July 2007

My copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows came on Saturday. I resisted the urge to crack open the book and begin reading the moment The Fetching Mrs. Bixby handed me the package from Amazon because I knew that once I started reading, I’d rip through that book faster than a fat kid through his Halloween stash. I wanted to be able to enjoy the story and since I’ll have some free time later in the month, I resisted the urge and set the book in my bookshelf.

I was curious enough to see if Harry was indeed killed off as many people have been speculating so I skimmed the last few pages for his name. No, I didn’t read the ending, I just looked for his name.

I know it’s going to be a good read, a quick read and I’ll enjoy it no matter how the story ends. J.K. Rowling has proven she’s above simple sentimentality and has killed off a couple of major characters in previous books, so I know the story isn’t going to be all sweetness and light and resolved all neat and tidy like a sitcom episode. There will be unsatisfactory conclusions for some of the characters which will not make me happy, but that’s the mark of the a good author. She’ll take the story where the character’s lead her, not where I want them to go.

In his novel A Game of Thrones, George RR Martin kills off my favorite character, Eddard Stark, in a rather gruesome way. I remember throwing the book across the room in disappointment, but the overall plot of the story was better served with that character’s death. It’s a mark of Martin’s skill as a writer to make me like a character so much I would be sad to see him die.

The end of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King was similarly disappointing, but I agree with King when he says that’s the only ending the character of Roland had. It was disappointing, not because Roland dies, but because his quest wasn’t resolved. Nevertheless, it was the right ending for the overall story because it made me realize that Roland was an Eternal Hero (see Michael Moorcock and his Elric and Prince Corum stories).

If you want some satisfying reads that are quick and come to satisfactory conclusions, I highly recommend a trio of sci fi novels by John Scalzi: Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades, and The Last Colony. Set in a future where mankind has colonized the stars, only to find the galaxy crowded and good real estate at a premium, Scalzi takes a few standard sci fi memes and adds some unique twists that are entertaining and thought provoking. I read all three novels in a week last month and was well satisfied with them. I look forward to reading The Android’s Dream, if only for the fart joke he says is in the first chapter.

From Kim du Toit, comes this quote from John Howard, the Australian PM, or head honcho, Grand Poobah, whatever he’s called down there.

Replace Australian with American and Australia with United States and you realize NOT one of our current crop of liars and thieves in the government has half the balls Mr. Howard is carrying.

It certainly is a sad state of affairs when such common sense towards immigration no longer comes from a country that prides itself on having an abundance of it. I was taught and still firmly believe that America is a melting pot, where people can come and add their uniqueness to the stew. Sadly, that hasn’t been happening in the last 20 years or so. The melting pot has been replaced with a ‘multicultural quilt’, which is a bull shit way of saying you can come here, just don’t assimilate, don’t become truly American.

A Hindu priest was asked to give a prayer in the U.S. Senate yesterday. This was the first time a non-Christian prayer was said in the Senate and a couple of fundamentalist nut jobs took issue with that fact. Members of the anti-abortion group Operation Save America yelled really intelligent things like, “Lord Jesus, forgive us father for allowing a prayer of the wicked, which is an abomination in your sight.” and “This is an abomination. We shall have no other gods before You.” but apparently the Lord Jesus must have been out getting Starbucks just then because the Hindu priest was still standing there when the protesters were removed.

Visibly shaken, Rajan Zen read passages from the Rig Veda and the Bhagavad Gita.

“Let us pray,” he began, “We meditate on the transcendental glory of the deity supreme, who is inside the heart of the earth, inside the life of the sky and inside the soul of heaven. May he stimulate and illuminate our minds.

“Lead us from the unreal to real, from darkness to light, and from death to immortality. May we be protected together. May we be nourished together. May we work together with great vigor. May our study be enlightening.”

Maybe if those protesters had called on the Baby Jesus, who I understand can get really testy if his swaddling clothes aren’t changed in a timely fashion, they might have been able to get Rajan smitten.