If she weighs the same as a duck...

[Culhwch]

Wait, Voldemort's the bad guy? Boy, did I miss the point of these books. A bit subtle, wasn't it?

[pyan]

Originally Posted by dustinzgirl

Again, as earlier stated, I take everything the bbc says about the USA with a grain of salt, and I certainly wouldn't hold sway to a quote from a person quoting nobody in particular...literally saying some members...not cabinet, not politicians, hell it could have been an intern for all we know.

I fail to see what the quote has to do with it being the BBC, Dusty: it's covered by other news sites, and seems to be a direct quote from Matt Latimer's new book - and are you suggesting that he's lying when he says that some members of GWB's administration believed her books promoted sorcery?

A former speech writer for President George W Bush not telling the truth? Amazing!

[TheEndIsNigh]

I take it that none of these 'Rowling deniers' have actually read the bible then.

That section at the end on revelations - it's a doozy

[Dave]

Originally Posted by dustinzgirl

Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was banned in many high schools, libraries, and even towns.

Lee's To Kill A Mocking Bird...also a banned book.

Are you arguing that only banned books have any merit or make 'contributions to US national interest, world peace or cultural endeavours'. I expect that given the lists, that is often truer than one might think.

Undoubtedly, her books do deal with children at a school for witchcraft, but so do many other books. They were only singled out for book-burning bonfires because of their popularity, not because of any literary criticism. I would just have expected the awarding body to rise above this.

Dusty - I'm also interested at why you think the BBC is biased against the US. I'd like to think they are fairly balanced. Large parts of the world rely on it as the only unbiased news they get. I think they were balanced in the reporting of your political parties in your recent election, much more so than they appear to be in their reporting and questioning of own own UK political parties. And given the recent US reporting about the evil NHS much more balanced than some news organisations inside the US itself.

[Sparrow]

dustinzgirl~ She fed, clothed, and gave medicine to more people in her life than you did.

What are you doing for the world, other than confusing religions?

I find your accusations extremely distasteful on a personal level.

If you don't take kindly to my comments about Mother Teresa, you really won't like my opinion on Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. They are both frauds, from halo to toes, frauds. As for the poor, most, not all, but surely most, deserve to be poor. It seems they've decided before birth that it is God and old superstitions they'll put faith in. I don't believe in needless suffering, and where we can alleviate some of it than we should. So long as there's some profit in it.

I think this free form haiku poetry says it all...

Darwin's engine failing
God whispers, "improvise"
Adapt or die

Christopher Hitchens~ This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

What exactly in this paragraph from Hitchens' essay do you not agree with?

[Sparrow]

Clanman~ Anyone notice that Harry uses relatively little magic to solve his problems? He usually survives by accident or dumb luck.

... and by putting others before himself. Beyond accident and dumb luck he's also clever. The other important theme running throughout the series, is friendship.

The Harry Potter books aren't literary masterpieces on the order of To Kill a Mockingbird, but who needs them to be?

[Clansman]

Sparrow, you obviously like to argue the the hard side of things. 's fine with me, but the topics you are picking don't seem to have much to do with J.K. Rowling and her popular books, and they do tend to stir up controversy in a part of the forum dedicated to a completely unrelated topic.

As I said above, you may wish to post on Mother Theresa and Gandhi and your rather unorthodox views on their respective characters in World Affairs. Otherwise, a moderator might step in. If the thread gets too heated or too far off topic, the dang thing will be closed. So, I implore you, if you want to bash people who most of the world regards in a much different light, kindly do so in the appropriate forum (i.e. World Affairs), unless you can make a half-way decent case to link the denial of an honour to Rowling to your belief that Mother Theresa and Gandhi were frauds.