"Players can also ostensibly play as trans characters; the game offers the ability to choose one’s voice, body shape..."

"... and whether they want to be referred to as a 'witch' or a 'wizard'.... There is also a character who is (almost) explicitly transgender: Sirona Ryan... the owner of the Hogsmeade pub... says the line, 'He recognized me instantly. Which is more than I can say for some of my own classmates. Took them a second to realize I was actually a witch, not a wizard.' While it could be assumed that her inclusion was a direct rejection of Rowling’s beliefs, sources familiar with the game’s development have said that the move was 'performative bullshit,' and that the character was only added after the initial backlash to the game...."

Writes Rebecca Jennings in "How the Harry Potter video game became an ethical minefield/Hogwarts Legacy is one of the most anticipated video games of all time. Whether or not you play it is a question of morality" (Vox).

"Someone needs to change that headline which seems to state the judge had drugs and thought she was Harry Potter"/"Absolute word salad."/"Confusing headline, for the deceased judge’s sake please correct."

Washington Post commenters cry out in near unison over a wretched headline. 

The headline — here — has now been tweaked — lamely — but I found the cached version and made a screen shot of the 2 headlines. The old headline is shown first and the current headline second:

 

 

 

 

The deceased judge is Sandra J. Feuerstein. I offer sympathy to her family and friends.

Perhaps you will think it interesting that the driver's name is Nastasia Snape. I'm only mentioning that so you don't feel you have to email me to express that interest. But you can email me here if you want to comment.

A theory...

So much better from r/PhilosophyMemes

It's not enough for women to succeed. Men must fail.

That's the message I take from this Daily Beast graphic:



The image is of a shattering of the symbol of the male. The conventional shattering we hear about when the topic is feminism is the shattering of the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling is a barrier that has kept women from rising beyond a certain point. It's glass because you don't see it. Women are told that they can rise and that there is no limit, but in reality, there is a ceiling. The glass ceiling metaphor led to the idea of breaking through the glass ceiling, and when you break glass, it shatters. But the glass shouldn't have been there in the first place. Maybe "shattering" feels like a feminist activity, but it is destructive, and it shouldn't be done to things you don't want to destroy. So I hate this image of shattering the male. Women are not trapped inside the male and needing to destroy him to achieve our full dimension. The male is not the equivalent of the glass ceiling.

The article is "Democrats Can Vote to End the Myth of the White Male Savior/As accomplished women fear that they’re imposters, men see greatness as their birthright. Will primary voters agree?" by Emma Goldberg (in The Daily Beast). I don't know how much supports the offensive message in the graphic. After the first 3 paragraph, it's blocked by a pay wall.

The 2020 Democratic primary will serve as a referendum on a whole host of political questions—chief among them the myth of the white male savior.

One of the assumptions stubbornly lodged in our cultural psyche is the belief in male genius, the notion of men destined for a hero’s journey. Women can be hardworking, motivated, enthusiastic—but not brilliant by nature. For children, this assumption forms as early as age 6; according to NYU psychologist Andrei Cimpian, girls rate their male classmates as better suited for activities that demand exceptional talent. This insecurity persists throughout women’s careers. Research in the journal American Psychologist found that women are less likely to apply for jobs when the description requires candidates with “a brilliant mind.” Another recent study, also by Cimpian, found that people associate terms like “genius” and “brilliance” more often with white men, not people of color.

It’s unsurprising that we find it so hard to undo our tightly held belief in white male saviors; it’s a story that gets perpetually reinforced. Harry Potter was anointed, from birth, to slay Lord Voldemort; Hermione Granger may be savvier and more hardworking, but without a messianic birthright, she remains just Harry’s sidekick. From Odysseus to Skywalker, we’ve been raised on tales of men who are reluctant to take on epic journeys but find that they were just born for it....

Perhaps Goldberg goes on to say that women can be brilliant and heroic too. I don't know, and I'm not going to subscribe to The Daily Beast to find out. Judging from the title, the idea is that we need to stop thinking of men as heroes. Is it that we need women to be our heroes or just that we ought to stop looking for heroes and give the job to a savvy, hardworking Hermione type? That makes sense to me, but I've never looked to politicians for salvation. The "Myth of the White Male Savior" isn't anything I've ever believed in. And I'm not interested in Harry Potter or Star Wars or all the many super-hero movies that fill the theater these days. Maybe America does have a problem of fixation on heroes, and maybe that does affect our willingness to vote for a woman for President because — on some deep level — we feel the hero is male.

If so, the "myth" might be something like a glass ceiling, and I might see the temptation to illustrate the concept with a shattering symbol of the male. But the temptation should have been resisted. It expresses a hateful intention toward a class of human beings.

"Sara Lynn Michener, 39, stopped shopping at Victoria’s Secret about 10 years ago. She said she was frustrated..."

"... by the seemingly inexperienced sales people, the overwhelming 'pinkness' of the brand and the inauthentic 'glamazon images' in the store. She now mostly buys her bras online and at Nordstrom, environments that are mostly free of the sexed-up imagery that makes Victoria’s Secret the store it is. 'Even if I walk into the Nordstrom section, I’m going to have a bad day, so you can imagine Victoria’s Secret,' Ms. Michener, a writer who lives in the Bay Area, said."

From a long article in the NYT called "In 2018, Where Does Victoria’s Secret Stand?/The lingerie company has clung to the idea that women should look sexy for men. And sales are plummeting."

Of course, my question was: Ms. Michener, a writer — is she related to James A. Michener?

Googling her name, I found her page on Medium: "Sara Lynn Michener/Writer. Maker. Feminist. Internet Curator. Spitfire. Ravenclaw. Trekkie. Social Justice Apologist." Ravenclaw — what is that, some Harry Potter category? Yes — "6 reasons to get excited if you’re sorted into Ravenclaw" ("Ravenclaw is the house that champions those with a 'ready mind'"). Do people pushing 40 really think of themselves in terms of Harry Potter classifications? I guess it's better than astrology, and it looks like you just pick the one you think you are, so it's probably also better than the Myers Briggs system.

But is Sara Lynn Michener related to James A. Michener? The closest I got to an answer was an essay by Ms. Michener, "The Life and Times of Thurber James Michener/Obituary of a Beloved Dog."

... I placed all the love I had left in this dog, knowing he could never hurt me unless he was parted from me, like my own little pantalaimon. He licked my tears and put his head on my chest or dove between body and arm and seemed to make it possible for me to breathe. He followed me around extra closely, he was happily affectionate when I was happy, and gently affectionate when I was sad. I came to understand that the magic of this town I had loved, was merely how I had seen it — along with everyone else who comes to love a place to the point of fiction. Every American small town has a dark underbelly once the veil of what feels so deeply like community is lifted, so easily and under the slightest pressure. When I saw it for what it truly was without that love, I left with an effort that would not have been possible without my constant. All eighteen pounds of him in fur, bone, blood, and a love of bacon and peanut butter.

Anyway, I was thinking about James A. Michener, because I've been working my way through a box set of the complete episodes of "Friends," and his name came up in "The One With The Stoned Guy" (from February 1995). Ross wants to accommodate a girlfriend who expects him to talk dirty when they have sex, Joey gives him some lessons, and Ross reports back: "Oh, I was unbelievable.... I was the James Michener of dirty talk. It was the most elaborate filth you have ever heard. I mean, there were characters, plot lines, themes, a motif... at one point there were villagers."

At one point there were villagers! Did Americans understand that line in 1995? TV writers 23 years ago expected a mainstream audience to grasp a surreal turn in the dialogue that demanded understanding of the work of a specific writer. But it was James A. Michener — and he was still alive (alive and 88) and he'd even published a novel that year — another one of his 40 books. I'm just going to guess that knowing, back then, that a Michener story would have villagers was about as difficult as understanding, these days, what it means to be a Ravenclaw.

"Everything about Harry Potter sounds like a name for your vagina."

Goblet of Fire, The Chamber of Secrets, Hagrid, The Half-Blood Prince...

Says Michelle Wolf, momentarily digressing within a comic rant called "Salute to Abortions":



The digressions appear at the midpoint of that video. Shaking off the digressions, getting back on track, she says, "Now, men, I'm sorry. I'm sure this brings up a lot of feelings and thoughts and points you want to make and I just want you to know: That's all very irrelevant..."

I found that via "Michelle Wolf Gets Patriotic For a Red, White, and Blue Salute to Abortion" at Slate, which ends:

By the time Wolf brings out a marching band and strews the audience with glitter while exhorting them to have abortions if they want them, you may be wondering why more late-night talk show hosts don’t produce segments defending abortion as a positive good. To learn more about this topic, check out the YouTube comments on this video!

"Like I said earlier, maybe I am being a little sensitive, but it is how I feel."

"This represents, to me, our society, and I do not want it up on this wall. Why do we need a BEFORE and AFTER?"

From a complaint about a mural in a University of Wisconsin – La Crosse residence hall, quoted in a National Review piece titled "UW Student Files Report Claiming Harry Potter Mural Is Transphobic and ‘Represents White Power,'" by Katherine Timpf. Timpf is too dismissive of the student's concerns, I think, and resorts to mockery.

Listen, kid. If that’s how you “feel,” then fine. Well, at least kind of fine, because I’d say if you really are so “angry” about having to even “know” people who put up a Harry Potter painting, then you probably have some anger issues you need to address. It’s not like they’re ISIS, relax. But in any case, the biggest problem about all of this isn’t even the fact that this kid seems to “feel” a level of anger over a painting that seems like it would be more appropriate to feel over something like terrorism. It’s the fact that he or she goes right from “it is how I feel” into “I do not want it up on this wall” — right from “I feel like this” into “I am telling you I want you to take it down just because of the reasons I just outlined, those reasons being my feelings.” Honestly, this student’s report shows a level of entitlement and narcissism that’s far more offensive than any painting I’ve ever seen.

It's not just a painting somewhere in the museum. It's a mural, a permanent part of one of the walls that house the students, and it's directed at the students with the obvious intent to make them feel good about where they live:



The intent of the artist is to say to the residents: You should feel great about living here; this place will make you happy. The complainant is saying: It's having the opposite effect on me. That's useful information to the university, and it is, in fact, expressed modestly.

"Why do we need a BEFORE and AFTER?" That is: Why are you portraying me as ugly and awkward before I got here and in need of a change?

Now, I'm sure many of you will object to something else in the complaint that I haven't quoted yet:

It represents white power. Man power. Cis power. Able power. Class power.... etc.

That may sound a little hysterical, but as art analysis, it makes sense. The happy "after" character has distinctly lighter skin, and he is in many ways a conventional, idealized young white man. The boy looks gnomish and misshapen. I know it's a joke, and it's based on a real Harry Potter character, and I don't know enough about the Harry Potter series to have any insight into its race and gender politics, but the university can't assume everyone's into Harry Potter. I'm pretty sure the people involved in putting up the mural meant well and thought it was cute and pop and fun, but they should take seriously how they actually make people feel, and the anonymous complainant has brought new complexity to the analysis of art and that's something colleges should want to do.

Let's have more speech.

And let's have better murals. Come on. It really is a bad mural, a bad atmosphere for a college dorm. It's okay to be a funny looking kid. You are loved.

Bear in mind: the "mead paw."

I've got "bear" in mind today, because I'm teaching District of Columbia v. Heller — the main case about the right to bear arms. I was looking up the word "bear" on the theory that it connected to the word "embarrass," which comes up in older constitutional law cases about the power of Congress, including McCulloch v. Maryland, also in today's assignment. When the people gave Congress its various powers, Chief Justice Marshall says in McCulloch, they couldn't have meant "to clog and embarrass its execution by withholding the most appropriate means."

But the "-bar-" in "embarrass" isn't like the "bear" in "bear arms." It comes from "baraço" which was the kind of cord or leash you'd use to restrain an animal — perhaps a bear. But the "bear" in "bear arms" is an extremely old root that has always referred to carrying a burden. "Bear," the animal, takes us somewhere else entirely, to the word "brown." Northern Europeans took to calling a bear "the brown one," disconnecting from the Latin "ursus" because — the theory goes — hunters had a taboo on saying the names of wild animals.

Wanting to know more about this taboo, I found a blog post that caught my eye because it inadvertently said the name of my husband: "'Mead Paw' the Original 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'":

... Bronze-Age hunters came to believe that using the bear’s true name allowed the animal to hear and comprehend the hunter. This would allow the bear to either elude the hunter or come seeking him, who would then become the hunted. The bear was the only really dangerous animal in the great Germanic forest, so to reduce this danger, men changed the rules....

In the Slavic lands, a similar taboo deformation resulted in the Russian name медведь (from *medu-ed) meaning ‘honey-eater’. This compares with our familiar Beowulf which literally means ‘Bee-wolf’ – an obvious poetic euphemism for Bear, in light of the bears notorious liking for honey. Beowulf is ‘bear-like’ in his great strength....

Of all the animals, the most sacred was the bear, whose real name was never uttered out loud. The bear (“karhu” in Finnish) was seen as the embodiment of the forefathers, and for this reason it was called by many euphemisms: “mesikämmen” (“mead-paw”), “otso” (“wide brow”), “kontio” (“dweller of the land”), “lakkapoika” (“cloudberry boy”).

That post proceeds the issues of not saying the name of God and the Harry Potter taboo on naming Lord Voldemort, but my mind wandered to the subject of Donald Trump. It was just 2 posts down that I was writing about an Andrew Sullivan essay, which I had searched for the word "Trump" and, finding nothing, praised for not mentioning Trump, and which I had to come back to and update when I realized that Sullivan was treating Trump as one who must not be named. It was right there in the one paragraph I'd excerpted: "a walking human Snapchat app of incoherence."

Suddenly, I realized that I'd started out doing the same thing. I would not accept the existence of Donald Trump as a candidate for President. Look at this post from June 16, 2015:

Look at that tag: Nothing! June 16th. I wouldn't say the name. That was this day:

"There was nothing they (Aqsa's parents) could have done different. She was a bedroom radical."

"And if this could happen to Aqsa, who had all the life chances, the best education that money can buy, a family that was moderate, liberal ... if it could happen to her, somebody who was so intelligent, then it could happen to any family."

"She was the best daughter you could have. We just don't know what happened to her. She loved school. She was very friendly. I have never shouted at her all my life, all my life"....

Her parents insist there were no signs that the Glasgow teenager harbored any extremist beliefs. She listened to Coldplay and read "Harry Potter" books. On her desk, colorful loom bands and bracelets hung from a goosenecked lamp, a dog-eared copy of "The Hunger Games" nearby....

"We used to tell her ... this is not Islam, some of these groups are not Islam. They are doing wrong things which we don't approve of. Obviously, no Muslim approves this.... We are against all this ISIS carrying on. This is no Islam. Islam is peace. Any killing we are against, whoever it is. That's what we have been taught by our prophet -- peace be upon him."

"Unfathomably, the programme notes for the Harry Potter author, who read from the opening of Peter Pan, declared her to be 'a great philanthropist, praised by the Government as a tax angel – one of the few who willingly pays her tax bill.'"

From the long, photo-filled Daily Mail article about last night's opening ceremony for the London Olympics.

Unfathomably? Oh, come on. It must be at least possible to fathom it!

The OED tells us that to fathom means "To encircle with extended arms." So: Can you get your arms around it? Can the government get its arms around you?

The opening ceremony also had a giant production number celebrating the National Health Service, replete with hundreds of dancing doctors and nurses in period costumes, and children in pjs bouncing on oversized hospital beds.

Socialized medicine will encircle you with its extended arms.

J.K. Rowling (the "Harry Potter" author) read from J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan" — video — and we were told that Barrie donated the royalties from "Peter Pan" to GOSH (the Great Ormand Street Hospital).  We saw "GOSH" in big lights along with "NHS" in that production number.

(Wikipedia: "When the copyright originally expired at the end of 1987, 50 years after Barrie's death, the UK government granted the hospital a perpetual right to collect royalties for public performances, commercial publication, or other communications to the public of the work.... GOSH has been in legal disputes in the United States, where the copyright term is based on date of publication, putting the 1911 novel in the public domain, although the Hospital asserts that the 1928 version of the play is still under copyright in the U.S.")

Rowling tied it all together. Like Barrie, she's an author of children's literature. (The production number more generally celebrated Britain's children's literature, e.g., "Mary Poppins.") Like Barrie, Rowling represents giving up one's money to the greater good. Barrie voluntarily donated a specific flow of money — "Peter Pan" royalties — to a specific cause — a children's hospital. Rowling is just a very rich person who — visibly and graciously — submits to taxation.

This year's Forbes magazine rich list showed that Rowling "has dropped out of the world's exclusive billionaires' club as a result of Britain's high tax regime."

So, fathom that: The government has gotten its arms around her fortune.  Unlike the charitable giving of yore — exemplified by Barrie — the modern-day secular saint need only sit still for taxation, and the government will decide exactly where it goes. It's the way things are done now, and it's massively celebrated as part of the Olympics spectacle about what makes Great Britain so great. The spectacle notably took us through the phrases of history, and those wonderful children's authors have been giving children reading material and vast donations of wealth, in their own way and in their own time. And in our time, the government has an immense role.

***

"No man ought to graspe more then he can well fathome." Bp. J. Hall Horæ Vacivæ 71 (1646)(via OED).

It's the new "Harry Potter."

For ladies.

"I am no fan of Ann Althouse, but I had to admit to a shudder of recognition when I read her criticism of liberals last week."

Says Maria Bustillos. She quotes this from me:

What is liberal about this attitude toward other people? You wallow in self-love, and what is it you love yourself for? For wanting to shower benefits on people… that you have nothing but contempt for.

Then she says:

This may not be such a very good description of liberals in general but it is an excellent description of J.K. Rowling. In the “touching” climactic scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the house-elf Dobby has been “liberated” by, and now sacrifices himself to save, Harry Potter & co. The house-elves as depicted in the movies are horrifyingly pathetic, small, cringing, grateful; the sad, brave little creature Dobby literally expires with the name of Harry Potter on his lips. It’s like freedom is the gift of the chosen ones to bestow, and those thus benefited can die of gratitude and be “properly buried," which really, there is this long burial scene complete with Harry Potter and shovel. It’s a perfect illustration of the “liberal condescension” that conservatives are always yodeling about, and it made my hair stand on end.

I haven't been following Harry Potter. Can anyone explain that?

"We will be Live-Tweetin' the game and possibly stalking Emma Watson, so keep your eyes peeled for that, too!"

The actress/Brown student is stalked by Harvard students.

A succession of tweets posted on the [Harvard] Voice's Twitter account during the game followed, including, "Let's go Hermione! Lolz," a reference to Watson's character in "Harry Potter." It went on, "In enemy territory. Lookin for a certain witch," and, "WATSON FOUND. i repeat WATSON FOUND....

The Voice eventually attached an editor's note to its post of Watson's photo, saying, "There seems to be much ado about nothing over this photo and liveblog. Understand that these live tweets were made to be intentionally outrageous and overblown."

The Harvard students are almost surely not great artists, nor are they — I don't think — religionists, and yet they too feel a sense of privilege that lifts them up above the common people to whom the rules apply. It is the privilege that comes from being so much cleverer than the ordinary person. Clever with a famous stamp of cleverness — and good fortune — on you.

Obama's speech to kids is nearly 10x as long as the Gettysburg Address (which was given to adults).

The kids will need to sit still for 2540 televised words.

Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Can any speech be good for such wide range of ages? 2540 words should take at least 15 minutes to deliver. Who gives a 15 minute speech to kindergartners?

I’m glad you all could join us today.

Students tuning in? Glad you could join us? It's not voluntary.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

"This is no picnic for me either, buster" is a long-time laugh line for Obama, but it's not exactly comprehensible to kids. Do kindergartners and first graders understand what a foreign country is? Do elementary school students recognize the word "Indonesia"? Will students understand why going to school with people other than Americans is so bad? (Isn't it prejudiced to think that? a bright child might wonder.)

And what sort of mother wakes a kid up before dawn to teach him lessons? (Some parents say "I'll teach you a lesson" as a prelude to punishment.) Frankly, I don't even understand why the mother picked pre-dawn for lesson time. It seems a bit abusive. And I don't see what so funny when the abusers says "This hurts me too." Is a mother calling her child "buster" funny to little kids, or does it seem sad or scary?

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you...

It's not a discussion. He's on television.

Okay, I've got to stop. I'm not going to reprint the whole thing. It's way too long. I'll summarize. As it goes on, he develops the theme of students taking responsibility for their own education, including and especially when they don't have responsible adults in their life watching over them.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America....

Now, that's very nice free market capitalism — not that Obama's policies reflect this spirit.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

So can you "write your own destiny" and "make your own future" or not? It's confusing.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

But I thought we weren't supposed to think we could make it at basketball! That's downright perplexing. And why is rapping an inappropriate goal but being a fiction writer is admirable? Isn't rap a more easily reachable occupation?

... [Y]ou’ve got to do your part... So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

"I expect"... I have no idea if expressions of expectation motivate children. Personally, I don't react well to a political leader telling me he expects something from me, but I'm not a kid.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

He ends with a double "God." I guess it's okay when Obama invokes the deity in school, but some kids might wonder why God's blessing comes at the end. After all, they were just told to take personal responsibility for themselves. And as for "God bless America," why is it even relevant? This wasn't a patriotic speech. The message to kids in other countries — including Indonesia — would be the same. Maybe some older kids will get it that it's just the conventional ending for a presidential speech, but if you're not familiar with the convention, and you're just trying to understand this speech, it's comes from nowhere.