As of Saturday evening, only the most hard core speed readers have managed to finish the latest and last in the Potter series.
Self-imposed insomnia also helped.
First impressions: Yowsa.
More than a few “A ha! I KNEW it!” moments.
Many “I wasn’t expecting that…” character moments.
Several laugh-out-loud bits, and a few that choked me up.
And a couple of lines that, when filmed, will be closed captioned with “PWN3D” in big bold letters.
J.K. Rowling has said that once people finished the seventh book, they’d have little doubt about her religious beliefs, and that’s a fair statement. Sin and depredation, forgiveness and redemption, are shot throughout, and the snitch isn’t the only thing that’s golden. Actions have consequences in the Potterverse, and few deeds go unrewarded, for good or ill.
It drags in spots, but all in all an engrossing read, and not that many loose ends that might have left me screaming for more…unless you count the epilogue. Epilogues invariably raise more questions than they answer.
Could Rowling return to the Potterverse? My guess is, yes…but I could see it returning through other characters, either before or after Harry, with The Boy Who Lived playing a minor role, if any at all. Rowling’s wizarding world has a vastness of history and geography. She could spend the rest of her life playing in this sandbox, if she chooses.
Part of me hopes she doesn’t, and spins a whole new tale, just to see what she comes up with.
Reading Orson Scott Card’s glowing review of the latest Harry Potter film didn’t change my opinion, though I did find myself in agreement on several points.
Card, the back-to-back Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, knows something about writing about smart, talented, and motivated kids who transform the world. He also knows a bit about “do-overs,” having re-written several of his earlier novels (e.g. Treason) because he wasn’t satisfied the first time, and return to the Ender’s Game events from a new perspective to fill in the blanks that people – people like me, at any rate – cared infinitely more about than the fast-forward-three-millenniums branch he started with.
Note to Hollywood: give me my Ender’s Game movie. I’ve been waiting over 25 years.
“There is a deep, abiding, unshakeable satisfaction in a life of complete failure.”
–Edward Abbey (h/t Svenbonk)
A year ago today, Don’t Hire Dr. Deborah Frisch was launched in response to the outrageous – and ultimately actionable – comments of a former U of A adjunct lecturer on the Protein Wisdom blog over the Independence Day 2006 weekend.
Believe it or not, she’s still at it. But so is the blog that Sinner launched, along with its successor site devoted to more diverse and friendly pursuits, Teh Squeaky Wheel.
Given all the bs thrown by Dr. Demented – the July 2006 blogorrhea was simply the most visible of her tantrums – SOMETHING was bound to grow.
Congratulations to Sinner and the whole VBS gang on its first anniversary of doing well by doing good.
Okay, bad pun. David Pogue of the New York Times has it His Way with the iPhone:
I may not think much of the NYT Op-Ed folks, but Pogue’s geek cred is solid, and even if he’s a bit off-key here, it’s got a beat and you can giggle to it.
I wrote, at the announcement of the iPhone in January, that I would strongly consider it as a replacement for my existing trio of iPod Nano, Palm T|X, and cell phone (Samsung MM-A940). I’ve paid careful attention to the raves and rants about the Buddha Phone. Good at it is, what I have suffices. Nothing out there now, including the iPhone, would let me walk away from my current devices without looking back.
This iPhone review by PC Magazine’s Sascha Segan and Tim Gideon give the iPhone a 4/5 rating overall, splitting the difference between Gideon’s “5+” rave for the device’s sixth-generation iPod media player features and Safari Internet functionality, and Segan’s three-star “iPHONE 1.0″ report. In short: the Buddha Phone is the best media device ever…but a so-so phone and information manager.
Perhaps by the third or fourth generation, the iPhone will become a Must Buy. Until then, what I have suffices…unless Sprint sends me a Dear John letter and I have no choice but to change carriers. Even then, I would steer clear of the iPhone, for now.
President Bush took a middle path by commuting the prison sentence of “Scooter” Libby, while leaving in place the quarter million dollar fine, the two years probation, etc.
Some folks are outraged. “Perjury is a serious thing!” insist those who, in 1998, were scornful of the importance of perjury when the chief law enforcement officer of the United States was lying under oath and pressuring others to lie under oath about his behavior which was directly related to the lawsuit in which he was a defendant. Of course, these were the same people who were brushing off sexual harassment when it was their guy in the crosshairs, a half dozen years after they brayed that such behavior was intolerable in every case.
Libby’s alleged perjury, if true – it is still under appeal – is not to be excused, and for that reason I think the President’s action removing only the jail sentence (to counter those who have been spittle-flecked raging for their beloved frog-march-to-prison photo op) is a proper one. Let Libby attempt his appeals, and if successful clear his name. If he cannot appeal successfully, than the sentence still in force is quite harsh, and will be with him the rest of his life.
The hypocrisy of those screaming for the head of Scooter Libby (and the hope that the blade will also reach the necks of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney) is galling. Assuming everything said of Libby is true, his crime occurred in relation to a non-crime. Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew who the leaker was (Richard Armitage), and that the leak did not blow the cover of a covert agent. Joe Wilson’s perjurious hysteria to the contrary, there was no crime, and there was no political motivation to out anyone. Libby’s crime is equivalent to Martha Stewart’s. Perjury is a crime, and I won’t excuse it. but the hoped-for High Crime simply doesn’t exist.
If I had a hope, it would have been for Bush to alter Libby’s sentence to exactly match that given to Sandy Berger. He’s the former national security advisor who stole and destroyed classified documents relating to the Clinton Administrations responses to their eight years of attacks by al qaeda. These were documents being used by the 9/11 commission to investigate how we got attacked, and how to prevent future attacks.
One would think this would be a – what’s the word? – scandal. But Bill Clinton just laughed it off as “that’s Sandy, he was always misplacing stuff.” THIS is the man Bill Clinton put in charge of NATIONAL SECURITY.
One would think this too would be a – what’s the word again? – huge freakin’ scandal.
The behavior of the current and former president toward their respective subordinates is telling. Bush praised the work of Patrick Fitzgerald as fair and balanced – more than many would say of Fitz’s behavior toward the end – and upheld the rule of law even as he made a moderate mitigation. Even in a case that yielded no evidence of the crime originally investigated, Bush insisted that the one person charged with not cooperating fully and honestly bear the judgment of the jury, if not the excessive and urgent jail sentence.
But in a case of the deliberate pilfering and destructing of classified documents, and lying about the act….Berger’s boss laughed it off as par for the course in his administration. Not at all surprising, really.