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Comic for Wednesday January 19, 2022 His glasses are still tracking his expression. That must be one optically complex spell.

"What do you mean I'm the way? You can see the screens and use the noisy thing. I don't know what you are talking about when you say I'm in the way of the mouse. What mouse? Butt warmers have mice? Who knew?" - Explorer the Cat.

I do like the What's Opera, Doc? "Kill the Wabbit" cartoon.

Doesn't that depend on how impressionable the listener/viewer/reader is? If you get sucked into the underlying philosophy through the works, then the works were a gateway. I had a watered down volume of Shakespeare when I was a kid. The wit and humor were gutted, but the basic stories were there. I read, The Merchant of Venice. Shylock was portrayed as an evil Jew, just as Shakespeare intended. In fact, it was probably my first exposure to antisemitism. I was a kid; there is no guarantee that your audience will be discerning. Fortunately, I had Jewish neighbors, nice folks, and I had Jewish classmates. But had I lived in a more insular community, who knows? The same could be said of Wagner. Popular with the Nazis, right? There is a connectedness that makes it difficult to appreciate the art in isolation from the artist and the underlying philosophy.

My grandmother despised Wagner. Not because of Hitler, she just didn't like his music. She swore blind that the reason he would have some sort of loud crescendo every fifteen minutes was in order to wake up the audience after it had fallen asleep.

I like the music of Richard Wagner Unfortunately, in his art there exists themes that are anti Semitic. Was this a deeply held belief or the product of his era and culture? I don't know the correct answer for this. But what we do know is that the most hate filled being of the twentieth century adopted Wagner's music as the score for the tragedy he authored. Should I reject the work of a good artist with questionable beliefs because someone with whom I disagree even more happened to enjoy that artist's work?

You didn't miss much; as the series went on it got more dark and serious and lost a lot of what made the early books fun, and the final book was a mess in multiple ways (the most glaring for me on the first read being how bloated it was with plot threads that didn't go anywhere and scenes that seemed to exist mostly to make sure we felt just how tedious everything was for the characters; Harry also made a number of decisions I considered immoral but the text never called him out on it, which has bothered me more since I began to more critically examine the series).

I think that it is JKR herself that we are begrudging, and not her children and future grandchildren. I would not transfer any of the ill will towards her to her family, except insofar as they are known to participate in or contribute to likewise bigotry.

1) /me adds a star and an elder sign to your page. 2) Cthulhu might not be racist, but most of his early fanboys definitely were, with Lovecraft being worse, even by the standards of the day.

But at least it is also very likely to be the last Bad Day you will ever have.

So, not someone that Batman can take on with out a little bit of prep time then. Gotcha.

I agree. Shakespeare was an obvious anti-Semite, for example. H. P. Lovecraft was extremely racist. And so forth. However, there is an important difference between them and JKR, namely that she is alive and politically active in our present day and time. She is a supporter of a hate group and continues to produce and help disperse transphobic propaganda. That makes her far more dangerous and an issue that needs to be continuously addressed and watched. Shakespeare, on the other hand, may safely remain in the field of literary analysis.

Elliot isn't an idiot. He must feel a bit like a street level superhero headed for a diplomatic meeting with temperamental representatives of the New Gods. Like, Orion and Big Barda.

Ook

I don't think it's all that complex of a spell, but I could be wrong. I do like how Elliot is all "yeah, anybody else we could bring along?" He's seen, firsthand what a griffon can do both with magically and physically, and is properly impressed and a bit frightened by it.

Yes. On the Monday January 10 thread, Don Edwards posted this: It does backpedal somewhat, but it is not an apology nor an admission of being wrong, and I wonder if it is mostly a reaction to the backlash. I don't know JKR, but it seems like the people who know her were appalled; especially the young, now adult actors who worked in her setting for years. Clearly Old Hack, who has a horse in this race, so to speak, is offended, and has done more research than I have. I'll defer to that.

You would have to be more specific about which monuments you mean. Tearing down Confederate monuments, in particular, have to do with discrediting an (allegedly) fictitious account of the South's motivation being other than slavery, and being more noble overall. How do the people doing this feel about the objects they are removing? Well, imagine how a statue of Gen. Sherman would be received in Atlanta. I'm not following that any great accomplishment of any individual is being disregarded by removing these.

Forgive me for disagreeing, but I do not think anyone needs to justify either their rejection or acceptance of JKR's work. It is an individual decision and each person is free to make it on their own. I made the decision to reject JKR on the basis of my mental health; I decided to not keep reminders around of someone who considers me mentally deranged and a danger to society. Others may reject her on a different basis and still others might decide to keep her books because they are still good entertainment for them. None of these decisions are inherently right or wrong. What is important is to openly acknowledge the problematic parts of her works and recognizing her blatant hostility towards trans men and women. If you remain aware of this, you can challenge these ideas when her books present them to you and not allow them a potentially easy foothold by just letting them pass. Defending JKR and saying "Oh, she didn't really mean to be transphobic" is basically trans erasure and supporting transphobia. I am actually sad that I had to let these books go. I used to like them. But so be it. It is unfortunate that JKR has decided to dedicate a large part of her life to hate; she could be spending it in so many better and healthier ways.

"If you want to make the bed in the morning, you really should do it when you first wake up while I'm eating and doing my morning dashes. Wait to late and I'm sleeping on it. Well, I would be sleeping if you didn't bother me with the flashy thing." - Explorer the Cat

"I'm not grumpy in the morning, you're grumpy" - Explorer the Cat.

Meh. In Denmark we just pass whoever it is a Segway and tell them to step on it.