Harry Potter and the Crappy Analogy

William A. Levinson is new to me, but he's apparently been writing at American Thinker since at least April, bringing his expertise as a Professional Engineer to the culture and political problems of modern America.  And like Father Amorth, he believes there are hidden messages to be found in the Harry Potter canon, although not necessarily from Satan, or your yoga instructor.

Anyway, let's whet our appetites with a quick squint at his bio:

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.

Okay, now I can't wait to read his insights on YA literature.

Harry Potter and the Islamization of America

The success of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is due largely to the fact that the story contains elements for sophisticated adults as well as teenagers. 

I suppose children can enjoy the stories on some level too, but most of the people I've seen reading Harry Potter books were sherry-sipping adults wearing boiled shirts and spats.

The latter can enjoy the magical creatures and battles between wizards, while older readers and viewers can relate to the very real historical events that apparently influenced Rowling's writing. The series' theme is anything but fictional because it happened once and it is happening again.

Crap, you mean we're going to have to live through the Goblin Rebellions of 1612 again?  I'd better have Jeeves pour us another round of Oloroso.

Britain's experiences prior to and during the Second World War seem to have influenced Rowling's writing significantly. Her characters believe that the First Wizarding War had ended the menace of Lord Voldemort forever, while the First World War was purportedly the war to end all wars. The First World War also maimed an entire generation of European manhood

Wow.  Jake Barnes had a lot of company.

The racial policies of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters make them obvious stand-ins for Hitler and Nazis despite the implications of Godwin's Law.

Right.  Say, Engineer Levinson, you do realize that Harry Potter is a 4,000 page book series, and not a Usenet thread, right?  Meaning, Godwin's Law doesn't really apply in this case, because I don't think it's actually possible for Jo Rowling to lose an argument she's having with herself.

 (Rowling is in fact on record as saying that she modeled Voldemort with Hitler in mind.)

Ah, so she's confessed to breaking Godwin's Law.  I'm sure an Auror, or at least a Moderator, will be along shortly to take her into custody.

The former regard only pure-blooded wizards -- the magical world's counterparts of Aryans -- as equals. A "mudblood," or a wizard with a non-magical parent, is to them an Untermensch (subhuman) whom they are free to abuse or even kill. The movies include Gestapo-like enforcers who bring people in for questioning about their genetic purity, and elimination if they do not meet the standards. The same agenda applies to Muggles or non-magical people.

That certainly paints an awful picture.  And wouldn't it be ironic if, only a few paragraphs later, you used Rowling's allegory on the horrors of racial profiling to argue that Muslims are inherently violent, dangerous, and a threat to society?  But c'mon...what are the odds of that happening?

Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge is meanwhile the obvious counterpart of Neville Chamberlain ... Albus Dumbledore, who recognizes Voldemort as a threat from the outset and is ridiculed as a result, is the counterpart of Winston Churchill.

Despite this obvious comparison, President Obama removed the bust of Albus Dumbledore from the Oval Office.

The comparison of Voldemort to Hitler can be taken only so far because the First World War was not started by Nazis or even by Imperial Germany.

There's nothing like watching a Professional Engineer construct an argument.  Well, it's maybe a little like walking in on my 5-year old sister as she was trying to assemble my Mousetrap! game, but otherwise -- sui generis, baby. 

What is far more important is the parallel between the denial in Rowling's stories, the denial that preceded the Second World War, and today's denial of the menace of Islamization. This makes Harry Potter a good teaching tool for teenagers and young adults. It's a fictional story, but it is also the story of something very real that took place more than 70 years ago as well as things that are happening in the world today.

So Harry Potter is a fictional version of "Islamization," which is what you'd get if The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was non-fiction?

Dolores Umbridge is among the more memorable villains of the series. She threatens to punish any student who talks about Voldemort, and she punishes Harry Potter for insisting that he has returned. Umbridge's real-world counterparts abound in European countries, universities, and even the U.S. Government. They punish or ridicule as an "Islamophobe" anybody who depicts militant Islam as a menace to Civilization.

So Voldemort is Hitler, who was evil because he falsely painted the Jewish people as the enemies of Christian society, and oh, by the way, have you heard the Muslims are out to destroy Civilization?  And all of it, too, not just the game by Sid Meier.

Danish Member of Parliament Jesper Langaballe [sic] for example pled guilty to hate speech for saying accurately that rape and honor killings are frequent among Muslim families. "Under Danish jurisprudence it is immaterial whether a statement is true or untrue. All that is needed for a conviction is that somebody feels offended."

Actually, according to Langballe's own apologia, what he said was, "Of course Lars Hedegaard should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters when the truth appears to be that they make due with killing their daughters (the so-called honour killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them."

Whether these remarks are criminal under Danish law is something best left to a Danish court (although I will note that while Harry endured daily torture and mutilation rather than retract his statements about Voldemort, Mr. Langballe pre-empted his trial by confessing), I think it's safe to say that Rowling's "Churchill," Albus Dumbledore, would consider them criminally rude.

The once-respectable Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has meanwhile joined the ranks of politically correct thought police and mind guards. The Daily Prophet denounced Harry Potter as "the boy who lies" for testifying accurately that Voldemort murdered one of Harry's classmates while ADL has similarly denounced Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) as Islamophobes. "The organization, led by Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, warns of the encroachment of Shari'a, or Islamic law, and encourages Muslims to leave what it describes as the 'falsity of Islam.'"

I'm having a bit of trouble following along here, Engineer Levinson, maybe you can walk me through it.  Hitler made false claims about the Jews (such as "He has never founded any civilization, though he has destroyed civilizations by the hundred") and tried to exterminate them in the interests of Aryan supremacy.  Voldemort and his henchmen also trafficked in lies, and murdered and imprisoned vast numbers of people in the service of some demented notion of racial purity.  They're the Bad Guys, right?

Spencer and Geller (and Langballe, who said, "Islam and Christianity cannot be reconciled. And they haven't been able to during the 1500 years that Islam has been in existence. I see the religion Islam as a threat to any society where it settles"), claim that Islam is a false religion which seeks to destroy our civilization.  And they're...the Good Guys?  Or am I confusing them with that defunct chain of West Coast consumer electronics stores?

A phobia is an irrational fear of an imaginary danger. This video from Hamas says "we will annihilate the Jews," speaks of becoming "masters of the world," and later talks about "laying the cornerstone for the ruling of the world by an Islamic leadership." 

Right, but if just claiming you're going to become "Master of the World" means that it's true, shouldn't we already be ruled by Fu Manchu, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Dr. Clayton Forrester, or Vincent Price?

"Eat my dust, Hamas!"

The last ideology that talked about annihilating Jews and ruling the world meant every word it said, and it killed about forty million people (including about seven million of its own in the end) before the civilized world stopped it. 

And the best proof of this serious, real world, existential threat to the free world is this series of children's books about a Boy and His Wand.

 Voldemort at least had the good sense to conceal his existence as long as possible, and Hitler also pretended to seek peace to put the rest of the world off its guard.

Yep.  If there's one thing you can say for Hitler -- he was subtle.

Militant Islam on the other hand makes no secret of its agenda, and it even calls the non-Islamic world the Dar el-Harb: the House of War. When somebody calls you a harbi (enemy), it is generally a good idea to take him at his word and treat him accordingly.

Point a stick at him and bellow "Expelliarmus!"

The Harry Potter series also addresses a widespread unwillingness to call the enemy by name. Even Voldemort's enemies usually call him "He Who Must Not Be Named," 

Because "Ultraman," "Miss Congeniality," and "Master-Blaster" were already taken.

The Ideology That Must Not Be Named has declared openly its intention to destroy our civilization, freedom, and way of life. It also has a name, and that name is militant Islam.

 Just don't say its name five times into a mirror, or you'll wind up covered in bees.

Harry Potter and the Cauldron of Crazy

There are an abundance of housecleaning services in Hollywood, with names like Merry Maids, White Glove, Sparkle Maids and the like.  I've never employed one, but a friend who's frequently out of town has called them in on occasion, and each time the "Maids" who showed up were lugubrious Russian men in their mid-40s who littered the balcony with cigarette butts, sawed resentfully at the grout with a wire brush like they were trying to extract a confession, and stole the half-full bottles of Pine-Sol and Formula 409 from under the bathroom sink.

So when I read that "Father Gabriele Amorth, who for years was the Vatican’s chief exorcist...claims to have cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits" I wondered if he works on weekends, what he charges for a house call, and if he slyly pockets your soul and your cinnamon-scented votive candles on his way out the door.

Alas, it seems that Father Amorth is retired, and no longer spends his days mopping up after Mephistopheles.  On the bright side, he now has more time to devote to his hobby of spouting parochial blather and demented cultural analysis.  For instance, he recently said:

[Y]oga is Satanic because it leads to a worship of Hinduism and “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation”.

"Pilates are the path to Pazuzu!"

So if you've spent your life treating trauma and mental illness by waving around an action figure of a dead man dangling from a torture device, while mouthing a bunch of Latin mumbo jumbo, I'm sorry, but you made your choice, this is as good as it gets, and you don't get a do-over.

Anyway kids, don't do yoga, because if you become physically flexible, you can't remain morally inflexible, or something like that.  But the Cow Face, or the One-Legged King Pigeon aren't the only threats facing today's youth:

Reading JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books is no less dangerous, said the 86-year-old priest, who is the honorary president for life of the International Association of Exorcists, which he founded in 1990, and whose favourite film is the 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist. 

I admit it -- I'm delighted by the thought that these elderly exorcists are so hardcore that they'd get drunk and boo Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone off the screen because the kids don't projectile vomit and masturbate with religious relics enough.

The Harry Potter books, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, “seem innocuous” but in fact encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry, Father Amorth said. 

Suddenly, the old priest whacked a passing Denny's waitress with his crucifix because "her knees were making an unholy crackling sound that probably means they're filled with demons, or arthritis," then Father Amorth rose from his booth and shouted, "The Power of Christ compels you to honor my coffee coupon!"

“Practising yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter,” he told a film festival in Umbria this week, where he was invited to introduce The Rite, a film about exorcism starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as a Jesuit priest.

Meanwhile, as the audience snickered and reached for their coats, the festival director wrenched a crozier from the hands of a nearby bishop and attempted to hook Father Amorth off the stage like a poorly received Vaudevillian.

“In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses,” said the priest, who in 1986 was appointed the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome.

Well Father, the curses are mostly used by evil characters in the books and movies, but as for the "extraordinary powers" and "magic spells," don't you claim to have the rather extraordinary power to evict demonic squatters, and perform the alchemical feat of turning bread into human flesh and wine into blood?  I mean, isn't it possible that there's just a wee bit of professional jealousy involved in your criticism, if only because transfiguration spells are so much more crowd pleasing than transubstantiation?

“Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence."

I don't know who Satan's with, but he's getting seriously crappy PR advice.  He should talk to Platform Media Group, or Qorvis Communications.

"He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations.”

Father Amorth himself was nearly led astray by the sprightly tempo of "Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)".

Science was incapable of explaining evil, said Father Amorth, who has written two books on his experiences as an exorcist. “It’s not worth a jot."

Science also lacks any precise scale for measuring Jackassery, so you can see why Father is skeptical.  Also he believes that whole Galileo thing should be treated as a Cold Case and reopened.

"The scientist simply explores what God has already created.” His views may seem extreme, but in fact reflect previous warnings by Pope Benedict XVI, when as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy.

So while the Vatican's former chief exorcist says that Science is a lot of crap, it's not really that extreme a view when you remember that it's shared by the guy who used to head up the Inquisition.

In 1999, six years before he succeeded John Paul II as Pope, he issued a document which warned Roman Catholics of the dangers of yoga, Zen, transcendental meditation and other 'eastern’ practises.

So just to review:  According to Cardinal Ratzinger, widespread child molestation in the Church?  Not a problem.  Fitness classes at the Y?  The death of Christendom.

They could “degenerate into a cult of the body” that debases Christian prayer, the document said.

Bodies, like children, should be seen and not heard.  Especially not in the presence of a District Attorney.

Yoga poses could create a feeling of well-being in the body but it was erroneous to confuse that with “the authentic consolations of the Holy Spirit,” the document said.

But that's true with any form of exercise, really.  For instance, Jim Fixx was struck dead because his "runner's high" was helping him to achieve a more personal relationship with Ba'al.

Father Amorth has previously said that people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron and have such superhuman strength that even children have to be held down by up to four people. He has also claimed that the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Catholic Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries was proof that the Anti-Christ is waging a war against the Holy See.

Science, however, has missed, or failed to explain all these phenomena, thus proving just how jotless it is.

Ask Your Spin Doctor If ContagionEx Is Right For You

From the kitchens of Mark Fiore:

(via WO'C staffer Keith)

Happy Birthday, Actor212!

Please join me in wishing a very festive natal day to our buddy and fellow blogger, Actor212.  Whether he's riding 50 miles on his bicycle, writing thoughtful, but acerbic commentary on politics and contemporary society at Simply Left Behind, taking stunningly gorgeous underwater photographs, or simply letting his eye for the ladies roam free (which is roguish and endearing, until it reaches the end of the optic nerve and then just hangs there, swinging back and forth like a Clacker), he is...the Most Interesting Man in a Four Block Radius of Manhattan.

In celebration, here's some Ann Coulter anti-matter:  a photo of Scandinavian Siren Christina Lindberg in an old Swedish magazine ad:

"Twas Beauty sold the Battery!"

(I tried to find some sexy cheesecake engravings from the Kalevala, but it's mostly beefy, bearded dudes, and elderly witches with warts and osteoporosis.)

Happy Birthday, Carl!

Thanks, Everybody! I Got You a Wingnut!

Before we get to our jerk du jour,  I'd like to step out of character for just a moment.  Unfortunately, I don't have a character, at least nothing so distinctive and cool as s.z.'s Supermodel/Astronaut/Spy identity, although I have been developing a wacky sitcom neighbor (it's still a work in progress, kind of a fusion of Jm J. Bullock and Kramer, but less butch, and with more manageable hair).

But what I really want, and need to say is, you guys have saved our bacon, our  Sizzlean and our Steak-umm, and on behalf of Mary, Riley, and Moondoggie, I want to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who contributed to the Beg-a-Thon.  Thanks to you, we're now square with our Vet, and no longer complete pariahs at the E.R.; long-deferred prescriptions have been filled for both humans and cats, and we're finally able to take Moondoggie back in to resume treatment for his liver.

I also want to thank Doghouse Riley, Roy, and Thers, who all kindly linked to the B-A-T, and sent a lot of very nice people our way -- Aliculatti, Atriots, and -- (we need a nickname for readers of Bats: Left, Throws: Right...Ambidextrians?); I hope I haven't missed anybody who helped spread the word -- if I have, please let me know.

Update:  Our beloved Anntichrist S. Coulter also beat the drum for us -- both here, and at her own blog, Mark of the Beast.  I knew I was forgetting someone important!  Let this be a lesson to you, Kids.  Stay in school.  Stay away from drugs.  And don't try to write blog posts on your phone.

I also want to thank s.z. for coming out of retirement, like the ex-Black Ops assassin she is, for one last job.  Or post.  (Actually, I'm sure she'll write more when Holiday Cat 'n' Dog Adopting and/or Abandoning Season is over, thereby making this completely anti-climatic.  Plus, we've got lots of upcoming stuff about the new book to talk about).

And on the subject of fundraisers...We're late to this, thanks to medical appointments and the internet outage, so you've probably already heard the terrible news about Rumproast blogger StrangeAppar8us, who suffered a disabling brain injury on November 3, and has lost his sight.  His friends and co-bloggers are trying to raise money for his medical bills and rehabilitation.  If you're able to help with cash or moral support, please click here for the details.

On another note...When I think of the good and the kind, of people generous of spirit, I generally don't think of Bryan Fischer.  Mostly, Bryan makes me think of a guy who cadges drinks in the Skyline Lounge at the Pocatello Airport Holiday Inn by pretending to be Peter Graves. 

But of course there's more to Bryan than a possible tendency to scam a Crown Royal and 7-Up out of a drunken dowager with dubious claims of being the lesser Arness brother.  No, Bryan Fischer is also a talk radio host and Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, but he's not afraid to contradict right wing orthodoxy, or even august figures in the conservative pantheon, when they interfere with his urge to be an asshole and a scold (or an asscold, as we like to call it, not to be confused with the kind of gastric distress which produces a stifled, high-pitched, tight-sphinctered sound that resembles the dainty sneezes of cats and well-bred Victorian ladies). 

The last time Bryan gave the rhetorical piñata treatment to a titan of Conservatism, it was Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  This week, he's predicting the Christ-like resurrection of Rick Perry, because -- although the Liberal Media doesn't want you to know about it -- Newt Gingrich likes to gad about with a satchel full of lava rocks and Buff Mexican Pebbles.

Get ready for a Perry comeback

Newt is the current flavor of the month in the GOP race for the presidential nomination, and grabbed a coup in New Hampshire.

The coup filed a restraining order against Newt, who nonetheless insists the grabbing was consensual, and maintains that his lechery is motivated by a volatile combination of manliness and love of country, a condition scientists now believe is caused by an excess of a hormone called patriotosterone.

However, Newt has enough baggage with enough rocks in it to drag him below surface again. 

And even when he's not dragged below surface, he still gets hassled by the TSA, which has a stupid rule about limiting carry-on rocks to under three ounces (on many occasions, the ex-Speaker has been reduced to traveling with nothing but a Ziplock bag full of aquarium gravel).

 [W]e now know he took $1.8 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac right when they were dragging the housing industry to the bottom of the sea.

So I guess the lesson here is, if you're a government-sponsored agency that securitizes mortgages, don't travel by sea rather than air just because Carnival Cruises will let you put rocks in your steamer trunk.  Also, don't limit your customer base to the cast of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Newt's at the bottom of the pile on that one.

Sounds like Newt had one of those Paul Simon/Kodachrome experiences where he gathered together all his ex-wives and the mistresses he cheated upon them with (although the Venn Diagram shows a certain amount of overlap) for just one night; but instead of an orgy, they tried to crush him by piling rocks on his chest like Giles Corey.

He's flip-flopped as much if not more than Mitt Romney, who, inspired by the musings of James Carville, I have affectionately nicknamed Governor Windsock.

I wouldn't count too much on the precision of a windsock.  Sometimes it accurately registers a stiff wind, and sometimes the stiffness simply means that your adolescent son found your Playboy collection and your windsock, and affectionately nicknamed the latter "Miss November."

Newt's been horrible on embryonic stem cell research and horrible on man-caused global warming, an exorbitantly costly scam whose credibility is rapidly disintegrating before our very eyes.

Unlike Bryan's contention that we haven't suffered another "Muslim attack" on the scale of 9/11 solely due to the decision by Major League Baseball to replace the traditional singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the Seventh Inning Stretch with "God Bless America" (please note that foiling any terrorist attack is prohibited without the express written permission of Major League Baseball), which is just becoming more empirical by the moment.

But the truth will out, and that spells trouble for Newt.

But a scoop for The Advocate!

This will create another vacuum, only this time there is no one new to fill it...When the air went out of Cain's balloon over the false allegations of harassment and the more substantial problem of his lack of depth on foreign policy, the air went into Newt's tires.

This, right here, seems like the real scandal, and I'd love to see it brought up at the next Republican debate:

CAIN:  You siphoned my balloon!

GINGRICH:  I had a flat!

So the question becomes: where does the air go when it leaks out of Newt's tires?

Well, what else holds air besides tires and balloons?  I'm guessing it'll go into Lloyd Bridges' SCUBA tanks from Sea Hunt (and not a moment too soon, because by this time, his lungs are aching for air).

Politics as well as nature abhors a vacuum, and somebody is going to benefit from Newt's descent. Like an elevator on its way to the basement, a countervailing weight must rise.

Gov. Perry's star will rise once again. 

So the air Gingrich stole from Herman's balloon will leak out of Newt's tires, causing Rick Perry's star to rise like a lead weight.  I know Bryan isn't in favor of mixing races, cultures, or religions, but apparently he's fine with metaphor miscegenation.

This Is The Least Creepy Thing On Hollywood Boulevard...

...and it only comes out at night.

He Blows a Lot

And by "he," I mean Santa Ana. And by "Santa Ana" I mean the gale force winds that blew through here last night, not the Mexican general who killed Fess Parker and Buddy Ebsen.

Anyway, I apologize for the absence of posts, but the Internet has been out since sometime after midnight, and according to the computer-generated voice I get whenever I call our provider (which manages to sound both robotic and impatient, like a Dalek that would LIKE to exterminate you, but is simply too fucking exasperated) there is currently no ETA for when service might be restored. So I thought I'd see if I could post a Please Stand By notice using my phone.

Apparently so. And it's every but as tedious to write as it is to read -- like a cyber-Jiffy Pop!

Hope to be back online soon.