Enid Blyton's Famous Five series of books has been "updated" in a new Disney cartoon.

It just doesn't - and can't - work.

I read the Famous Five series when I was young. They were great books, set in a simple time before materialism and technology. The Famous Five is about a time when children could roam the countryside without neurotic parents wondering whether they had been snatched by paedophiles. When children weren't wrapped in cotton wool and bubble-wrap and kept in doors all day long. When they were free.

This, however, just appears to make it all about gadgets and computers rather than just being outside and having fun. Besides, children should read the Famous Five books rather than watching yet another cartoon.

The Vatican has condemned the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling because in the books "witchcraft is proposed as a positive ideal" and claim that Harry himself is "the wrong kind of hero." The author says that the seven-book series has an "inverted and confused spirituality: a world where bad is good" and that they are characterised by a "vague, new-age philosophy."

What a load of utter bollocks.

The Harry Potter books are no more characterised by a "vague, new-age philosophy" than any other fantasy series. It is a fictional belief system set inside a fictional world - and far less anti-Christian than a great many other fantasy series can be seen to be. Nowhere in any of the Harry Potter books is any god mentioned, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry follows the traditional Christian-derived school term structure, with holidays at Christmas and Easter.

It is a fictional series set inside the fantasy genre. It is based on the traditional setting of that genre - good vs evil. Apart from the fact that the heroes use magic to save the world, there is absolutely nothing to set it apart from moral Christian teachings. That is what the Vatican should be focusing on - the parts with which it agrees, rather than the parts with which is disagrees, like the previous Pope had been.

Frankly, by picking on the Harry Potter books, the Vatican is creating a problem out of thin air. By demonstrating such a vehement dislike of them, it is shooting itself in the foot with young people - those who the series is aimed at - and predisposing them to disagree with the Catholic Church in particular, and the Christian faith in general.

Or so claims a French philosopher. Jean-Claude Milner says:

What a load of complete and utter bollocks.

I can also point out that Harry spends most of his time constantly breaking the rules of the school, about a clear allusion to the State as that Harry's aunt is named Marge means that she is a reference to Margaret Thatcher, means that he - and thus Rowling - is opposed to the large centralised State that socialists so desire. Especially when this is added to by the absolute ineffectiveness of the Ministry of Magic, with an incompetent Minister, who yet is convinced of the correctness of his own opinion. Also, add in the constant references to the free-market, through the Weasley twins, and the way that the rule-fanatic Hermione becomes less and less straight-laced about obeying the rules throughout the seven books. Thus I can conclude that Harry Potter is in fact a right-winger.

Yet all of that is utter rubbish. My paragraph as well as the passage by Jean-Claude Milner. Harry Potter is a fictional character, the Harry Potter books are a fictional series. They are set inside a fictional world. And, most importantly, they are written primarily for children. They are no more politically motivated than any fiction series. They all follow the same basic patterns, with any political motivation of the author absolutely subsumed by the necessities of telling the story.

You can read anything you like into most fiction books. For example, now that it has been revealed that Dumbledore is gay, there is bound to be people who will read entire levels of gay sub-text into it. You can read anything you like into these sorts of books if you cherry-pick the bits and pieces which support your hypothesis. Harry Potter is neither a left-winger or a right-winger - or at all political. You can only possibly read these things into most fiction books, especially those primarily aimed at children, with much effort and by ignoring anything which does not support your hypothesis.

Harry Potter is not "deeply political", but absolutely a-political.

Source: The Telegraph

So say gay rights group Stonewall, after JK Rowling opens Professor Dumbledore's closet and outs him as gay.

You do just have the wonder whether Stonewall actually thought that sentence through. After all, the Harry Potter books in which Dumbledore features is fiction. That means it is not real. I just get the feeling that they pulled out a stock press release and just added the profession in, and then neglected to read it through.

In the same article, Peter Tatchell is quoted as saying
It is a children's book, and one in which sexuality is hardly fully explored. The nearest any of the characters get to sex is a few kisses. I hardly think that the sort of "explicit" addressing of Dumbledore's sexuality that Tatchell wanted would have added anything to the series or, indeed, been particularly appropriate. To do this would have added an entirely unnecessary dimension to the books.

I can't see that it really makes any difference that Rowling has outed Dumbledore as gay. It doesn't change the story at all, or make the slightest bit of difference to the context. So why all the fuss?

via John Moorcraft
Source: BBC

There isn't long until the 2007 edition of Iain Dale's Guide To Political Blogging In The UK is published, of which I have just pre-ordered my copy. We were all invited to submit our top twenty blogs, and made sure that I did submit my top twenty.

Matt Wardman has designed the sidebar buttons for those who are lucky enough to get into the top lists.

In the book there will be:

• Articles by thirty leading bloggers and commentators
• Profiles of more than fifty leading blogs
• A directory of 1,200 political blogs
• The best 500 political blogs in the UK
• The top 100 Conservative blogs
• The top 100 Labour blogs
• The top 100 Lib Dem blogs
• The top 100 non-aligned blogs
• The top 30 MP blogs
• The top 60 media blogs
• The top 30 councillor blogs

And lots, lots, more...

Should any books be banned?

"The Koran should be banned as a “fascist book” alongside Mein Kampf because it urges Muslims to kill non-believers, says Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders...
The call to treat the Koran in the same way as Adolf Hitler's biography, which has been banned by the Dutch for over 60 years, is the latest in a long line of Islam controversies sparked by Mr Wilders, who lives under tight security after murder attempts by suspected Islamist terrorists." (The Telegraph)

Comparing the Koran, a religious text, to Mein Kampf is a direct attempt to cast Islam as a fascist and dictatorial religion, a fact belied by the large number of "moderate" Muslims, and the large number of Islamic religious leaders, with no central authority figure - unlike most other "mainstream" religions. You could also claim that the Bible encourages [or at least has caused] murder, such as the witch hunts of Early Modern Europe. But I have absolutely no intention of making my argument on this basis. Instead I wish to ask this question: What are books?

Books are the repositiory of thought in a written and printed form. They offer text in a way that can be perused and interpreted by the individual. They do not dictate what an individual can or should do. You can, and should, read books from as many political views as possible. I have read Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto, but I am by no means a Communist, or even share any of their views. I've read Hobbes, Burke, Rousseau, and Locke too. A book does not, and cannot, make a person do anything. It can, and they do, offer excuses for people to do and believe things, but they do not give people views.

Why should any book be banned because it esposes unconventional views, or support for something - anything - we find reprehensible nowadays? This is censorship, and something which we are supposed to be above in this day and age. Unless a book is nothing more than a hate-filled invective, on what possible basis could, or should, it be banned? The principles of freedom of speech and freedom of press should mean that few, if any, books are banned.

I have read neither the Koran nor Mein Kampf - which is, by all accounts, a boring and stodgy read - but I can see no basis for the banning of either of them. No books should be banned on the basis that Wilders is claiming, or any other. Like Tom Paine points out, it is rather ironic that the leader of the "Freedom Party" should call for the banning of a book. I can see absolutely no reason why the Koran should be banned anywhere - and the same for Mein Kampf. Like making Holocaust denial a crime, it is just wrong. They don't need to be banned, just ridiculed.

Source: The Telegraph