Monday, October 29, 2007

Dumbledore is gay

By now everyone knows that Dumbledore is gay, at least according to the author in a sort of unwritten postscript. We might have picked up on it. There are hints in the books apparently and nothing clearly disproves it.

I sort of wish Rowling had written it in more explicitly. And no, not that kind of explicit. Just some words to say that Dumbledore liked men. People will say, but this is a children's book! But Rowling is a billionaire, she could have written anything she wanted...

Is it lack of imagination on her part to imagine a world where muggle discrimination is disregarded in the world of wizards? Why couldn't the wizard world have been more advanced here? Possibly because the world wasn't really advanced in any other aspect of social progressiveness. Muggle borns were discriminated against, in a parallel to racism. Perhaps a gay coming of age of one of the main characters would have been a distraction and beyond her powers to write.

I take it that Rowling is a friend to the gay community and don't want to dismiss her gift the community. Still, I think of a bigger opportunity missed. I guess I'll just have to write that children's book myself.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Older gays don't find acceptance in elder housing

NYT Compared to today's younger generation of increased gay acceptance, gay seniors do generally still face ostracism from other elderly and can be reluctant to enter into senior housing facilities.

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Professor says climate change has unconsidered positive feedback

NYT In other words, warming begets more warming. We didn't think that much about this, and this is why the arctic ice melt was so extreme this summer that it was more than anyone expected (this post).

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Arctic Ice Dramatically Receded this Summer

NYT It was beyond even pessimistic projections.