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You know why Harry Potter is a phenomenal book series?

rabblevolunteer:

Because it addresses SO MANY THINGS and attempts to explore them:

  • Gender roles (in which this book series destroys them)- In this series you have a HUGE burly man (Hagrid) who treats animals like they are his children, cries publicly, shows his emotions, KNITS IN PUBLIC, and gardens. You have Mrs. Weasley who is the major mother-figure for Harry but who fights just as hard in the final book as the men even though she’s “just” a housewife. She kills Bellatrix for crying out loud!
  • Racism and privilege- The full-blood, half-blood, muggle-born aspect runs throughout the whole series and is meant to be seen as a type of racism. Hermione is a muggle-born but her abilities far surpass her peers’ and Neville, who is a full-blooded wizard is expected to be a better wizard simply from his ancestors, is one of the worst in his classes.
  • Classism- The Malfoys vs. the Weasleys.
  • Ageism- Harry isn’t taken seriously because of his age (in fact it actually helps him obtain the fake locket with Dumbledore because he isn’t seen as a “real” wizard due to his age) and neither is Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s age becomes an issue for the news and people start to question whether or not he’s gone senile when he and Harry claim that Voldemort has returned.
  • Speciesism- The treatment of House-elves, centaurs, giants, and other magical populations are seen as beneath wizards and Hermione tries to take steps to fix that with S.P.E.W.
  • Education- Hagrid was expelled and so he’s seen as uneducated and Malfoy calls him a servant, a savage, etc. But he’s able to earn a position as a teacher at Hogwarts and overcome his lack of an education. Fred and George are the same way, they drop out of Hogwarts and become successful joke shop owners, the implication being that they were not ever really suited for a traditional education (they were not traditional learners and that’s okay). Or when Harry becomes the DADA teacher during Order of the Phoenix, he chooses to teach it hands-on while Umbridge has them write lines all class period. This book explores different learning styles and shows that there are many different ways to learn a subject.
  • Ableism- Neville’s parents live in a hospital because they experienced severe brain damage after being tortured by Voldemort for information. We see them in Order of the Phoenix and it’s through those chapters that we not only understand Neville better but we find out that he isn’t ashamed of them nor does he feel he should be.
  • Sexuality- This book portrays a gay relationship, (even though it is not brought up within the canon ever): Grindelwald and Dumbledore. JK Rowling stated this shortly after the final book came out, that’s how we know this.

ReBlogged from rabblevolunteer

 
“ Incarceration in America is a failure by almost any measure. But what if the prisons could be turned inside out, with convicts released into society under constant electronic surveillance? Radical though it may seem, early experiments suggest that such a science-fiction scenario might cut crime, reduce costs, and even prove more just.
Prison Without Walls
 

Skeptical Energy

A common admission from those who claim to have supernatural powers (and something that is illustrated well in Derren Brown’s new show) is that their supernatural abilities dry up whenever there is a skeptic in the room.

This is the thing that stops them getting thoroughly debunked when they meet someone willing to do a scientific test on their “gift” - be it reading minds, talking to the dead, or X-Ray vision - they simply explain their failure in any tests (or refuse to do any such tests at all) by claiming that “skeptical energy” is inhibiting their power.

This is a perfect way of making sure they can continue making extraordinary claims whilst at the same time avoiding any opportunity for doubt.

Or maybe I am being too harsh here - maybe there is some truth in this…

In the (now cancelled) hit US TV show Heroes, many seemingly ordinary citizens have amazing gifts. Some can read minds, others can move objects telepathically. But one person - known as “the Haitian” - has something very similar to the skeptical energy. Whenever he comes near someone with an ability, he drains them of their power. He is a skeptic.

Believe what you will about the supernatural, but I sleep safe at night knowing that if there are people out there who can move objects with their minds or shoot lightning from their fingers, all it takes is a bit of reason and a basic understanding of the scientific method to render them powerless.

 

The BBC programme Virtual Revolution summed up my thoughts on Internet-naysayers (at least this is my interpretation):

Older people have always been afraid of every big change, if the web had been around when they were young it would not be a problem. “Generation web” are growing up not knowing what life was like without the web, just like the last generation couldn’t imagine life before the printing press, or cars.

Big changes mean lots to get used to, and the web is only 20 years young, who knows what the next 20 years will bring. Bring it on!

 
“ The first intriguing finding is that there is a lot of overlap between the brain areas activated during feelings of romantic love for a partner, and those involved in maternal love for own children. The brain cells implicated are the same as those we know become active whenever an extremely rewarding activity is being undertaken. These are precisely the same neurological locations which are implicated when we consume food and drink we like, take drugs like cocaine, and when we are given monetary rewards. So love is indeed like a drug.

Love really is blind… - Telegraph

This is a great article about how the brain reacts to love (and how your brain deactivates clear thinking and critical judgement when thinking of loved ones).

More than ever it is obvious that human emotion is a chemical reaction in the brain, and there is no ‘soul’.

 
Caring for Your Introvert

The worst of it is that extroverts have no idea of the torment they put us through. Sometimes, as we gasp for air amid the fog of their 98-percent-content-free talk, we wonder if extroverts even bother to listen to themselves. Still, we endure stoically, because the etiquette books—written, no doubt, by extroverts—regard declining to banter as rude and gaps in conversation as awkward.

Ha! This is so true.

 

The Democratic process fails for minorities

As I read the reports about Maine, a U.S. state where people have voted to overturn a law legalising same-sex marriage, my blood begins to boil.

Firstly, why on earth do people feel the need to control other people’s lives like this? In what way do same-sex marriages harm “traditional marriage”?

Right now, if I wanted to, I could marry a woman - even one that I had just met today - for money, for social status, strictly for tax purposes, or worse - simply because I had gotten her pregnant. “Traditional” marriage is in no way sacred - 50% of all marriages in America end in divorce.

So why then do people think they should stop gay marriage? How will the fact that a gay couple got married possibly affect the validity or importance of a “traditional” marriage?

The answer is simple: it won’t. This is just about bigotry and ignorance.

My second problem with this is: since when do people vote on civil rights? Should be put slavery up for vote? How about women’s rights? Oh wait, women might have a chance to protect their rights as they make up 50% of the population (so long as they are allowed to vote).

But voting on the civil rights of a minority is wrong. Democracy is 2 wolves and 1 sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

I am glad to be in England, where at least we have civil partnerships available for all gay couples (but not to be called ‘marriage’). But there is still a long way to go in my country, in America, and in the rest of the world before we can truly say that gay people have equal rights.

“If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, “Tyranny of the Majority,” Chapter XV, Book 1, Democracy in America

 
“The ancients thought of this as a “celestial sphere”, thinking that everything in the heavens was on a huge, fixed sphere that rotated once a day.” Does this explain what the bible means when it says “God created the heavens and the Earth”? And when they said there was a firmament in the sky? And all the nonsense about waters? Does this show that the people who wrote the bible were terribly misinformed about astronomy, and so can we conclude that it was not God who wrote the bible? Food for thought. Learning from a Huge Past Mistake : Starts With A Bang

“The ancients thought of this as a “celestial sphere”, thinking that everything in the heavens was on a huge, fixed sphere that rotated once a day.”

Does this explain what the bible means when it says “God created the heavens and the Earth”? And when they said there was a firmament in the sky? And all the nonsense about waters? Does this show that the people who wrote the bible were terribly misinformed about astronomy, and so can we conclude that it was not God who wrote the bible?

Food for thought.

Learning from a Huge Past Mistake : Starts With A Bang

about shaun…

Name: Shaun Robinson

Age: 25

Occupation: Web Designer / Developer

Location: Ipswich, United Kingdom

Living with: My partner Andrew, and two kids Elliot and Oliver.

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