Guerilla patriarch (and pope)?
July 13th, 2005 ~ Potpourri for 100, Alex, Orthodox perspectiveThe Greek patriarch is mixing it up in Jerusalem?
This latest comes by way of Directions to Orthodoxy. I had been reading on their news page about that patriarchate’s ongoing problems — for instance HERE and HERE – but I can’t make any sense out of it. So analysis welcome on this one.
And meanwhile, over at That Other Church, the new pope is condemning Harry Potter? Well, I wish him luck in not being portrayed in the media as either a fool or a maniac. I think we’ve sort of figured out in this country ever since Dan Quayle tried to make a point about “Murphy Brown” that when a real person condemns a fictional one, the fictional one always wins somehow.
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July 17th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
It is happening again.. The last time a Harry Potter tome was published, out came the editorials praising Ms. Rowling’s work as just about the best thing to come along since Gutenberg invented movable type. The Wall Street Journal had just such an editorial on Friday, July 15. You see, contrary to what has come out in the last 500 years or so, it is only now that children actually have something to read! What ever did they do before? They had to put up with that drivel by A.A. Milne, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and that Twain fellow.. sheesh…
Oh but it gets kids reading. My own 14 year old son opined, “that doesn’t mean they’ll go on to read something worthwhile”.
July 18th, 2005 at 11:00 am
I remember hearing that idea put out there as well — that kids were going to “catch the fever” from HP and go on to devour the classics. Well, yeah. Last time I looked, Barnes and Noble had many of the classics marked down and they still weren’t selling.
In any case, I find it kind of sad that it’s THIS exciting that there’s a series of books that kids like. For goodness’ sake, it’s not like anyone discovered a cure for cancer or anything. But oh well, there’s no point in pretending that I don’t get it. The more the big things in life fail to satisfy, the more people get invested in the trivial things.