At the beginning of a long weekend, I start thinking about movies. I like good movies. I love the Muppets. The Muppets made good movies.

Now, in the ultimate goodness, I get both: Statler & Waldorf At the Movies, a biweekly movie review with those two old guys on the balcony pitching barbarous fits at each other and at a clueless Hollywood. Leave it to the Muppets to give an acerbic edge to my Fridays.

Thank you, Jim Henson, in that Great Muppet Workshop In the Sky.

September 2nd, 2005 | Creative, Muppets, Review | No comments

Subject: Re: Harry Potter and the Lavender Brigade
On Jul 23, 2005, at 11:28 AM, Mom wrote:
Noel, would you please read this treatise and let me know what
thoughts you have after reading it. I would really like to hear your
opinions on what Doug Phillips has to say. Thanks. Love, Mom

…And poof, there went my Saturday morning. My Mom forwarded me an email-only essay by Doug Phillips of the Vision Forum organization titled “Harry Potter and the Lavender Brigade”. From appearances, they’re not posting the essay on their site because, one would surmise, of its rather poorly argued nature, I mean, its rather inflammatory nature. What with all the false analogies and such. Anyways, I won’t reproduce it here out of respect for their copyright, but if you want to read it, just leave a comment below and I’ll forward it on to you a poster at freerepublic.com has put up an unformatted copy. Below is my heated response to the argument that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series should not be read by Christians because it is an imagined world that is rooted in magic as practiced by humans, which for Phillips equates to, well, I’m not quite sure, but reading about that world is like worshipping other gods, which we may all agree is bad.

Follow the jump for my savage six-paragraph retort that I wrote for my lovely Mom…
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July 23rd, 2005 | Best, Books, Magic, Philosophy, Review, Rhetoric, Unbelievable | 7 comments