Maddening

(This post does NOT contain spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows except for a tiny one that has to be highlighted to be read.)

I have given up trying to reconcile J. K. Rowling's inconsistencies in plot and detail. There are just too many and too infuriating, and at some point, you've just got to throw up your hands and admit that even though you're in love with the world she has created, all you feel for the author herself is the deep loathing reserved for people who should know better, dammit.

But then she comes along and says something so colossally stupid that you just have to go at her again, because justice demands it.

1. Forgetting her own words in an interview of just a week ago (SPOILERS if you click) where she told us that Ron revolutionised the Auror department along with Harry, she now says Ron went into business with George (as a handy replacement for Fred, what else?) while Harry finished school and went on to become an Auror. This is beyond aggravating. I know you all think this is also easily retconnable, but I am not so sanguine, because this is Jo Rowling we're talking about, a woman whose track record speaks of carnage during attempts at retconning. Example:

J. K. Rowling: I know some have asked about Quirrell with regard to [the curse on the DADA teacher post]. He was teaching at Hogwarts for more than a year, but NOT in the post of D.A.D.A. teacher. He was previously Muggle Studies professor.

Uh, why would Voldemort want to limit his time at Hogwarts by choosing to possess a guy who Voldemort himself has made sure will only last there for one year?

2. In the Bloomsbury chat transcript, you will see this:

J.K. Rowling (in answer to a question about where Muggle-Borns get their magic): Muggle-borns will have a witch or wizard somewhere on their family tree, in some cases many, many generations back. The gene re-surfaces in some unexpected places.

Hmm. Let's see.

It can't be a dominant gene, because then it couldn't lie dormant for generations; it would be forced to express itself if it had been passed down at all.

It can't be a recessive gene because then it would be rare for a witch/wizard who marries a muggle to produce a magical kid, which goes against copious evidence in the books.

It can't be incomplete dominance (tall pea plants crossed with short pea plants give medium height pea plants), where the child of a muggle and a magical person produces a child of dilute magic because then pure-blood maniacs would be right, and Harry, Snape, Voldemort, Seamus Finnegan etc would be vanish in puffs of logic.

It can't be co-dominance because that just doesn't make sense: you can't be magical and non magical at the same time.

You can't claim that this is a product of multiple genes working in combination because that would make this purely on/off action even more improbable.

(People who know more genetics than I do: did I get anything wrong? Do you know a way this can work with single gene control?)

The only way for this to work is if the gene randomly mutates far more frequently than is common for any other gene, producing squibs in the magical community who go on to live muggle lives, passing on their mutated gene for generations which randomly turns on again somewhere down the line. But this is nothing like anything seen in nature, mutations are random to the degree that even the TYPE of mutation is random - and for this gene to mutate in exactly the same way millions of times is bizarre.

It seems to me this is just another example where J. K. Rowling's woeful ignorance of a subject doesn't stop her from using it to give us nonsensical explanations anyway. Let's call this Her Sloppy Attitude, and move on to the following final astute observation:

Woman, when you have "spent the last seventeen years" plotting out a series whose central theme hinges on magical talent NOT being dependent on genetics, why would you go and blow it in a single throwaway line in some shitty interview? That's the Harry Potter Series she just mangled and handed to you in a plate, ladies and gentlemen. That's all for today, goodbye.

Over-Sugared @ SugarQuill

Historic day: yours truly has been suspended from longtime Harry Potter discussion-home, the Sugar Quill, for (allegedly) not playing nice.

Which leads me to my bigoted statement of the day - God, I hate women. Especially groups of women. The steady frustration has been building in me since early this year, and it was just as well they threw me out before I blew up all over their extremely sugary parade.

If there's one trouble with the Harry Potter fandom, it is that it is predominantly female. Adult discussion groups, in particular, are overrun with oestrogen. That in itself is irritating: a living demonstration of subtle sexism at work. Comparable fandoms of Phillip Pullman, Tolkien, or Frank Herbert, for example, don't seem to have this problem... but let it get out that hiding behind those asexual initials of "J" and "K" is (gasp) a woman, and the men leave in droves. And they'll come up with any number of rationalisations: it's not "hard SF" (as if Narnia is); it doesn't show rigour in the little details (as if Dune does); it's childish (dude, if you think Star Wars is the height of maturity...) etc. But this is a rant for another day.

One thing you can be sure of when large groups of women gather for anything other than a specifically feminist purpose, they will behave true to every bloody stereotype. Cliques and exclusiveness? Check. Fawning praise of the object of the gathering (and themselves)? Check. Pathological avoidance of open disagreement? Check. Ever-smiling back-handed bitchiness? Check.

Perhaps I'm a little slow on the uptake, but I didn't begin to notice this stuff on Sugar Quill until early this year - but it sure got old fast.

Let me give you an example of a discussion that got me scathingly polite warnings from the moderators. On SQ, any character formerly seen as one of the good guys who suddenly starts sprouting dark shades of grey has its fangirls willing to defend his unsullied (in their minds) persona to death. Consequently, there are no hotter wars than those on such threads.

The Percy thread is a good example. One poster went to great pains to list the incidents of all the books as seen from Percy's point of view in an effort to prove that his desertion of his family was completely rational and not at all disloyal.

CoS-- Things are seriously wrong at Hogwarts. A deadly monster is on the loose and all the people who are supposed to fix it, the teachers, the headmaster, and Percy himself are unable to do anything except try to limit the damage. His girlfriend Penelope is attacked and petrified. At this critical moment, Dumbledore leaves the school even more vulnerable than before and there is talk of closing it.

In other news, the twins stole Dad's car and didn't really get in trouble for it. Then, obviously following their bad example, Ron and Harry stole the car and created an incident that nearly exposed the entire wizarding world. Ron never did anything like this before. If Harry wasn't such a good Quidditch player, Percy'd worry about his influence on Ron....

I couldn't let that fly, obviously. This is what I wrote in reponse -

I do believe this is a very selective and highly biased view of Percy's CoS-year. After all, Harry saved Ginny's life at the end, saved her from possession and annihilation by Voldemort - doesn't that count for anything in Percy's book? Or does he think even then that his sister is lying, that Voldemort never possessed her?

As for not being able to protect the school - very laudable instincts for Percy to have, indeed (if he really did have them, but let's give you that). So what does Percy conclude from this? Never trust Dumbledore again, and let's trust the Ministry instead (which was revealed in CoS to have been responsible for expelling the innocent Hagrid, and to be rather incompetent in general). Never mind that the Minister is in Lucius Malfoy's pocket, and that Lucius Malfoy is the man who tried to kill Ginny AND got Dumbledore fired by threatening to curse the Board of Directors. And next time some monster is thought to be on the loose, let's just deny it and refuse to believe it, because the world is too pretty a place to allow it.

Forum moderators got in touch with me for this one: "Tone it down, respect other people's feelings, play nice."

My response was along the lines of O RLY?, obviously, and I went right on. Woman, if you're threatened by someone disagreeing with you, what are you on a discussion forum for? Go build a shrine fansite.

Tune in for tomorrow's thrilling conclusion of the SQ saga: I'll tell you all about the latest squabble that got me ejected and my posts modded out completely.

What Harry Almost Said to Voldemort

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I know what you’re thinking. "Did Snape take the wand from Dumbledore or did Draco?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is an Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you’ve got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky?

Well, do ya, punk?

Harry Potter and the Very Spoilery Review

There are SPOILERS in this review. Big fat juicy spoilers. Expect plot details, character deaths (and lives, as applicable), who's evil, who's good, EVERYTHING.
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Jesus Christ.

There are hundreds of things I loved about Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows, and millions of things I hated with the fire of a thousand suns.

But in the end, it came down (literally) to this:

One word review: SUCKITUDINOUS.

This book is just bad.

You could lose the first 500 pages of this book and still tell essentially the same story. Rowling ditches the Hogwarts school-year structure for this book, and simply falls apart without it. Voldemort sitting and talking. The trio cleaning the Burrow. The wedding. Teen wizard camp with Harry, Ron and Hermione. All completely pointless episodes that only serve as filler in a book that is otherwise tottering under the burden of revelatory exposition.

The inconsistencies render the entire plot of not just this book, but of all seven books, meaningless. If house-elves can side-along-apparate wizards into places wizards can't normally go, why didn't Voldemort catch himself a house-elf to take him into Hogwarts? And take the Elder wand. If Grindelwald stole the wand from Gregorvitch, how on earth was he its master? Then Dumbledore defeats Grindelwald - fair enough. But Dumbledore chooses to be defeated by Draco by wilfully not defending himself, and Draco still becomes master. Later, Harry simply steals Draco's wand (NOT the Elder wand), which somehow makes him the Elder wand's master?! The most asinine part is after all this, Harry tells Dumbledore's portrait in the end, "As long as I die a natural death, the wand's power dies with me."

(BTW, why doesn't he just break the damn wand and be done with it?)

The epilogue was in a league of its own as probably the worst commercially published piece of writing I've ever read, and that includes Mary Higgins Clark. Holy purple centaurs. To think how we spork poor teenage badfic writers who actually manage to do better than this bilge! Rowling seems to think that what we're dying to know about the post-war wizarding world is the names of Harry & Ginny and Ron & Hermione's kids. And that is ALL the info she gives us. Even the aforementioned badfic writers manage to tell us more: Harry is a Quidditch star, Ginny is a model, Hermione is Minister of Magic (Ron is usually forgotten). What's happened in the Ministry? Have wand regulations been changed to be more inclusive? Did Hermione take SPEW further? Did Harry and Ron become aurors? Did nothing change?

But by far the worst fault of this book is the unconscionable hubris that permeates every page of it. So all right, it's Rowling's story, and she can tell us any tale she pleases, but she writes this book as if she wanted to throw in some HUGE ideas and then hurry off to collect her paycheck without pausing to give those ideas a second thought. For example, there were all those references to World War II - could they have possibly been treated any more casually? The Wizarding World, it seems, is meekly bowing to a second wizarding holocaust without a word of protest - and yet, this idea remains unexplored, of vanishing importance next to that damned camping trip. Rowling racks up the body count as casually as throwing berries into a basket, with as little thought and as much cheer, more often than not. Just how many times do we need to have the message of "Death Is Arbitrary" hammered in, and just how incompetent is she that Remus Lupin's death is introduced and mourned in a total of four sentences?

If you expect her own plot to escape such thoughtless treatment, you're mistaken. Oh, the lost opportunities, the wasted potential. Dumbledore was Grindelwald's best friend! He shared the aims of the world's most evil wizard of the time, but we can't stop to dwell on that. Harry's sacrifice keeps the entire school safe from Voldemort - and that gets ONE LINE's worth of pagetime. Even shoddier is the way she deals with ideas and characters from previous books: Where was Ginny throughout the book? Dean Thomas has more pagespace than she does. Rowling forgets all about the Veil and the locked room in the Department of Mysteries - why set it up as a mystery if you won't return to it? All that buildup about Wormtail's life debt, and it comes to an utterly nondescript and random closure. Inter-house unity is in shreds as Slytherin house simply up and leaves in the middle of the battle. Dumbledore's line to Snape, "Sometimes I think we sort too soon," is the deepest betrayal of the concept of a united Hogwarts: possibly ALL TWO (count 'em!) halfway-noble Slytherins are not really Slytherins after all!

It felt like she was just slapping little patches all over the place on the book as a whole - consider how Snape just happens to pick the very memories from his lifetime to give to Harry that will exactly answer all the little questions Harry has about the subsidiary plots of this book. These patches consist of random factoids,hastily contrived magics and situations, and worst of all gratuitous death and dismemberment. It was hubris. "Watch me Grapple With Big Ideas, bucko," she said, before tripping on her own feet and falling splat. And the whole of Deathly Hallows is her scrambling to retain her dignity by saying, "I meant to do that."

Having said that, there were parts of the book that I didn't hate - even stuff I loved, even one part that moved me close to tears. I didn't mind that my predictions were almost all 100% correct - that's not Rowling's fault. Though I was never a fan of the Snape-loved-Lily theory even after I predicted it, Rowling managed to convince me in this book. I've seen a lot of reactions in fandom that are basically Yo, what a loser, but I disagree. Rowling's out on a limb here, a limb I can respect. She's saying that even unrequited love is love: it can be as strong and ennobling as what commonly passes for the real deal. This isn't the advice you'll get from Dear Abby, it isn't practical and maybe it even hurts you to believe it - but that doesn't necessarily make the thought untrue, and it took guts to say it.

It also took guts to knock Dumbledore off his pedestal so spectacularly. The guy in the long white beard is almost evil, and certainly a creep - whaddayaknow! Not only is he a manipulative bastard till the very end - he makes Severus Snape risk (and meet) death simply because he wants to delay giving Harry some information - he also succumbs to temptation at the end of his life, when he is supposed to have conquered his desire for immortality. I love it that we see why it is that Dumbledore sets himself against Voldemort so completely: they are just too alike for comfort.

So that's it, boys and girls. The end of the line, the finish of the Harry Potter saga. Whimper, whimper.

By which words I describe not the sounds I make, but the manner of this epic's exit.

Eh

I think I've read better fanfic. :-/

Ten Hours To Go

... and I am going mad. Despite my disenchantment with the forums four months ago, I am back on the SugarQuill because, what, you expect me to get through these last superstretchy looooong hours without a support group? :P I'm a wreck. I've just nearly cried reading "The Day The Music Died (And I Got Farked)" again.

Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again.

For this final book I'm going to a release party - a first for me. I'll be at Borders (I can just hear you going 'lame-o') from 7 pm onwards, mingling and trying to calm my jangling nerves. I will also be in freaky goth make-up courtesy of ubergay (and ubersweet, actually) colleague, who promises he can do it in 10 minutes. Honestly, this is like new year's eve, night-before-first-day-of-school and night-before-dentist's-appointment, combined.

And in the streets: the children screamed,
The lovers cried, and the poets dreamed.
But not a word was spoken...

Saurabh knows something. Something beginning with a certain letter of the alphabet that I won't reveal here, except to say that it's a letter Jo Rowling seems to like very much indeeed. I'm dying from guessing what that letter could mean, what follows it, what he knows.

But february made me shiver
With every paper I’d deliver.
Bad news on the doorstep;
I couldn’t take one more step.

That's all I know about the 7th book, I swear. I don't think I've ever been so pure white for any other HP book... I read Goblet of Fire before I read the first, second and third books. For Order of the Phoenix I found out about Harry's trial a couple of days in advance. For Half-Blood Prince, I knew the chapter titles beforehand, which pretty much meant my suspicions of Dumbledore dying were completely confirmed.

Did you write the book of love,
And do you have faith in God above,
If the Bible tells you so?
Do you believe in rock ’n roll,
Can music save your mortal soul...

But this time, the extent of my spoilage is ONE FREAKIN' LETTER. Thank you for the applause. It feels good.

Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?

And now from some last-minute crystal gazing. Just two thoughts from reading Prisoner of Azkaban yesterday, actually -

Dementors will be used to destroy one or more horcruxes.

Trelawney will make a third real prophecy.

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.

Ok, kids. Goodbye. This time I really do mean it - the spoilers are EVERYWHERE and I'm beginning to crack myself... It's off the internet and back to work. See you on the other side.

(Amen.)

I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before,
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play.

Timepass

Now, I know I said I wouldn't be back, but I am, and for good reason. I've got two links to recommend (no spoilers whatsoever, completely safe links):

Go to Mistful's LJ to read the BEST Phoenix movie post EVER.

And longtime favourite fan writer Copperbadge pens an original story about the fictional fan community of a fictional series of books called 'Carverquest'. It's absolutely hilarious in addition to being a stunning portrait of online fandom.

I was there, man, I was there through it all. Let me tell you something about fucking fandom.

It's not like the Carverquest books had the sanest fandom to begin with. You had your wanks, your sockpuppets, your cosplayers who got at one anothers' throats over who looked more like Dux Carver. Man, there was some hardcore porn in the fandom, all the wank over the underage kiddies having sex, who will think of the children? You had feuds, you do get your standard fandom feud. Seriously, the Harry Potter fandom looked at us and thought, Jesus, at least I'm not a Carverquest fan.

(Read "The Day The Music Died (And I Got Farked)")

That Does It + Final Predictions

Goodbye, boys and girls. The internet has become far too dangerous (safe link, no spoilers) for angelically pure Orbit-ly white Potterites like yours truly. I'm off, to return only after I've safely finished the book.

I won't be looking at your comments. I won't be answering my phone or email. I won't be watching TV or standing in line outside a bookstore at midnight (picked a store party that would let me stay IN). I CANNOT BE SPOILED, MUA HA HA HA.

Have a happy Harry Potter day. Try not to get TOO spoiled beforehand. Record your predictions on your respective blogs, and check them later. Cry, laugh, LIVE - knowing you live in historic times (sniff). No, really. Historic. You'll look back on this.

Just as a thought - here's a historic snapshot I took at a historic moment which I should have uploaded a long time ago -
Before I go, I would like to dash off a few predictions, and those of you who have seen those photogrpahs and have been spoiled silly - HA - will be able to tell right away what I've got right and wrong. Go ahead. As long as you're not telling ME. :)

Voldie's Fate
1. Voldemort will die and become a ghost - because he fears death, you dummies. Betcha never thought of that, huh? And I'm also predicting an OMG!heartrending scene where Voldemort confronts a Boggart and it turns into the GRIM, only the Grim is Padfoot and Harry's going to go nuts! Gosh do I have a brain or what?


Harry's Fate
2. He will live. And after years, months, weeks and days of vascillating on the subject I have decided that Harry probably IS a horcrux. That scar. A bit of Voldemort's soul is somewhere in his head, because - get this quote from PS - the Sorting Hat says, "You'd do well in Slytherin, it's all there in your head, you know..." The requirement of Voldemort never at any one time possessing 7 horcruxes is nicely met if RAB managed to destroy the locket horcrux before he died. Howzzat!

Candidates for Redemption
3. Snape is good. He was in love with Lily. He has stumbled a few times since he turned himself over to Dumbledore (notably while making that Vow - what were you thinking, Snivelly?!) but we shall not be denied the grand melodramatic and tearful redemption story. Basically, either Snape will die or his moral ambiguity will die, Jo isn't good enough to sustain this character beyond her narrative in his current shape. Wormtail is NOT up for redemption. He'll end up helping Harry in spite of his best efforts not to. Percy Weasley is a tossup - I'm hoping he stays bad, but he probably won't.

Who Dies?4. Hagrid should go, but maybe he won't. A Weasley will die, probably Molly. Somebody told me yesterday that it was George - I half-believe it. In this strange world of half-trust and half-resignation of J. K. Rowling that I inhabit, it's hard to figure this stuff out. Will she go to the extremes of the tearjerker mode by killing off one of the twins, or will she show the bountiful and awesome elegant restraint reminiscent of books 1 through 5?

Who lives?
5. Lupin, Tonks, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny will live. Everyone else is up for grabs.

Horcruxes
6. Like I said, Harry himself is one. Then there's the diary, the ring, the Hufflepuff cup, the Slytherin locket, and the snake.

Final Battle
7. Happens INSIDE the veil. In limbo. Where the shades of Harry's parents and Sirius will help Harry.

Lyric of the Day

Aaja, tu baith ja cycle pe,
Dil ka cycle laaya hun main tere vaaste..

Budday

For Divya, who is very retro -

NetFM

I think I've just stumbled onto the Aussie redneck radio station. Two guys, you understand, blathering about stuff before they start playing music, and on and on they go about "Afro-Americans"' sensitivity to being called black.

"And calling them coloured is just daft because black's not a colour, mate, it's the Asians and Indians and all those sorts of things that are actually coloured."

Hilarious.

So the other guy says, "If you could be spray painted a colour, which colour would you pick?"

There isn't even a pause - "White."

"White?"

"Yeah, mate, as white as a bloody pommie in midwinter."

"Har har har."

"Har har har."

Hilarious.

Phoenix Review!

The People -
Good: Umbridge! Imelda Staunton, wonderful actress from Vera Drake (excellent movie with lousy ending), steals the show from the very first "hem hem". Harry is fantastic, I can't believe how good he's gotten. He handles emotionally complex scenes with Sirius and in Hog's Head with consummate ease. Luna and Dudley are wonderful surprises. Voldemort RULES (that black suit, ooooooh). Snape and McGonagall shine in their little scenes. And Ron, finally, is not comic relief! :)
Understandable: Bellatrix was good but I was expecting more of her, a LOT more. Very little Trelawney (but what's there is good), Kreacher pretty much cut (he's much better than Dobby, at least), no Phineas Nigellus (sob) and no Walburga Black (SOB). And what is with this weird "Nigel" (though v. cute), who seems to be a composite of the Creevey brothers?
Terrible: Lupin, Percy, Tonks and Regulus Black vanish. Hermione's Eyebrows of Doom taxed to the max. Aunt Petunia's suddenly dressing like a prostitute. Neville is the new Dobby?


The Main Events-
Good: The DA, Dumbledore's great escape, Harry's trial and the Dementor attack are all amazing, splendid, and done just right. Awesome.
Okay: Fred and George leaving school is just a little blah. The Ministry of Magic fight scenes are filled with strange black and white whooshing smoke instead of proper spells and duelling. Dumbledore's duel with Voldemort has its highs (Ralph Fiennes is just UltimateBadassAwesome-o), but lacks emotional impact.
DISGUSTING: They cut the whole Dumbledore's Office scene in the end, where Harry breaks stuff and shouts at the headmaster! Aaarrgghh. That was the POINT of the book, you morons! I hate Michael Gambon, and the less I see of him, the better... but this scene was essential, dammit. And there was no follow-through for any of the major emotional upheavals that Harry suffers. My dad was a jerk to Snape? Oh no- oooh, shiny! And later, Sirius died? Revenge! - wait, who's Sirius again? I'm too busy being haughty and enlightened and smug about the Power of Love(TM). Plus, I repeat: no REGULUS BLACK! Methinks a certain RAB is coming to bite the moviemakers in the wrong place...

The Effects -
Good: Grawp was a nice surprise. Cute, and way less boring than in the book. Thestrals looked great, as did the Patronuses and Kreacher.
Meh: House of Black. No impact, just any old house. Of course, with no mad Walburga, it was bound to be a little disappointing. The prophecies all breaking was all right.
Stupid: Sirius's death. UGH. The veil isn't really a veil - just mist. It doesn't help that he dies before falling into it - Bellatrix uses AK instead of a stunner. That was just ridiculous.

The Little Things -
Good: Aberforth's goat, SQUEEEE! Ginny was great, and they managed to foreshadow Harry/Ginny without going overboard. The Luna/Harry connection was brilliant - even the bits they added - and Sirius/Harry was just beautiful and heartbreaking.
Wha-?: Why this sudden infatuation with winks? Why?
Grooaaaan: Why oh why did Harry and Cho not break up simply because she was too weepy? That was the best, cutest, most hilarious relationship I've ever read in a book. Did you notice they moved Privet Drive to somewhere in rural Kansas? All those corn fields! Neville was stupid: Hi Harry, as a guy who is not particularly close to me, I bet you didn't know my mom and dad are crazy. But I'm not ready to tell anyone yet, and there isn't really a good reason to tell YOU, kthxbai.

Overall: Order of the Phoenix flubs on a lot of biggies, but at least it's not as bad as the Prisoner of Azkaban movie. Daniel Radcliffe and Imelda Staunton make it definitely worth watching. All the little jokes and details from the book (and some original) are added delights.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

4 days 9 hours 16 minutes to go.

I can't take it any more.

Thought for the Day

Harry Potter is like good chewing gum... endlessly chewable because it lasts and lasts and lasts.

This thought is brought to you courtesy of an ubergay colleague (he just spent our lunch hour buying the TALLEST animal print high heel pumps you've ever seen) who offered me Orbit White gum about an hour ago and I'm still chewing it and and it's STILL got taste and goddamn my jaw HURTS.

Potterism, otoh, has not given me chewing fatigue yet. Since I brought it up, I want to recommend this essay posted by a friend on his blog Ribbonfarm. A neat analysis of the nature of magic in the world of HP which isn't afraid to get technical and use big words (TM).

Birds, Herds and Turds

Any fashionable ideology quickly attracts its share of idiots eager to agree with its most outlandish propositions and be its Number One Fans, yessirree. The most obvious examples are religions: scratch the surface of any "Hindu"* and underneath you'll find a moron willing to seriously entertain the possibility that Ganesh statues drink milk and Lord Krishna's Pashupata Astra was really a nuclear bomb.

As annoying as Hindus can be when they get going on the subject of How Hinduism Anticipated Every Major Scientific Breakthrough Of The 20th Century, they're nothing compared to the imbeciles I've just come across on, of all places, RichardDawkins.net.

Read this article on Psycology Today (dismembered at length under the "Read More" cut). Then look at some choice comments to the article from the members of RichardDawkins.net: this one and this one and this one... and oh, you'll find loads.

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. I cannot believe this garbage is piggybacking on the name of science, that it's put up on the website of a man whom I quite respected (in spite of his rantiness, but because of his innate sensibility), and that there are such MORONS masquerading under the honourable name of "atheist". AAAARRRGGGHH.

Who's in the mood for some dismemberment? For an Exclusive Edited Revised And (Snarkily) Annotated look at the original Psycology Today article, read on! (Warning: long.)

*self-described


Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature
Why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn't sexist, and blonds are more attractive.
By:Alan S(hithead). Miller Ph(at).D(oofus)., Satoshi Kanazawa Ph(rickin').D(oo-doo-head).

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely (who gave YOU a PhD?). Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature (nature-human nature? As opposed to... clones? Robots? God's intelligently designed creatures?).

(Yadda yadda yadda)... our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are shared, to a large extent, by all men or women (remember this, lads n' lasses, remember this mighty ALL), despite ... large cultural differences.

(Yadda yadda yadda)... evolutionary psychologists postulate wild theories on thin air see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. ...

The implications of some of the ideas in this article may seem unsupported, divorced from "reality", stupid, immoral, contrary to our ideals, or offensive. We state them because we had fun making them up they are true, supported by documented scientific evidence that exists somewhere other than reality. Like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct.

Excerpted from Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa, to be published by Perigree in September 2007.

Men like blonde bombshells (and women want to look like them)

Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. And that's all I'll say about blonde hair in this section. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. (And Renaissance women apparantly wanted to be absolute COWS. Your point?) ...

Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist (all right, that's pretty constant all through human history), large breasts (small breasts are in fashion quite often, but go on), long blond hair (unheard of in more than half the world's population), and blue eyes (again, unheard of in most parts of the world) — is a direct, realistic, and sensible (WHA-?) response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her though, of course, in India and China and Africa, people are making billions of babies without the benefit of this very sensible desire. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features and if you are from a non-white race that has no naturally occurring blonde hair or blue eyes, you're just not evolved enough.

Men prefer young women... One accurate indicator of health is ... is hair. Healthy women have lustrous, shiny hair, whereas the hair of sickly people loses its luster. ...(All right! Logical assertions for once, even if they are only assertions.)

Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. ... (Yes! Conclusions drawn from real evidence... maybe there is hope for this article yet.)

(Yadda yadda yadda)... Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive. (Oh crap. Serves me right for speaking too soon.)

Alternatively, ... a new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, [so that may explain men's preference for large breasts]. (Conclusions based on evidence: "alternate" theories. Conclusions based on wild speculation: mentioned first as the primary theory!)

Hmm, I wonder what the title of this section was? Oh yeah - Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, [young women] with light blond hair become [older] women with brown hair. ... It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing. (So how did Scandinavians pass on their evolutionary preference for blondes to ALL (remember that almighty ALL?) of us?)

...

Humans are naturally polygamous
(But I will immediately change the word "polygamy" to "polygyny", watch for it!)

The history of western civilization aside, humans are naturally polygamous. Polyandry (a marriage of one woman to many men) is very rare, but polygyny (the marriage of one man to many women) is widely practiced in human societies, even though Judeo-Christian traditions hold that monogamy is the only natural form of marriage. ...

(Yadda yadda yadda... about why polygyny means bigger males who are the best protectors have the most offspring.

In societies where rich men are much richer than poor men, women (and their children) are better off sharing the few wealthy men; one-half, one-quarter, or even one-tenth of a wealthy man is still better than an entire poor man. (Ah, you're walking into dangerous territory... tread carefully. So far, so good...)...

Most women benefit from polygyny, while most men benefit from monogamy. (Aaaaand you blew it! Most women? As in, most women TODAY?!)) When there is resource inequality among men—the case in every human (current?!) society — most women benefit from polygyny: women can share a wealthy man (!!!). Under monogamy, they are stuck with marrying a poorer man because who's heard of a woman capable of making her own fortune nowadays? Huh? Haha, what a suggestion.

The only exceptions are extremely desirable women. ...They can monopolize the wealthiest men because for men to "share a wealthy woman" would just be icky; under polygyny, they must share the men with other, less desirable women. However, the situation is exactly opposite for men. Monogamy guarantees that every man can find a wife. True, less desirable men can marry only less desirable women, but that's much better than not marrying anyone at all. (There is something just so wrong about that sentence, but my brain has exploded too recently for me to figure it out.)

...

Most suicide bombers are Muslim

Suicide missions are not always religiously motivated, but according to Oxford University sociologist Diego Gambetta, editor of Making Sense of Suicide Missions, when religion is involved, the attackers are always Muslim. Why? The surprising answer is that Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines) (Two lines? Has this guy READ the Koran?). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.

What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny.(I thought he said this had nothing to do with Islam?) ... If 50 percent of men have two wives each, then the other 50 percent don't get any wives at all.

So polygyny increases competitive pressure on men, especially young men of low status. It therefore increases the likelihood that young men resort to violent means to gain access to mates.

However, polygyny itself is not a sufficient cause of suicide bombing. ... The other key ingredient is the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any martyr in Islam. (I thought he said this had nothing to do with Islam?) ... the prospect is quite appealing to anyone who faces the bleak reality on earth of being a complete reproductive loser. (You have to hand it to them, though - they do have a sense of humour.)

...(Big snip of many other ridiculous sections.)...

Men sexually harass women because they are not sexist

An unfortunate consequence of the ever-growing number of women joining the labor force and working side by side with men is the increasing number of sexual harassment cases. Why must sexual harassment be a necessary consequence of the sexual integration of the workplace? (Whoa! Take a step back. Read that sentence again. "Must"? "Necessary consequence"?)

Psychologist Kingsley R. Browne identifies two types of sexual harassment cases: the quid pro quo ("You must sleep with me if you want to keep your job or be promoted") and the "hostile environment" (the workplace is deemed too sexualized for workers to feel safe and comfortable). While feminists and social scientists tend to explain sexual harassment in terms of "patriarchy" and other ideologies, Browne locates the ultimate cause of both types of sexual harassment in sex differences in mating strategies. Ha! Gotcha! I've now successfully diverted your attention to the following irrelevant blathering.

Studies demonstrate unequivocally that men are far more interested in short-term casual sex than women. In one now-classic study, 75 percent of undergraduate men approached by an attractive female stranger agreed to have sex with her; none of the women approached by an attractive male stranger did. Many men who would not date the stranger nonetheless agreed to have sex with her. (Okay, so men are sluts. Yawn. Your point? )

Feminists often claim that sexual harassment is "not about sex but about power;" Browne contends it is both—men using power to get sex. (All right, but how does this prove that the sexual harassment is NOT sexist? It's all exclusively about gender, so far.)

Sexual harassment cases of the hostile-environment variety result from sex differences in what men and women perceive as "overly sexual" or "hostile" behavior. Many women legitimately complain that they have been subjected to abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment by their male coworkers. Browne points out that long before women entered the labor force, men subjected each other to such abusive, intimidating, and degrading treatment. (Wait. When indulging in such "abusive, intimidating and degrading" treatment, men treat women EXACTLY like they treat men? So they grope and pinch one another? They express lewd admiration for each other's bodies? And they repeatedly suggest having sex to "cool the sexual tension" between them? They compare each other's man-breasts to fruit?)

Abuse, intimidation, and degradation are all part of men's repertoire of tactics employed in competitive situations. In other words, men are not treating women differently from men—the definition of discrimination, under which sexual harassment legally falls—but the opposite: Men harass women precisely because they are not discriminating between men and women.
(Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.)

Spade = Spade; Terrorist = Muslim

The Acorn suggests that the Indian expatriate's propensity for calling herself a "south Asian" must be curbed, and I couldn't agree more. Especially in the light of this NYT article about the Glasgow plot warns that Britons fear "homegrown terrorist attacks among its disenfranchised South Asian population".

No, you imbeciles, that would be its disgruntled muslim population. Who do you think you're kidding? South Asian, my ass.

Back With A Tag

Wini tagged me. A little thing like that has gone and made me feel confused, guilty, absurdly happy and comically grateful.

Lately on this blog, I've been doing an excellent impression of having fallen off the face of the earth. I wonder where y'all think I am and what you think I'm doing, when you think of me and this blog at all. Do you see me wandering, Jack-Sparrow-like, on the white cracked surface of Davy Jones's locker? Do you think I'm out there partying it up, living a life far too thrilling to stop by once in a while and tell you about it? Or do you chalk me up as one of the "married-and-disappeared", that universally hated tribe of bimbotic idiots whose lives are completely contained within their significant other's?


The correct answer is a combination of all three scenarios. Lately the fun quotient of my life has shot skyward, what with that five-week holiday and my new job and summer being here. (Yes, I got employment authorisation, finally, and a "real" job, didn't I tell you?) Full of zeal is how I find myself, and in my blazing rush to fit job apps, (local) friends, paid writing gigs, other writing projects, a new exercise routine (pilates) and summer cooking into my day, all day, every day, it's easy to let the blog slide.

But there's also the element of bimbotic idiocy here: I must confess the more time I spend with my husband, the more I get used to it. Contrary to popular belief among you singles (and singletons and defiantly-singles and all shades thereof), we "married-and-disappeareds" haven't disappeared because we're moronically worshipful of couplehood to the point of exclusion of all else (um, not always, at least)... it's more a matter of taking the path of least Resistance. A form of laziness, if you will. It's so much easier to hang out with my husband than anyone else, because let's face it, he's right there and he likes doing all the things I like, and the force of the dreaded R-word - routine - cannot easily be denied. Which makes it sound all dreary and boring, but I swear it's the opposite. That's the deadly appeal.

And when I am on my own with time enough to update this blog and scrap all my old friends and send them cute e-cards that say, "Hi, hope you're having a nice day," I find I turn very Jack-like indeed. Because by now, I'm so out of touch, and it's so long since I even said hello to some of the dear old crowd (you know who you are) that it would be plain embarrassing to show up and say hi now. Wouldn't it? So I labour along at the bottom of this self-made Davy Jones's locker and wish I could find some cute device like those stone crabs to drag my ship of hello out to meet the sea of old relationships and then everybody would go "awwwww". "Awwww, there's our dear old Wendelin, back from the dead." Instead of, "bitch, who do you think you're talking to?"

So from a very different route but some remarkably similar specifics, I've arrived at the same place that Sayesha is in now: looking for friends old and new to halt this precipitous decline towards totally encapsculated coupledom. Dammit, I don't want to be lazy.

Back to Wini and her tag: thanks, girl. Anything that looks remotely like a way back into the old fold, I will take.

Here are the rules:
1. Players start with 5 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 5 random facts.
3. Players should tag 5 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

So here we go! --

I'm much more excited about the place I work than my work itself. Working in the heart of the city is going to be brilliant - great food, parks, libraries, cafes, museums and people on the streets, all just steps away!

I recently began to do paid writing gigs online under an assumed name.

To paraphrase Wini: I can't drive. And know I HAVE to learn sometime soon, but I'm hoping a miracle will take me away to live in New York City or Boston, where I never have to look at a car unless it's to curse at it. I like chauffeurs - cabbies or Saurabh or private stretch limousines, any way is ok with me.

I have a snacking problem - in a few years I think I will have degenerated into snacking in secret.

I'm always tempted to stop shaving my legs in winter because I'm under so many layers of clothing anyway... but it takes only a couple of weeks for me to gross myself out.

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I'm tagging: Sushil (WAKE UP!), Nimbupani (WAKE UP MORE!), Yodha (YOOHOO!), Juice (who makes my day every time she writes a post) and Sayesha (who does the same).