Why I hate JK Rowling.

Rowling this week outed Dumbledore as being "gay".

Oh I bet she fucking did!

I hate this women.

I know hate is a strong word, but I do. I am not proud of it either. It's just how I feel about the chick. Why? Let me explain...

Let me start by saying that first and foremost I consider the Harry Potter works bordering upon plagiarised. Where from? Lets start with Lord of The Rings (monsters, high concepts), Star Wars (basic plot), The Worst Witch (downtrodden kid; nerdy kids love to empathise, something I am sure was a major element in Rowlings cynical plan right from the outset) - mix in Terry Pratchett's entire 'Unseen University' concept, for a summary of that check out Page 170 or there abouts in his novel "Equal Rites" - or as I like to call it 'the entire concept of Hogwarts' - I've shown this to people and they've been literally gobsmacked by the similarity's.

Not as gobsmacked however, as I am sure Pratchett was when he first read or heard about Potter though - the man is the king of paper back fantasy tat (with a hat) for decades and along comes Rowling - her literary guns (such as they are) aimed at kids and loaded with material Hollywood can churn out in movie form with relative ease. Played for and got, score one Rowling.

Pratchett did come back rather well with the 'Wee Free Men' et al., but at least those books teach some interesting lessons to kids - and were not motivated soley by greed as I am to explain I feel Rowlings writting is. I get the feeling they were more of a two fingers up to Rowling than a ploy to make the man more money. Score one Pratchett, congrats on the film deal.

Back to the point at hand, my feelings on Rowling's writing skill is summarized thus; if she handed the Potter books in as original works to many universities in the United States and they were thus entered into the national plagiarism database, quite simply they'd come up as plagiarised - if we must judge them on their own merit, they are at best completely derivative.

They are also written extremely badly. Like my articles. Not that that bugs me as much as the the non-owned up to plagiarism - if she admitted that a lot of her work was a homage to this or that, it wouldn't be so bad in my eyes - just extending a fine fantasy tradition (everyone owes something to Tolkien), but the arrogance of the women seems to think she can erase much of that which came before Potter - placing it in prime market position as the benchmark for all fantasy fiction (especially to those who hadn't read the genre previous to Potter), something which is put plainly; a lie. That gets my goat.

The Potter books do make great movies, I won't argue there - but they were supposed to. I am positive that was part of her financially driven money making plan in the first place!

Harry Potter was quite obviously her meal ticket, a function for which the formulaic epic has performed exceedingly well - however, despite this unprecedented and more importantly planned for, marketed for and written for, success, Rowling will still do almost anything to get some extra attention to her franchise.

"Dumbledore is gay," she says, adding he was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago.

Ok, If that's the case, and it's not, as I suspect, something you've just thought will get you some headlines and maybe a whole new demographic (Rowling appears to live for that) post the release of the final book, why the fuck was it not mentioned in the books?

Either Rowling,

a) you are making it up as you go along, and you thought this'd get some attention for you, and it is thus part of your overall cynical marketing plan.

or

b) you were too afraid to put a gay guy in a kids book for fear of certain more conservative interest groups going mad and boycotting your books (they would have, and they would have done it hard) - something you don't have to worry so much about now, because you have more money than God.

or

c) You planned to wait until every child who was going to buy all of your books had done, before announcing that one of the main characters was gay, and thus opening the franchise to a whole new market, ie. the gay community.

Which one of these people do you want to be Rowling? They are all pretty shitty.

Rowling is quoted as saying "I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy". Yeah sure, right, you didn't think that would make a bit of an impact? Stop playing dumb - this was yet another cunning marketing ploy. You're brilliant, I admit it, but you are too sly for even me luv...

Now the gay community will feel obliged to support her - the pink lobby now on board, is Rowling going to make a bid for real world power or what?! Seriously. Using fringe groups to expand your demographic influence is cynical beyond belief.

"Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell welcomed the news about Dumbledore and said: "It's good that children's literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society."

Pete, while I support your sentiment, gays are not "Jedi" or some secret society. "Existing in every society" is a bit of a dramatic way of saying some guys and gals have always liked guys and gals.

Perhaps he got caught up in the mysticism of Rowlings constructed, well arranged and marketed, magical world?

Just watch her the next time you see an interview. She hates kids - I think she even admitted that in an interview. She just wanted to get paid. She constructed, from bits of other stories - other peoples work, a plot and characters to facilitate this nefarious goal.

And that, is why I hate her.

She did it for the money, not for the drama, not for the story, not even for the kids. And I think if you are gonna write a kids book, you should probably, morally, have them in mind.

Not your bank balance.

You'll end up giving out a very twisted messege when they find out the person who wrote their heroes did it for the cash.

My comment on the 'World's Weirdest/Stupidest Conspiracy Theories'.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/25/list-of-the-worlds-w.html

1. Stephen King killed John Lennon.
Proposed by Steve Lightfoot.

I only wish this were true – the sheer randomness factor wins. I knew a guy once, who told me that as a kid he went to the Kings famous Halloween parties, apparently he lived nearby somewhere in Maine I think; he told me that the only thing scarier than a good Stephen King horror story was Stephen Kings wife. True story. Of course just previous to telling me that the guy in question was going on and on about how Americans could make and sell anything – he used the example of Iguana sandwiches - and that the world would eat them because they were told to by the Americans. But thats neither here nor there.

Mrs. King

Likeliness Rating: Unlikely.
In Summary: More likey Mr Kings Wife.



2. WWII was staged. It never really happened. The Illuminati employed elaborate special effects, stage magic, and phony journalism to scare the world into pacifism.
Proposed by Donald Holmes.

My Granddad was there. I know this, because he talks about it, at length, irrespective of if you want him to or not. I have heard many a tale from the 'conflict what we had with the Germans from 1939 to 1945' and believe every word of it. Indeed, my Grandfather told me an amusing story just the other day over dinner involving a cunning German infantryman who had on being captured decided to tell my Granddads regiment, on mass, ie. shouting, as he was being led away as a POW, that the German's had hidden 'treasure' in one of the fields. A fantastic way to cause some chaos in the enemy ranks if ever I heard one!

Naturally, the allied troops were up for some looting, so they all organised themselves independent of their officers and started digging.

I can just imagine the Captain of the company wandering into eye shot of the scene – 100 or more troops randomly digging in a field irrespective of standing orders.

Captain: Sargeant?

Sarge: Yesir?

Captain: Why are they digging so?

Sarge: Don't know Sir, Maybe someone lost a boot Sir.

The mind boggles.

The allied troops eventually found lots of loot in the end, the German wasn't lying – even more cunning. But they had to give it back and got a dressing down for it. Shame – what ever happened to the spoils of war?

Anyway, either this theory is complete bollocks or my Granddad is really 'selling the lie' and has been for 60 years. I don't think my granddad is in the Illuminati, or indeed, in any way affiliated with it – I am not sure he knows what it is, I'd phone and ask but he'd probably want to talk about the war. My father and the new world order... different story, but that's neither here nor there either.

Likeliness Rating: Very, very, unlikely.
In Summary: Lay off the hard drugs Mr Holmes. Get the saucepan off your head. They are not coming to get you at this time.


3. The doomed Franklin Expedition was sent to the Arctic not only to find the Northwest Passage, but to secretly investigate UFO sightings that had been reported since the 1700s. The men were captured, experimented upon, and eaten by giant aliens.
Proposed by Jeffrey Blair Latta.

I wasn't expecting to read something like this (ie. so completely, amusingly, bizarre) in this particular list. So I had to do some research.

And by research, I mean I Googled it.

http://www.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/owen_latta.html – this review of the source origin of the theory rubbishes it better than I ever could. Well, while I am busy with other things at any rate. The book, is a waste of time.

A few things not specifically mentioned by the above slating spring immediately to mind though;

If Aliens had been going there and wandering around at Victory Point since the 1700s why would they need to experiment on the Franklin Expedition? I am almost absolutely sure you can do pretty much everything that can be done with a human body/mind in 300 years – so surely experimenting in this case == torture in which case that's pretty inconsistent with every other UFO abduction report ever – for all intensive purposes humans don't appear, generally, to warrant the attention that a good torturing inspires. We're lab rats. Unless we're suggesting that the aliens did it “for a laugh”. In which case, twisted, inconsistent, and possibly even Freudian.

Now the eating is pretty odd but is consistent with some of the more 'lunatic fringe' (can you have a lunatic fringe of a lunatic fringe? I digress...) of the Reptilian theory – some “researchers” claim the Reptiles need us for food – personally I think this is a misconception of the Reptilian need for blood, but there you go – that's all fodder for a different article. Anyway...

Likeliness Rating: Unlikely.
In Summary: Doesn't make a lot of sense, not even, apparently, when you've read the guys entire book on the subject. Fail.


4. The 1939 War of the Worlds radio broadcast was a psychological warfare study funded by C.D. Jackson on behalf of the Rockefeller Foundation, designed to find out how Americans would react to an enemy invasion. Funny... in a trailer for his mockumentary F is for Fake, Orson Welles did say the WoW broadcast had "secret sponsors".
Proposed by Daniel Hopsicker.

Now this I can believe.

I don't think there'd be anything technically illegal about doing this either, it was after all a radio broadcast and how the general idiot population reacts to it is generally not the fault of the broadcaster.

The answer to the question posed by such a study incidently, at the time, would in this case be; very badly. I believe the radio broadcast caused nothing short of gun-toting-mass hysteria.

As for Welles suggestion that the play had “secret sponsors” - I can't take anything that Unicron says that seriously to be honest.

Orson Welles played Unicron in the original Transformers Movie.

Likeliness Rating: Likely.
In Summary: Wouldn't come as a massive surprise to anyone. But, if this were the case, why wouldn't they admit it now some 50 odd years later?


5. Aspartame, fluoride, genetically modified foods, and vaccines are used specifically to keep us sick and open to suggestion, and/or as part of a secret depopulation plan designed by the world's elite.

If this is true, they are doing a pretty bad job.

The population of the Earth has spiralled since the inception of the inoculation for a start (or we are told it has, and there is some pretty convincing evidence). Are genetically modified foods actually killing us? I doubt it – I read somewhere that on average potatoes have always been more carcinogenic that a lot of things we attribute to causing cancer – it's just a matter of believing what we are told at any one given time (I'm sure I'll be trolled on that). Although on saying that maybe that's an example of something keeping us open to suggestion? Creepy.

Likeliness Rating: It's possible I suppose.
In Summary: Live like a Quaker for a few years, if you notice a difference in your general well being, it's true. You could also mimic the experiment in “The Village”. That'd work.


That's all for now, I may well do some more off the big list from the original source site: http://swallowingthecamel.blogspot.com/2007/08/worlds-weirdeststupidest-conspiracy.html if I get bored tomorrow!

Is the race to complete a working spaceship propulsion system on?

There has oddly been quite a lot in the media of late about new and interesting spaceship engine/propulsion designs – now the only reason this is odd is because I wasn't aware given the so called 'global war on terror' and general climate of doom and gloom that we (are lead to believe we) all live in that space exploration was top of anyone's agenda. Or is it?

Earlier this week we saw a Californian physicist Dr. Young Bae had actually gone as far as to build a demonstration "photonic laser thruster" (1) that, and I quote "produces enough thrust to micro-manoeuvre a satellite". Scaled up such an engine could apparently speed a spacecraft to Mars in less than a week. That's pretty impressive stuff (the phrase “massive leap in technology” would not be out of place...) for something that has moved beyond theory and into working prototype wouldn't you say? Not something that should say, be glossed over in the international media and only make it into the techiest of tech blogs on the internet?

Today we get more news on yet another U.S firm having created an innovative propulsion system, this one nuclear fuelled (2), again using the Earth to Mars model as a point of reference - this time speculating a rather less impressive two years to six month travel time. These are not the only media references to an ambiguous “manned mission to Mars” to float around in the last 6 months. Far from it.

So, what is up with all this?


Why is someone in the U.S funding such programs in the face of what I'd describe as more 'apparent dangers' and more pressing needs - when we are constantly being told that economic factors hold man's thrust into space, in particular back to Moon – despite proven lunar mineral assets (3) back? You can't tell me either of the prototypes mentioned here (or the countless others that no doubt exist, even if just on paper around the USA today) or even the experiments to justify them in the first place were cheap. Why would such be developed unless, somewhere, behind some door there is an actual formulated, if embryonic, plan to actually go to Mars for whatever reason in the very near future.

Governments don't tend to fund making things unless they intend to use them in the short term; fact of life.

These theory's ask more questions than they answer; but they are food for thought. If we are going to Mars. Why... and perhaps more importantly. Why now? (Que conspiracy theorists).


(1) http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/13/2328233

(2) http://www.tfot.info/news/1006/mini-mag-orion-will-reach-for-the-stars.html

(3) http://www.asi.org/adb/06/09/03/02/095/lunar-desert.html, http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030829.html, http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12305-hubble-space-telescope-maps-minerals-on-the-moon.html