Phenylalanine enables the manufacturers to boast of their brands' decreased calories, which is obviously more important than, you know, taste. God knows that I'd rather munch a dog turd than ingest a whopping fifteen, twenty calories from a stick of delicious, old-school Big Red.

If my formerly-favorite chewing-gum makers go back to pouring obscene amounts of sugar - pure, blessed, sugar! - into the vats, I'll buy their wares by the gross.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2009. Now, get back to work. Uncle Sugar needs your tax dollars. Millions of people on welfare are counting on you, ya know.

This year, I resolve to rant more often. Oh, quit whining. You enjoy my rants. Admit it. They're informative, entertaining, and well written, unlike my other posts.

Here's one for you now, in fact.

Local news stations spent part of yesterday's newscasts warning us to not shoot our guns at midnight. It seems that, if you fire your gun without first ensuring that the round will travel in a safe direction, bad things might happen.

Well, duh. Even if you don't know squat about handguns, you know that gravity requires objects to come down after they've gone up. Simple concept, really, for most of us.

But people still fired their guns in the air at midnight anyway, because a select few are too stupid to breathe without reminders. These idiots play Russian roulette with other peoples' lives. Without thinking, they go out to celebrate, and endanger innocent bystanders as well as property.

They're violent criminals the moment they pull the triggers. That being the case, they should serve long prison sentences for what they've done. They belong in prison with all the other violent offenders, from the rapists to the armed robbers.

Most firearms owners would agree with me on this. The overwhelming majority of us do not do anything along these lines with our guns, and want nothing to do with these oxygen thieves. They endanger other people and make the rest of us look bad. As far as I'm concerned, these idiots need to be locked up or deported to a tiny island, where they can all shoot each other. No big loss if that happened, you know.

Maybe they'll do the world a favor and have themselves sterilized. Heaven forbid the irresponsible idiots who do things like this reproduce, thus bringing another generation of morons into this world.

School sucks

I really hate my school. I hated the junior college I attended before transferring here, so I guess that I hate school in general.

Learning? Wonderful stuff. I'm *totally* in love with the creative-writing minor that I'm working on. Those classes are great. They're so awesome, in fact, that I skip them only when I'm too sick to sit upright.

Too bad I didn't figure out that I really want to study creative writing until after I'd been at this university for a while. When I transferred in, I was a journalism major. This school has an excellent journalism program, so this seemed like a great place to be at the time. And it *was* a great idea at the time.

But where I go to school, creative writing is not an option as a major. Some other four-year schools do offer that - but I don't want to transfer and have to take a buttload of classes just to meet the graduation requirements (typically 20-odd, maybe 30-odd, credits in residence). This is my senior year, see, so changing schools would be more of a pain in the butt than it's really worth.

I'm an English major, which is kind of annoying to me. I love literature, yes. But I don't really love most of the English classes I've taken in pursuit of the degree. I would have been just as happy without them, to be completely honest. Because I don't care about a formal study of British literature. I don't care about a formal study of women in literature. I don't care about a formal study of grammar.

Sad, really. An English major who just doesn't care enough about a good bit of the degree plan to formally study it. Informal study is great, because I'll learn about that particular subject when I'm interested. But the in-class, structured study bores me more often than not.

This will end soon enough, though. After this semester, I have only one year left until I graduate. (God willing. It's already been delayed a couple of times. Maybe this time things will work out like I think they will.)

So...I'm almost finished. It's really too late to change anything, but that's okay because I don't have to put up with this much longer.

When Students Encounter New Words

If you don't know a word that you encounter while reading, or while conversing, then please do yourself a big favor and look up that word. Trust me when I say that you'll be better off for making a little effort to learn something new - instead of whining, outside of class, that the professors are a bunch of a-holes because they dared to assign challenging reading, or used those big words in their lectures.

I'm tired of hearing students whine about the academic standards. If we're in a senior-level English class, then the odds are good that we will encounter words we do not know. This is true even if we've devoted a good bit of our lives to vocabulary, to reading, to learning about literature and language. The English language is, to put it mildly, farkin' huge. None of us know every word, or every variation of every word.

As English majors, we've deliberately chosen to study English. We devote obscene amounts of time to the literature, to the words, to the conversations about these things. When we declared this major, we agreed to meet the challenges that it presents: not to run away, whining and complaining about how hard our professors are on us.

Make a note of the word that's new and confusing, consult the dictionary and/or Google, and learn something new. We're in college for the various challenges that it offers. Trying to convince the professors to lower the standards so that we will not have to work to clear the bar is just stupid.

Dear Article Thieves

Dear Article Thieves:

Thank you very much for stealing my writing. I'm flattered that you chose my Web content to steal from the Web site that makes it available for purchase. Heaven forbid you actually pay for the articles that draw visitors to your sites. I would hate for you to actually invest something so that you could legitimately earn those Google AdSense profits.

You testicle-slurping, mouth-breathing pieces of fecal matter.

You may all locate the nearest axe handles, insert them in your rectums, and run backward into the nearest brick walls.

Then, you should use rusting, dull kitchen knives to remove your testicles. Be sure to cauterize the wounds with plenty of rubbing alcohol. I would hate for any of you to be capable of reproducing, as the last thing that we need on this planet is another generation of spineless, scum-chewing, infectious waste.

Please also douse yourselves in hi-test gasoline, strike Zippos, and run down the street until your faces melt off and you collapse in oozing, flaming puddles.

While you're accomplishing all of those directives, you should also gouge out your navels with corkscrews.

Every one of you should fall down, be eaten by worms and die - in that order.

English Majors: Grammar and Spelling Matter

My university uses Listserv to communicate within the various departments. This, for anybody who does not know, is an e-mail database that allows students, faculty and staff to send and receive mass e-mails. We English majors are automatically subscribed to the English Listserv, which allows us to communicate with everybody else in this department.

Every student on this Listserv is an English major. We have all chosen to specialize in the English language - mostly written, but oral as well - for at least four years of our lives. We are allegedly intelligent, and we are supposedly mastering the English language.

These assumptions, however, dissipate when I read some of the e-mails that fellow English majors send to everybody else on the list. Though I do understand that our society places little, if any, emphasis on proper e-mail etiquette, we are English majors. We should be capable of nearly-flawless grammar and spelling - especially if we are upperclassmen.

Though I do not care what a fellow English student does, or does not do, when e-mailing friends and relatives, I do care about the unsightly errors that Silly Student and his buddy, Clueless Girl, make when they compose e-mails to everybody in the English department. We are among fellow scholars. We should act appropriately when we write these messages. Advisors, faculty and staff all read these messages. What are these professionals going to think of us if we do not put any effort into our written communications? Do we not realize that we will, at some point in the future, ask these men and women for letters of recommendation for graduate school and/or employment? Why should any of them recommend us for anything if we do not take e-mail seriously?

In the last two weeks, I have seen multiple errors. Many of these mistakes were basic flaws in the authors' messages. I will not publish the actual quotes here, but here are different examples with identical errors.

"I found my best friend's e-mail address and sent them a message."

"Theres nothing wrong with my understanding of the apostrophe."

"Get out of my way!!!"

"Stop jumping all over my case All i want is respect"

We are English majors. As such, we are supposed to love the language enough to treat it with care and respect. Our goal is to communicate clearly. If our e-mails to department heads and faculty members are full of grammar and spelling errors, we are obviously not doing our jobs. We are being lazy, which is not excusable if we have chosen to devote at least four years of our lives to studying, and mastering, this wonderful language.

Some will say, "Who cares? You're just writing an e-mail." And to them, I say, "If somebody cannot be bothered to take a simple e-mail seriously, then how can anybody trust that person to take larger tasks seriously?"

Writers on Strike: I Would Probably Do It, Too

So the members of the Writers Guild of America are on strike. They put down their keyboards, picked up their signs, and basically said, "We don't get nearly enough money for the 'new media' formats that our work sees. Give us more or we aren't going back to work."

I would be ticked off too if I made less than five cents on a twenty-dollar DVD sale. That's not much when you realize that, without the writing, you don't even HAVE a DVD. And you have to remember that there is not just one writer on any given show or movie. Some productions have a dozen people...or more. Without these people, we don't have anything but documentaries without any narration...and cruddy reality shows.

I'm not a huge movie or TV fan, but I agree with the writers on this one. They couldn't negotiate their way into a better deal, so they stopped working. If the other side continues holding out, the 2007-2008 TV season will suffer. This is what could very well happen if the other side does not at least attempt to negotiate with the writers.

If things go very badly, then I won't get "House," which is my favorite show. That will kinda tick me off, because I live for Tuesday nights and Hugh Laurie (yum)! But I'm a writer. I understand that whole, "You're not THAT valuable, so we're going to pay you a pittance for your hard work" thing goes. I'm on their side - even if it means that I have to wait a while for fresh entertainment.

At least TV shows and movies aren't vital to our society. We can live without new episodes and movies. We can even live comfortably without them. It will not kill any of us to wait for the industry to work things out. It's not like the NYC garbage collectors' strike. It's not like the telephone operators of this country have decided to walk away from their jobs. And it's not as if every truck driver in the United States shut down every rig and walked away from trailers full of food, medicine and clothing.

We'll survive. We won't lose anything vital to our collective existence. This is a great place to take a stand for the "little guys" because we can easily afford to take their side. So stand by them however you can. Don't complain too much about not having new stuff to watch. Go read a book or pop in a DVD while you wait. And be happy that we live in a country where even non-vital workers can fight back when they feel that they're holding the nastier side of the stick.

Dumbledore Was Gay - So What?

“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling recently revealed that beloved Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore was gay. And I recently revealed that I don’t give a rip one way or the other.

I’m a Southern Baptist (read: evil fundie jerk). I don’t agree with the homosexual lifestyle. But even though that’s my belief, I don’t try to shove it up somebody else’s nose. All I ask is that I receive the same courtesy. Don’t try to force me to accept something – and I won’t try to force you to change.

As far as I can tell, none of the seven Harry Potter books gave any indication that Dumbledore was gay. And even if there had been strong hints (or outright proclamations), this particular subject had nothing to do with the storyline. Dumbledore’s persona lifestyle did not affect Harry’s quest to save the world; Voldemort’s plan to eradicate Harry, or everyday life at Hogwarts. Dumbledore’s orientation did not affect the books one way or the other, so it’s utterly and completely irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care. So he was gay. Big deal. Nothing is different – including my love of the books – because of this trivial bit of information.

But even though this has nothing to do with anything, people are wondering why Rowling revealed this information. Why, after the books were finished, did she feel the need to drop this big old secret on the fans?

This is not about publicity. She’s got more of that than she can handle. Her books are still selling almost as fast as the presses can print them. The films are still being made and released (and the DVDs are moving, too). Rowling has speaking engagements, autograph signings, and tentative plans to write a Hogwarts encyclopedia to satisfy the most curious of fans. Any time she wants HP-related attention, she’s got it. She doesn’t have to drop surprises on fans, the media, or anti-Harry crowds to make the news.

I don’t think that Rowling was trying to give the metaphorical bird to the religious right, either. She doesn’t really have to work to tick off my fellow fundies. The fact that the books use words like “magic” and “witch” is enough to turn otherwise-civilized people into shrieking, babbling masses. And even though all seven books have been published, the anti-Potter crowd can still complain about the upcoming films. And they can always buy copies of the encyclopedia, should Rowling write and publish it, and have yet another bonfire. It’s not like the religious right will run out of things to complain about.

My best explanation for the “Dumbledore confession” is that Rowling always imagined this character as a gay man. I’m a writer, myself. I know how that sort of thing goes. When a character comes to mind, you really can’t do much to change things up. You can put a different suit on your dentist, or you can give him red hair instead of black, but he’s still a dentist. You can’t change your guy or gal’s essence. If you try to give your dentist a different profession, he or she will keep circling back to the teeth and gums. You can’t help that – and if you try, your character will be a cardboard fake that not many readers will believe.

I think that, when Rowling began planning the HP series oh so many years ago, Dumbledore was already a homosexual wizard. This is not something that’s vital to the storyline, but it’s part of that character’s identity. Even though there aren’t any obvious (or even subtle, if I recall correctly) hints about this part of Dumbledore’s lifestyle, it’s still part of Dumbledore.

And how I feel about Dumbledore doesn’t change just because Rowling told the world that he was gay. He was the ultimate good guy, which I love about him. He was wise, kind and always ready with the right answer to the other characters’ endless questions and needs. Even when people dumped all over Dumbledore, he kept his composure – and at least a small measure of compassion.

None of that changed just because Rowling announced that Dumbledore didn’t dig the ladies. The guy was still Dumbledore. And if this character were a real person – a man I actually knew – I would feel the same way. I wouldn’t dump a good, kind friend for being gay.

So: what’s the big deal? I don’t really see it, to be honest. Some might claim that Rowling is trying to sneak in a “tolerance and acceptance” message, but that’s not a new thing for her. All of the Harry Potter books address tolerance in one form or another. “Mudbloods” versus wizards, for example. Poor versus wealthy. Squibs versus talented wizards.

There’s nothing wrong with being tolerant of other people. I don’t mean that we have to say, “Okay, homosexuality’s fine and I don’t have any problem with it.” What I mean is that, even though we don’t necessarily agree with the lifestyle, there’s more to other people than just that one thing. You and I can love the real-life Dumbledores without compromising our faith or beliefs. In fact: that’s what Jesus taught us to do.

Quit Ripping Off My Work

I'm a freelance writer - been doing it for a few years now, actually. I love writing and the super-flexible schedule works well because I'm in college. When I need extra study time, I just take it - no big deal because I set my own hours.

Most of my writing goes online. In fact, I write the overwhelming majority of my pieces specifically for the Internet. I go through a middleman of sorts - a Web site that lets me upload and sell my work for a percentage of the selling price. They handle the money, the marketing and all that other non-writing stuff that I don't really care about.

The biggest problem with online writing is theft. The site that handles my writing tries, but the editors and administrators can't prevent every problem.

Over the last few months, there have been problems with stolen credit cards. Little twits in Asia will rip off credit-card numbers, then "test" them by going to this Web site and purchasing articles. If the purchase goes through, then they know that they can rack up huge bills buying things that they actually want, like stereo systems and MP3 players and such. If I had my way, thieves would have to work on farms and in laundry facilities until they repaid the rightful owners. That's just me, though.

But anyway.

So I receive e-mails stating that I've sold a few articles, which makes me happy. I can get paid for them at the beginning of the month. And I need the cash. I really do. I have to put gas in the vehicle so that I can go to and from school. I have to pay my dentist to finish doing the work that I've needed for years. And every now and then, I really like helping my family with the household bills. (I'm 25 and live at home. It's cheaper than paying rent to live on campus. I've done that, so I know exactly how much money I'm saving. It's enough to make sharing one shower with six people well worth it. Trust me.)

But then the payments never materialize because, oops, some jerk bought my articles to test stolen credit cards. So I never see the money for what I've done. Oh, sure, the site re-lists my articles so that I can earn legitimate sales, but it's really disappointing - and infuriating - to go through the whole "Oh wow, somebody ripped me off AGAIN!" process once every month or so.

The site worked out a way to stop that problem. Everything went well for the next month and a half or so. I was content because article sales went back to their normal averages.

So then I received a notice stating that I needed to send Google a takedown request. There's a new problem. Now people who actually WANT my articles are buying them. But then they claim that there's a problem with them. The middleman site lets buyers return the articles for a full refund within a few days of the purchase.

You see where this is going, right?

Of course you do.

So people have been buying my articles and returning them to get the full refunds. But they still have the pieces, which they got for free. And I don't get the money from the sale because it was refunded to the buyers.

And then the jerks turn around and use the pieces.

So I send Google a takedown request. If Google finds that I'm really the victim (which they will, of course), then the guilty parties lose all Google search indexing. They don't get to use AdSense anymore, either.

So the thieves will eventually get what they deserve. But that doesn't make me any less ticked off about the whole situation.

That's why I haven't been motivated to work too much in the last week or so. When this new problem blows over, I'll get right back to writing. But right now, I just can't be bothered to post more articles for people to rip off.