Dagger in hand |
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A man of prodigious fortune, coming to add his opinion to some light discussion that was going on casually at his table, began precisely thus: "It can only be a liar or an ignoramus who will say otherwise than," and so on. Pursue that philosophical point, dagger in hand. --Michel de Montaigne, Of the art of discussion. Stab back: cmnewman99-at-yahoo.com Home
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Monday, November 17, 2003
Owl to Ms. Rowlings I just finished Book 4. Good stuff, quite enjoyed it. But here's what I don't get. When Voldemort tried to kill Harry the first time, the curse rebounded and destroyed Voldemort's body. He remained alive in some vestigial spiritual form, but had no physical being for quite a while. Correct? I presume that when this happened, he must have dropped his wand, not having any body that could hold on to it. So how did he get it back? Did someone retrieve it from the Potters' destroyed house for him? Who? And when? Somebody had to have retrieved and kept it for him all these years so that he would have it at the beginning of Book 4 when he finally has a body that can wield it. It couldn't have been Wormtail, who was in hiding as a rat. So who? Was there an explanation to this that I missed? It's obviously important at the end of the 4th book that this is in fact his wand, the one he'd always had. So there has to be an explanation. Hasn't there? UPDATE: Thanks to my good friend Beth, I have learned that I'm not the only one to be perplexed by this. None of the theories posited in this thread strike me as satisfactory, so I guess we shall have to wait and see. At this point my own best guess is that, having gone to such lengths to prevent his soul from slinking off wherever bad dead wizards go, he had also placed some enchantment on his wand that would keep it safe and retreivable in the event his body were to go poof for some reason. Thursday, November 13, 2003
Vorrei esprimere al popolo italiano le mie condoglianze, ed anche ringraziarvi per la vostra alleanza. Da ieri in poi non raccontero' mai piu' barzellette sui carabinieri. Translation: I want to express to the Italian people my condolences, and to thank you for your alliance. From yesterday on, I will no longer tell any jokes about carabinieri. [For those not familiar with Italian culture, carabinieri have traditionally served in their jokes the same role that the Polish used to serve in ours.] Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Qualcuno mi vuole spiegare perche' tanti italiani cercano Mary Carey? Non la troverete qui, ragazzi. E credetemi, non vale neanche la pena. Breaking eggs Sully reposted for general opprobrium this eloquent post from Democratic Underground: The only way to get rid of this slime bag WASP-Mafia, oil barron ridden cartel of a government, this assault on Americans and anything one could laughingly call "a democracy", relies heavily on what a shit hole Iraq turns into. They need to die so that we can be free. Soldiers usually did that directly--i.e., fight those invading and harming a country. This time they need to die in defense of a lie from a lying adminstration to show these ignorant, dumb Americans that Bush is incompetent. They need to die so that Americans get rid of this deadly scum.Right after reading this, I read Sully's own essay on Bush's seemingly buoyant reelection prospects. In it appears the following passage: Hmmmm. Am I the only one to note an interesting parallel here? Don't get me wrong. I'm not asserting that the two are morally equivalent. The DU poster obviously resents U.S. soldiers and views the prospect of their deaths with satisfaction even beyond the instrumental value she sees them as having. Sullivan has no such animus toward the Iraqis and does not celebrate their suffering. But he does describe the fact that they are now being targeted by Islamist terrorism as having an "upside." He too is looking at the deaths of innocent people as a salutary development, a catalyst for bringing about a desired change in the political state of affairs. Had the DU poster written her piece without the bile, and merely taken the position that while our soldiers' deaths are tragic, they nevertheless have an "upside" in helping people realize the failings of the Bush administration, I think it would be hard to distinguish her from Sullivan. One could of course still distinguish between the two and judge them morally on the basis of their respective worldviews and the differing end goals in service of which they are willing to countenance loss of life. But they are the same in that each of them sees the violent suffering of others as having instrumental value. Which, undeniably, it can. So the question becomes: what, if anything, is wrong with seeing that value and responding to it? Sorry folks, you won't get an answer to that one from me this morning. Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Everything that has a beginning... Okay Pejman, before you get on a high horse and declare how you're not going to waste any time on the third Matrix movie, read this. |