Since his recent interview on NBC, the American network TV channel, I’ve changed my opinion of Prince Harry. Sitting beside his brother William, who looks like the perfect drip who would be king, Harry by contrast came over as a feisty young man full of life and even a sensitive young man who cares. But I’m referring to the other Harry, the bespectacled boy-wizard with the tragic past, who has become one of the most successful book publishing sensations of all time and who has turned millions of young people into avid readers, making the writer J.K. Rowling richer than Prince Harry’s granny.
On Friday July 20 at 8.00 am the boy wizard’s broom landed at a publishing house in New York re-named “Harry Potter’s Place.” Fans were treated to a giant Whomping Willow, a Muggle board and a Knight Bus, modeled after the purple triple-decker in the books. Music swelled as the Knight Bus churned down a narrow alley at the end of a national tour, discharging six children in black Hogwarts gowns who held books one through six. Then all seven volumes were deposited into a lockbox like a stone basin for storing thoughts and memories. With the wave of a wand and a cloud of fairy dust, a digital clock began ticking. For the next 15 hours, until midnight, Potter fans would not move forward with their lives.
The hoopla reminded me of the previous month’s launch of the iPhone, a marketing coup that took the culture of “I must have it” to a new level. In London, legions of fans, dressed like Potter characters, lined up outside stores and attended parties while awaiting the book. McGinty's Public House in Alexandria, Virginia, became the Leaky Cauldron, serving up "Deathly Hallows" shepherd's pie, Fizzing Whizbee ice cream and Butterbeer, which was actually Boddington's ale. Muggles (non-magical folks) mingled with wizards and witches. A woman with a stuffed vulture on her head and black makeup drank a cup of Butterbeer, and a magician made balloon brooms in yellow and brown for children. A Death Eater, wearing a mask, carried a sign that said, "The end is nigh."
The books have resonated for children and adults alike and spawned a highly successful film series as well and spawned a whole industry of Harry Potter collectibles and costumes. Harry Potter is now a cult figure. Rabid fans gather on the Web and elsewhere to dissect every sentence in the books. I myself have only read Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone, the first of the seven for each of Harry’s years at Hogwarts School. The book has multi layered plots and a lively cast of characters performing an array of magical feats against the forces of evil, apparently the other books follow the same theme. For me Rowling's pedestrian prose is like undergoing a form of torture. But to many, many more, the books have become a beloved rite of passage and that’s fine.
Homeless World Soccer Champion Ship
On July 29, 2007 in Copenhagen, thousands of homeless people from across the globe waved flags and blew whistles at the start of the homeless world soccer championship. 48 teams marched onto the pitch, many dancing to the rhythms of a samba band, with reigning champions Russia leading the parade. Some 500 players, from as far a field as Burundi, the United States, Kazakhstan, Chile and India, were taking part in the weeklong event.
A few days later, fifteen soccer players went missing. They had visas for the week of the championship and are thought to have fled to another country before the visas expired. Danish police said that when they find the players they will deport them back to their home countries, including Burundi, Liberia, Cameroon and Afghanistan. The Liberian team even managed to place third overall in the tournament after four of their players disappeared.
At exactly the same time the players disappeared picketers were marching in a circle in front of an office building in Washington DC, chanting about low wages, but somehow they didn’t seem to be fully focused on their message. Many arrived with large suitcases or bags holding their belongings, which they keep in sight. Several are smoking cigarettes. One works a crossword puzzle. Another bangs a tambourine, while several drum on large white buckets. Some of the men walking the line call out to passing women, "Hey, baby." A few picketers gyrate and dance while chanting: "What do we want? Fair wages! When do we want them? Now!"
Although their placards identify the picketers as being with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters, they are not union members. They're hired feet, or, as the union calls them, temporary workers, paid $8 an hour to picket. They are homeless people recruited from homeless shelters. Carpenters’ locals across the country are outsourcing their picket lines, hiring homeless people and calling it a shift in the paradigm of picketing! Union members say they are too busy working to leave their jobs to join picket lines!
Hungarian Siesta
“Do you agree that the Parliament of the Republic of Hungary should make a law about introducing the siesta?” Hungary’s eight million voters may soon be asked to answer that question after the National Election Committee ruled that it was fit for a referendum. Citizens suffering in the record heat of August will however have to keep paying for their refreshments as the committee earlier struck down a referendum proposal making beer free in restaurants, saying it would have distorted the market. Proponents of the bill on an afternoon nap now have to collect 200,000 signatures to force a referendum. Maybe the Hungarians can take a leaf from the book of Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters and employ homeless people to collect the signatures! Since democracy came to Hungary after the fall of communism in 1989, there have been frequent referendums, although only two have passed, on joining NATO and the European Union.
Scum Report
Plenty of scum to go around this month. The honour goes to the Muslim physicians who tried to ignite a car bomb in front of a London night club and crashed an SUV into a terminal at Glasgow airport. What a way to pay back the country who gave the Arab doctors a job and an opportunity for a new start for them and their families.
After Words
Sir Winston Churchill once said, "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." Although he did indeed write, as well as make much history, it will be of no avail to him personally now that he has been dropped from the official list of persons required for study by English school students. In an effort to improve the minds of their youth, in lieu of studying the man who was dubbed The Greatest Briton of Them All, they will instead concentrate on debt management, the environment and healthy eating!
