Anti-Trans Claims Are Utter Crap

 The truly amazing thing of the time in which we live is that we have so much information, yet people buy the bullshit mis and disinformation.  People are making incredible (as in unbelievable) claims, and people are buying them, doing so much harm.

Of all of this, the most angering, the most infuriating for me has to be the anti-trans bullshit promoted by the Republican Party, JK Rowling, the New York Times, and others.  First, trans people are a tiny group, hardly a threat to the culture or to anyone.  But their size makes them a handy target--they seem alien because most people do not know a trans person.  Traditional homophobia does not play as well as it used to because more and more people know gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, so those seeking to amplify hate have to find targets elsewhere.  Second, they were a group already facing marginalization and violence before these organizations and individuals began broadcasting trans hate.  Trans kids have long had a high suicide rate.  So, this is the epitome of punching down, which is appalling.  

Before getting to the three most popular and wrongest claims/fears, I should note that the trans panic has an impact--it has shaped attitudes, making the public more supportive of anti-trans laws.  It has helped abet efforts to silence research into all kinds of gender research, not just trans-related stuff.  And, yes, it has given Republicans (and so-called reactionary centrists*) a chance to make Democrats seem strange for protecting a tiny alien group.  Has it tilted elections?  No idea, but of all of the policy issues, this is the one where the public is closer to the GOP.  On pretty much every other issue, the Dems are squarely in the center of the American electorate.  No wonder the Republicans like to create fear against trans people.  A most rancid but pretty damned obvious form of distraction sauce.

First, kids are not being mutilated.  Kids getting any trans-related treatments are doing so after much effort by their parents/guardians, and the treatments for kids are reversible, such as puberty blockers.  The total of adults getting surgery is something like 200 a year, which is hardly justification for a panic, and kids are not getting such surgeries.  All this concern about kids being fooled into being trans is fake, the psychological harm that trans kids face from parents, churches, and others who try to deny them their true identity is quite real.  Oh, and the parties that do the most to "protect" kids from transitioning are the same ones that deny all kinds of benefits and care, such as medicaid, school lunches, and the like.  So, let's just admit they are a Bad Faith crowd.

Second, men are not transitioning to get a leg up in women's sports.  It simply is not a reality.  The number of trans women in women's sports is microscopic, hardly worth the trouble of regulating.  And guess what? There is little evidence to suggest trans women have physical advantages over people who were identified as female at birth.  The whole idea is rather preposterous--that men will sacrifice their sexuality in order to compete in women's sports.  Given the hate and ostracism facing trans people, who is going to do this?  There are significant consequences to becoming trans--most negative given the state of things--so who is signing up for just a competitive advantage?  No one.  If you can find one person or even a dozen, I would be surprised, but that would still not justify the policies aimed at "protecting women's sports."  The party of pedophilia wants to inspect the genitals of girl athletes?  That seems to be far more problematic and damaging to girls and women than the one in a million trans girl winning a trophy.  

Third, all this fear of trans women in bathrooms.  What is the rate of sexual assault committed by trans women?  Yep, it is not really happening.   On the flipside, trans kids are facing greater violence in bathrooms. Sure, fear men in women's bathrooms, but trans women are women.  Once you understand that, the fear should dissipate.  Unless, of course, the fear is politically motivated.

That some feminists--TERFS--are anti-trans is horrific since they are finding common cause with misogynists, racists, anti-semites, Islamaphobes, and other haters.  These hates usually ride together, so joining awful folks because they support your own prejudice is doing great harm to all kinds of causes, including your own.  Yes, JK Rowling is a shitty feminist.  While folks can identify heaps of racism and misogyny in her books,** her amplification of hate the past ten years is an utter betrayal of the central message of the books--that love defeats hate, that tolerance is superior to prejudice.  I can't help but ask JK: "Think, and try for some remorse."

We live in difficult times.  I hate that we have powerful actors making them more difficult than they need to be, and that these folks are either useful idiots or conscious allies of the truly awful actors who are doing so much damage to democracy and to human dignity.  

If you happen to have some beliefs that line up with one of these three myths, do some work, read a bit up on it, and realize you have been played.  We have nothing to fear of trans people but fear itself.  

 

* I will save my reactionary centrist post for another day.  

** I overlooked that stuff for many reasons including the central message.  Alas, I can't anymore.  I have given away my HP books and will buy no more swag.  I will keep my Gryffindor bathrobe because it is a really terrific bathrobe because I am cheap. 

The Line Is Drawn Here: No Room for Transphobia

 As Pride month is upon us and as folks are still learning the wrong lessons from the last election, I realized I had tweeted and skeeted much over the years about transphobia, but haven't written much here.

The BLUF is pretty basic: we have no reason to hate or fear trans people, but we have a lot of reasons to hate and fear those who demonize trans people.

Over the past decade or so, the Republicans and their allies in the media and elsewhere as well as a certain horrible author have been fostering all kinds of fears about trans people--that they will assault women in bathrooms, that they will unfairly dominate the sports they compete in, that kids are transitioning because it is cool, and so on.  There is so much wrong with all of this, but let's focus on the most important points:

1. Trans people are people, they are not threats.  
2. Trans people, because they are so marginalized and face such hostility, have a high rate of suicide, and face a great deal of violence.
3. Trans people, because they are small and marginalized, don't have much power so anyone targeting them is always punching down.
4. Actors are mostly targeting them because it is handy politically. 
5. The relative harm or costs/benefits of regulating trans people is clear.

1.  Trans people are people, not threats.

One can go with all of the lies and threat inflation, and it becomes quite clear that these people are no more threatening than anyone else.  Indeed, like immigrants, these people are less likely to engage in bad behavior precisely because they are more likely to pay a higher price.  Who is assaulting kids and women?  Clergy.  Cops.  Teachers.  Parents.  There is simply no evidence that trans people are engaging in crime against women or children at a rate higher than everyone else.  But, like past efforts to demonize minorities, such as when rape accusations were (are) weaponized against Black men, this is an effort to make people fearful of those folks who are different. 
Let's go to sports: how many trans girls (notice, it is always fear of boys and men transitioning) are dominating their sports?  How many are actually in sports?  The advantages that trans girls/women are supposed to have over cis girls/women are, um, not as much as feared. The idea that someone would just transition so that they can compete better in high school or collegiate sports is just offensive and dumb--transitioning is not easy and it is quite costly in money, emotions, and all the rest. There is no risk of trans kids taking over sports.  Maybe a few trans kids will win some competitions.  And the cost of that to those who finish second or third?  To foreshadow, that's not worth having every girl's genitals checked at every competition or in the bathrooms of malls and stores.  
How else are trans people threatening?  Do they have motorcycle gangs holding small towns hostage?  Have they secretly joined pivotal organizations and can now control them at the expense of everyone else?  What exactly is this threat?
One last threat: kids are transitioning too much.  It is so hip, there's so much peer pressure, that kids are making irrevocable decisions without parental permission.  Oh wait, that's not happening.  Certainly, more kids are reporting gender dysphoria with this piece putting the number at 42,000 in 2021.  Wow, that's a lot of kids.  Oh wait, there were something like 72 million kids in that year, so this is something like .06% of all kids. But so many kids are on puberty blockers, right?!  Um, no.  1,390 in 2021. How does that compare to the percentage of kids being sexually assaulted?  28%, with 3/4 of those being assaulted by someone they know, mostly parents.  Given how few trans people are parents, I am guessing they are not responsible for most of sexual abuse of kids. Just putting this "threat" into context.  And, yes, the number of cops abusing kids over the past twenty years or so (actual reports, not total number of cops doing this) > kids getting puberty blockers in 2021.  Fewer kids are getting puberty blockers than being abused by priests: more than 4200 allegations of Catholic clergy abusing kids in one year.  

So, no, trans people are not a threat, kids are not facing a severe risk of being bullied into being trans.  Other people, supposedly trustworthy people, are far greater threats, but you would not be able to tell that from the NYT or other media outlets and certainly not the Republican party. 

2. Trans people, because they are so marginalized and face such hostility, have a high rate of suicide, and face a great deal of violence.

What makes all of this threat inflation and incitement of violence truly awful is that trans people have long been at great risk.  The threat is not that they will harm others but either they will harm themselves or others will do so.  Somewhere between 30-40% of trans people have attempted suicide and around 80% have considered it.  I knew it was bad, I didn't know it was this bad.  Transgender people are four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violent crime!

Again, the threat here is not by trans people but to them.  The NYT and other outlets should be focused on how to protect this vulnerable minority, not how to protect the majority of people from them.   

3.   Trans people, because they are small and marginalized, don't have much power so anyone targeting them is always punching down

Trans people are about .6% of the US population.  They are not a huge group, they are not tied to a strong lobbying organization, they do not control the commanding heights of the media or the political system. Are there even conspiracy theories that try to position trans people as powerful?  I doubt it.  It is striking that one of the loudest and most aggressive voices in this is, well, the richest woman in the UK and one of the richest people in the world has decided to make her post-bestselling book mission to attack trans people and support transphobes.  Whenever someone of that level of power attacks, they are punching down, so maybe it is unfair to be critical of such folks since they lack targets to punch up?   

 4.  Actors are mostly targeting them because it is handy politically

Trans people are attractive targets for politicians who want to whip up hate. Why?  The size of the group means that many people do not know trans people, so they will have less empathy and understanding, and they are easy to define as "other."  It is basic social psychology and thus basic comparative politics that people will feel more in common with each other if there is some "other" out there that is alien, that is seen as less than, that is viewed as strange.  Politicians have always targeted those who are different.  Since most people are cisgender, trans people are "other" to most potential voters, campaign contributors, etc.   

Sure, a party or a politician could offer a more hopeful, unifying vision of the political community, but when a party has a political agenda that hurts most people, it is best to spray the most rancid distraction sauces.  Most of the GOP's stances are out of touch with the mainstream, but if they can get to the media to portray their opponents as captured by this tiny special interest, if they can cause parents to be concerned about their rights (to oppress their kids), then they can grab more votes.   

And yes, hating trans people is bad enough.  It is also a strategy to try to roll back rights for the entire LGBTQ+ community.

 5. The relative harm or costs/benefits of regulating trans people is clear.

This is a very small group that faces much risk of violence, so how do the benefits of restricting their freedom to live as they choose measure up against the costs?  Hey, Steve, that's unfair, when you put it like that, of course, there is no way that their freedom should be abridged.  This is kind of like the voterfraudfraud stuff that I have harped about here and there for years but much worse.  In the case of voterfraudfraud, it is the supposed threat posed by voter fraud (which is not a threat) that justifies restricting people's rights and abilities to vote.  That math never works because the history of the US has always made it clear that the threat/reality of voter suppression is far greater than that of voter fraud.  The math of regulating/restricting trans people's rights is even more obvious: they pose no risk yet restricting their rights, limiting their lives, presents tremendous costs to them.   

 I am outraged by transphobia.  Why?  Maybe a bit of guilt that I was homophobic in high school (not violently so, just in attitude).  It took going to college where I got to meet gays and lesbians and bisexuals to make me shed stereotypes and fears (I was "radicalized" not by my profs but by my peers, of course).  But it is also because it is so obviously awful to be inciting violence and seeking to restrict the freedom of very vulnerable people.  As a result, I have absolutely no tolerance for anyone being "concerned" about kids being rushed into transition or "concerned" about trans women beating cis women in swimming or whatever.  I see people making those argument as enablers of hate.  They may not be conscious of that, but damn it, the reality is so obvious they should be.  

Some loose threads/additional explanation/more unedited spewage: 

When I started to see trans people increasingly become targets ten or fifteen years ago, even though I did not know any, I could see these people as ....  people deserving of dignity and happiness.  That and it is not my business to tell these people how to live. To be honest, transphobia has become a pretty useful indicator for evaluating politicians--are they hateful, are they cowardly, are they so opportunistic as to use hate against a vulnerable group?  That old poem about "first they came for the socialists" isn't quite right. First they came for the disabled and the trans people...  And  today's Nazis are doing the same thing.  I pointed out Pierre Poilievre's transphobic stances to the woman who was seeking my vote for her and by extension for him.  

Over the past few years I have gotten to know some trans people, and a relative recently transitioned.  So, yeah, that increases my outrage, my contempt, my frustration, but it has been there a while.

Finally, I didn't mention Voldemort by name and I didn't mention the shitty form of feminism these transphobes adopt because my arguments here stand on their own, no matter how captured significant hunks of the UK are by this hate.  And, yes, I focused mostly on the US case because the stats were easy to find, but these transphobe dynamics are part and parcel of the far right effort around the world to mobilize hate.  Transphobes tend to travel with anti-semites, Islamophobes, racists, misogynists, eugenicists, of course, homophobes, and other haters.

There Is Still Magic

The past few years have been very frustrating, angering, saddening times for many Harry Potter fans as JK Rowling has allied herself with the dark forces in the world (including Johnny Depp).  Her anti-trans attitudes seems to me to be a betrayal of what her books tried to convey.  I have been stewing about this for quite some time, and I haven't re-read or re-watched the HP stuff in a few years, breaking my usual winterfest habits.  I finally sought to express my feelings on this as I watched the 20th anniversary special.  Seeing all the folks who made the movies (well, almost as we have lost several along the way) and seeing the scenes of the making of the movies made very sad but also reminded me of the magic in the books and the movies.*

(* Ok, the first 8.5 movies as the first Fantastic Beasts movie had some magic, the second had much less, especially with Depp playing such a big role).  

To be clear, the books and movies are imperfect.  They do not represent well, they tend to rely on stereotypes (JK's borrowing of Tolkein's take on goblins is still anti-semitic, for instance), that Dumbledore is not explicitly gay in the text, but she retconned that later, and so on.  But the larger themes are of love and tolerance and choice are so central. That the bad guys don't get it--they can't exhibit remorse, they don't have friends, they have contempt for those who love, that they don't really have something to fight for, and the good folks win precisely because they are willing to love, to forgive, to trust.  

Early in the special, the words come across the screen that it is not what family you are born into (although, of course, there are contradictions--the discussion of Draco as a product of Lucius) but what you choose to do that matters.  In the books, this is one of the strongest and consistent themes--that is the choices you make that matter.  And this plays in two ways now--that JK is making the worst choices and she is, of course, judging how others live their lives, that she is judging people who identify as their true selves.   

So, how do I see it now?  Watching the actors and directors talk about the stuff, how much it meant to them (and to the fans), the bonds they have with each other, the themes that they tried to convey helped feed my confirmation bias and my compartmentalization.  That there is such good stuff in the books and the movies that I will focus on that--the magic of friendship, of love, and, yes, of tolerance--and only occasionally grapple with the darkness in the books and in JK.  She has chosen to be awful.  The actors (statements by Radcliffe and Watson) do a nice job of distinguishing her stances from what the books and movies were trying to say.  And I will side with them.  

It is, after all, the choices we make that matter. 

Few Fantastic Beasts

This weekend, Mrs. Spew and I saw the latest in the Harry Potter universe: Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crime that is Focusing on Grindelwald.  And I am not a fan.  See below the spoiler break if you care

Happy Potter Questions

Seems a bit late to ponder Harry Potter, since he is now well past Hogwarts and deep into his career as an Auror.  However, various folks have been asking questions that have been making me think a bit about stuff stuff.  So, here's how I answer some of the questions of late:

2) Describe a shockingly mundane use for magic in order to enhance the quality of your life in some way.

— Weremooseplaining Max (@Mooseplainer) October 7, 2018

My answer: Accio!  The summoning charm is super-useful even it is pretty mundane.  This would be aimed not just at grabbing the remote control from across the room, but finding stuff that is lost around the house--keys, ipod, phone, etc--or stuck under the seat in one's car.  I could have chosen disapparation as a mode of travel, but I can't call the ability to disappear in one spot and appear in another shockingly mundane use of magic.

The next question: listening to the Binge Mode folks at the Ringer answer questions between podcasts that analyze the books and movies, they were asked to name five Order of the Phoenix members (1.0 or 2.0) they would want on a rescue mission, but, the person asking the question said that Dumbledore could not be included.  Both of the folks on the podcast agreed on Harry and Hermione because the former, despite sometimes making poor decisions, had courage, leadership, and luck (he is something like 5-0 against Lord Voldemort), and the latter is just super-smart.  Mrs. Spew agreed on Hermione, but not so much on Harry.  But I will take Harry because of his record of beating the odds and his "saving people thing."
Who else?

• I wouldn't have Sirius since he was a bit too cocky--he died because he was too busy laughing at Bellatrix.
• Lupin is very good at defending against the dark arts, but is unavailable and positively a danger to his team a few days every month.
• Tonks is klutzy, but has the ability to change her look, making it easy for her to get anywhere.  However, for a short rescue mission, anyone can quaff some polyjuice potion to get a similar effect.  
• Speaking of which, having a potions master on board makes sense because that brings all kinds of capabilities to the team--truth serum to get info, liquid luck to have better odds, sleeping drafts to eliminate guards, etc.  In the books, we have three highly skilled potion-makers: Slughorn who is not really a member of the Order and has shown a greater desire for self-preservation than for rescuing others; Snape who is gifted at potion making (he is the half-blood prince, after all), but is, as the Binge Mode folks said, bad chemistry--he does not play well with others; and .... Lily Potter.  She thrice evaded Voldemort back in the old days, and is known to be very skilled at potions.  The only weakness here is that she might be more concerned about Harry than about the target of the rescue.
• The Binge mode folks are high on McGonagall, who is tough enough to take four stunners, and is fiercely loyal, but quick she is not.  
• Mundungus?  Sure, any D&D party needs a thief, but a rescue mission?  Nope, since he cut out when they needed seven fake Harry's as they sought to flee the Dursley House at the start of the seventh book.
• Mad-eye Moody?  Constantly vigilant and 2.0 has the ability to see through objects.  Does being ruthlessly paranoid serve as a plus or minus?  For a rescue mission, probably a plus, so count him in.  
• Ginny?  She packs a lot of power into a small but fierce body.  She is also good on a broom and brings much comic relief. Hem, hem.  Mrs. Spew went with her mother since she was fierce enough to take down Bellatrix, but I do think she worries too much.  So, I will go with the younger Weasley woman.  Harry might be distracted by Ginny's fate in a fight, but they proved at the ministry to be able to fight together quite well.  That was pre-romance, but still....

So,  there's my team--a mix of young and old, brains and action, speed and daring.  What's yours?

Butterbeer Revelations Amid the Sunshine

Have I said how much I love LA?  Because my daughter works full-time, Mrs. Spew and I spent our first day in LA at Universal Studios.  We had a heap of fun, doing every attraction and ride except the kids' splashzone and the Olivander wand show (long line, not that interesting, did it before).  It was our first time back at Harry Potterland since we sold the house in Montreal.

The changes in the park had nothing to do with HP, as the HP stuff remained mostly the same--better merch, some better candies in HoneyDukes, but the rides were the same.  Three Broomsticks was not crowded.  Indeed, we probably worried too much about crowds.  We stayed at related hotel to get into the park early, and we bought express passes.  Both were handy, but not crucial.

The big difference?  No more  Marvel.  In 2012 in Florida, the Spider-man ride was the super-cool 3 or 4D ride.  This time, Transformers, and it was just not as good.  No pics with Captain America either.  The Simpsons ride was still as fun, and we had forgotten how fast the Mummy ride accelerates.  The Despicable Me ride was new and fun, as was the Kung Fu Panda show.  Each one required at least some water thrown at the riders, just to give each ride that extra dimension. 

Last time, we were pretty sure that frozen butterbeer was superior to cold butterbeer, but I think I have to change my mind on that.  Yummy, either way.  The Cauldron Cake was just a cupcake in a cauldron.  We definitely need to go back to Orlando since they doubled the HP stuff with material from the last three books--a Gringotts ride, as we predicted.

We did the Studio Tour, which we did the last time we were here.  They changed one of the events in the ride to go with Fast and Furious, but I was more excited to see some of the Good Place set.  The tour was also frustrating as our tram broke down.  We got pushed up a hill or two by a tow truck.  Also, being in the front of the second car meant we couldn't hear much of the narration--why haven't they gone electric?  It would also make the place quieter for filming.


Because it is Halloween season, they had stuff set up for evenings of frights. We didn't pay the extra ticket price to stick around.  But it did help to explain things like clowns on the War of the World's set:

The Waterworld show was more realistic now than the movie was then--too much climate change.  It was a very good show--heaps of cool action.

Yes, we bought a heap of merch for ourselves and our friends.  A great start to our trip, which, of course, began with a taco truck:

and, yes:

Donald Trump's Horcruxes: Do We Need Psychological Detectives?

Lots of discussion about Trump's horcruxes after his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was destroyed.  This is all entertaining and good but somewhat problematic.  Sure, Trump is evil like Voldemort in some key ways:
Trump                                           Voldemort
White Supremacist                        Pure blood over muggles and mixed blood folks
Short temper                                  Short temper
Sells out loyalists                          Sells out (kills) loyalists, sorry, Snape
Has crappy allies                           Has crappy allies
Facilitated by craven (Fudge)       Facilitated by craven (GOP)
Media empower him                     Media empower him (Skeeter, Daily Prophet)

So, I get it.  BUT, here's a big but: Voldemort truly was strategic, developing plans and schemes that had multiple steps building towards clear goals.  Trump?  Not so much. 

But the real question is: do we need to engage in the same kind of psychological investigation and detective work that Dumbledore and then Harry practiced to determine where Voldy put pieces of his soul to understand Trump's decision-making? 

Voldemort was attached to key relics that had magical power and symbolism--Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, Gaunt's ring, Slytherin's locket, plus the snake, the diary, and, oops, Harry.  And he mostly hid them well and with protection.  See Dumbledore's hand.  Ick. 

Trump?  The first thing to consider is that Trump need not have seven--that was Voldemort's attachment to a number with magic resonance.   We'd have to figure out how many pieces of Trump's soul he wants to split off (assuming he ever had a soul to begin with).  Since Trump has such a lousy memory, I doubt he would want more than three or four, but he might create more because he forgot about previous ones.  See, Trump is hard to figure out.   So, the horcrux hunter would just have to keep trying to find them until they think they have done enough...  tricky.  I think more investigation into Trump's background would be required to figure out the number. 

Assuming three or four, the question then is where?  Trump is not as crafty as Voldemort, and, indeed he probably would broadcast the locations.  But he distrusts.  So, fol have said Pence's brain is a horcrux, but Trump doesn't trust Pence nor care that much about him.    So, probably not.  Ivanka?  Is Ivanka kind of like Voldemort's snake?  He clearly has much affection for her (too much!), just as Voldemort seemed to have some affection for the snake.  And Trump does keep her nearby.

The second probable location would be Trump's bed--he hates sleeping away from home.  He always cranky on the road, so that is my guess.  Unless Trump Tower in NYC is a horcrux?  But I am not sure any pieces of Trump's soul are big enough to make for a building-sized horcrux.  Tough call.

The third probable location might be his remote control.  He is so attached to television that he would probably put a piece of his soul in the object that controls his tv.  Sure, this could be lost or stolen easily, but then again, Trump ain't that bright and tends to hand his enemies (Mueller) the weapons they need to destroy him.  "Oh, you  need a vorpal sword containing basilick poison?  Don't reach into that hat. Just take mine."

The fourth?  Again, not sure Trump can count to four (the most certain way to tell if Trump is lying is if he mentions a number), but just in case, I think the fourth horcrux might be the pee tape, and, yes, it is out of his control.  Ooops.  So, the Russian threat may be more serious than just embarassing him by releasing the tape, but destroying it and one key shred of Trump's soul.

Of course, all of this assumes Trump had a soul at some point, and that is really the part of this entire discussion that is least realistic.

Harry Potter's 20 Years Old

Where it all started: one of the places JK wrote the first books

They did a great job with Hogwarts at WWofHP

Well, Harry is much older by now, but the first book came out June 26, 1997.  Woot!  As readers here know, I am pretty obsessed with Harry Potter.  Not only have I ranked the books, reviewed the movies and even read the play (College Spew could see it in London, but I have not), but I see the books as presenting a philosophy of life I can believe in. 







Sure, some folks crap on the series and say we should not refer to it when engaging in resistance, but I say nay to that.  Indeed, the series has become so burnished into our collective imaginations that countries will compete in accusations about who is on Voldemort's side.  And I have found it very handy for making analogies for IR including alliances.

Butter beer FTW! (Frozen is the best)

HP will be of enduring value even if only for the citations.  I am not sure how long I will use it in my teaching, but it will play longer than most pieces of pop culture as each generation of kids will be re-introduced. Which means more endless debates about who should have ended up with whom: I am on TeamGinny.

Also of enduring value?  Butter beer!  Not to mention Harry Potter tourism.  We can't wait to go back to HP world, which was great even before it got expanded.  Oh, and perhaps one of the greatest contributions of HP?  We have JK Rowling as the twitter fighter extraordinaire.

Edinburgh cemetery with some names that inspired JK

 Oh, and my most with the most hits is thanks to HP since one of my first posts addressed the house selection thing.

On my way to Hogwarts!

The Silliest Distraction and the Enduring Power of Harry Potter

Lots of crossfire on the internet about whether it is right or not to invoke the fiction of Harry Potter as we grapple with the reality of Trump as President-Elect of the United States. People are saying that the reality is so serious that we should not rely on children's stories to inspire us or to provide insights into the present day.

Readings of the Semi-Spew know my answer to that is to reject that argument.  Why?

First, do not diminish the coping mechanisms that people rely on.  The immediate future is so dark that if fiction provides comfort, fine.  If some booze provides comfort, drink.  If chocolate chip cookies or cinnamon buns provide comfort, then eat.  We are now living in a very difficult situation, so let's not fight about coping mechanisms.

Second, fiction of all kinds has been useful to inspire people who seek to resist racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and all forms of creeping and not so creeping authoritarianism.  Stories about successful resistance, fictional or real, can help people as they grapple with the harsh realities.

Third, Harry Potter, in particular, is a widely shared piece of pop culture. In an age of "too much TV" and with fragmentation of popular culture, there are very few pieces of fiction that resonate widely.  Harry Potter is enormously popular both as books and as movies, with an entire generation (dare I call them millennials) exposed to the characters and themes.  What themes?  How about resisting intolerance?  How about fighting against repressive governments?  How about working with others to support those who are alienated and excluded? The reason why people are referring to Harry Potter right now is that the stories resonate.  Trump is not Voldemort, but they and their movements share many traits--the demonizing of others whether they are Muslims or Mudbloods, the need to conform with the majority, the use of disinformation, efforts to divide those who resist, and on and on.  Oh, and the fact that those who have read the HP books are more tolerant might be more than just a bit significant.

One can go into greater depth and specificity about how various elements of the HP world help folks make sense of contemporary politics in the US (and UK!).  My point here is that it is wrong to dismiss Harry Potter and other pieces of pop culture that might actually do some good.  If folks don't want to use HP, they can rely on Star Wars, which is also about rebelling against racist autocracts.  "Save the rebellion, save the dream" is not a bad call to battle.  And for the Trump fans who read me, when I say battle, I mean political, non-violent resistance.

Anyhow, much work to do, so fighting over this stuff is, indeed, distraction sauce.

Harry Potter and the Play as Sequel

I finished Harry Potter and the Cursed Child this weekend, and have many feels about it.  Spoilers dwell below

The Kind of Experiments I Do: Testing Butter Beers

The big fad of late in political science has been experiments.  I have a few friends who are zealots about this approach, and I see the merit.  Yet, I don't have any training or instincts.... unless it comes to food and booze.  College Spew came home for the break determined with a particular destination and so we pursued it deliberately: three versions of butter beer.

Daughter found several recipes for alky butterbeer. Which one do you think will be the best:

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) December 31, 2015

Butterbeer with Bourbon

Butterbeer with Rum

The voters were not wrong.  The rum and the bourbon based variants were both quite good, but the winner is the butterscotch schapps and beer recipe.  The bourbon had more of an apple taste, and the rum was a bit more complex to make.  For the winner, we did use another beer for guinness (I don't keep it in my beer fridge) and we didn't add the optional dark rum--it was boozy enough.

 

Butterbeer with butterscotch schnapps and beer

 And, of course, we had to re-watch the last four Harry Potter movies while we drank these delightful beverages.  Four?  Well, we still have the second part of the seventh book to watch.  What shall we drink?  We have plenty of schnapps left.....

Oh, and not quite as magical as the butterbeer served at the Harry Potter park in Orlando, but not too shabby.

Flawed Hero or Villain with a Heart of Gold

Someone put all of the major Snape segments of the HP movies in chronological order:


Which causes us to return to the big question: Snape bad?  Snape good?  On the whole, I think Snape was a bad person who had one soft spot, as he did buy into the Mudblood stuff when he was young, making friend with awful Slytherin people, causing Lily to be alienated.  She proved to be an excellent judge of character.  Yes, Snape was a good double/triple agent for Dumbledore because of his remorse, but he was still mostly an awful person.  His jealousy/bitterness towards James infected everything ever since, including being on the wrong side of the Sirius story in Prisoner of Azkaban. 

Of course, Snape redeemed himself by sacrificing everything for the ghost of Lily, but he was not a good person otherwise.  Alan Rickman did a fantastic job, of course, capturing the complexity of the character.  And the character gave me one of my favorite lines at the start of Intro to IR: that a professor who spent a year in the Pentagon would teach Intro to IR is like Snape teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Belichick's Horcruxes

Now we are on to something: where has Belichick stored the other pieces of soul?  I really should not speculate because I am, well, a fan of the Dark Coach's team and want them to be successful this weekend and beyond.

But I cannot help myself as a student of Defenses against the Dark Arts.  So, where are BB's horcruxes?  If he is at all like Lord Voldemort, he would place pieces of his soul in items that mean a great deal to him from his past.  So, my guesses are:

• There would be one at a Annapolis somewhere since that is where his father coached football--a very formative experience.
• There would be something that involves his time with Bill Parcells and the NY Giants.  Probably involving Lawrence Taylor--maybe his shoulder pads?
• Something from BB's time in Cleveland.
• His second Super Bowl ring--not his first or his most recent--that would be too obvious for a scheme-ster like BB.
• The challenge flag he carries around in his sock during games--it is never that far from him.
• No, none of his coaches, since he discards these much like Voldemort discarded Death-eaters.  One could have guessed ye olde offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia, but BB would never put a piece of his soul in a person older than himself.  Kind of defeats the purpose.  Tom Brady?  Well, if Tom Brady is not cut after this season or next.  Yes, Brady is akin to Voldemort's snake.  But crafty BB might actually put a piece of his soul into .... Peyton Manning instead.  Why?  Because Manning is perhaps the smartest QB in the game, and that is one thing that BB values.  It might also weaken Manning, making him easier to control/defeat.  This would explain his recent performance.  Finally, making Manning a horcrux would not be what anyone would expect (well, except me). 

Harry Potter and the Tainted Chocolate

It is the choices we make, says Dumbledore.  Well, Warner Brothers, the company responsible for not just the movies by the merchandizing of the Harry Potter stuff, is apparently run by Potter-ites. 

The Harry Potter Alliance noted that the chocolate used in the various HP products (chocolate frogs, etc) was from places where children were engaged in slave labor.  Due to a lobbying effort by the HPA, Warner Brothers is changing its chocolate providers.  This entire story is news to me, but it seems like WB moved pretty quickly once they were lobbied, compared to the average corporation. 

Sure, they should have been avoiding such companies in their supply chain before now, but changing now is better than not. 

Harry Potter and the Endless Re-watch

The combination of HP on multiple channels in multiple countries and my nasty cold meant a heap of Harry Potter on TV the past few days.  I watched the first two movies in the US on Disney Family, part of the third and all of the fourth on Space in Canada, and the last four movies via our DVDs.  Time well spent.  I, of course, remembered the story and the deviations from the books pretty well, but some details and some reactions stood out.  My cold has wiped out my memories of the previous watching, but Erin Simpson (@charlie_simpson) has several nice tweets (as did I) during the festivities (she was watching independently from me, but our conversations crossed streams not unlike the magic emanating from dueling wands).*

* Ok, that is a bit much.  Blame my cold or the incredibly dusty room in which I watched the final Harry Potter movie (until the next one).  Oh, and some folks seemed surprised that folks who study national security love Harry Potter.  They must be new to my feed/blog.

 JK Rowling is a mean woman, as my wife always argues with heaps of death, gratuitous and not so much in the last book/movies.  One of the shocks this time was how much collateral damage Harry, Ron, and Hermione cause at Gringotts.  I blame the movie producers, as the book does not have heaps of goblins falling to their deaths or getting burned.  That was all prior to Voldy showing up, and were consequences of their assault on the bank.  They are as or more complicit in their deaths as Luke is with the construction workers on the Death Star.

I will always feel a chill when McGonagall orders Hogwarts to defend itself.  Maggie Smith was the underrated most valuable player of the entire series. 

I found it very appropriate that it was Hermione that knocked the werewolf off of Lavender Brown, her former romantic rival.  Poor Lavender.  Speaking of dead female Gryffindors, I guess I hadn't noticed that it was Parvarti Patil who Padma and Trewlawney were covering in the Great Hall during the timeout in the battle.  Again, JK is a mean woman....

As Erin noted on twitter, they really needed to do some contacts work or better casting--if it is all about Harry having Lily's eyes, make sure that Lily's eyes look a bit like Harry's, right?  Young Lily?  Not so much?  Older Lily? Maybe.

It got very dusty during the Snape memories scene--the series really is about love over hate.  Not just Harry vs. Voldy but also Snape vs. ... Snape.  The dusty conditions continued during the resurrection stone scene.

Always, always pause during the Voldy hugging Draco scene.


Neville's speech is great--watching the movies all over again, it is great to see Neville's progress from shy, awkward kid to hunk/hero.  My nieces have a severe love for this guy.

Two questions remain at the end.  Well, many as Erin was hardly satisfied by the 19 years later epilogue.  The first question is: would Harry really become an auror?  Would he continue to be fighting dark magic users?  Seems to me he had his fill by the end of the seventh book, that he had completed his mission and earned a peaceful life (to deal with his PTSD).  I like that JK had Ginny becoming a Quidditch player and then Q-reporter.  I guess Harry could not pursue quidditch after this, but perhaps a more apt occupation might have been ... professor?  Isn't Harry's best destiny to follow Dumbledore?  Harry's happiest moments in a dark year (Order of Phoenix) was teaching defense against dark arts to his friends.  He delighted in their success.  It seems to me that he would have been ideal to occupy that post for more than just one year at Hogwarts.  And publish or perish pales in comparison to dueling with the Dark Lord.

The other question my daughter raised this evening: how did the Potters get that big stack of cash in their vault at Gringotts?  How did this family become so wealthy?  I joked that a family with an invisibility cloak handed down from one generation to the next would have ways of making money.  She was shocked that I would suggest that the Potters were a family of thieves.  Maybe not.  Just an old wizarding family with a big vault and a big cloak....   Pretty sure that while Harry broke the wand (in the movie, buried with Dumbledore in the book) and gave up the stone, the cloak stays in the family.  Anyhow, something to ponder as my daughter and I turn to a completely different epic take--that of Baltimore.

The Joy of Harry Potter

The joy of Harry Potter, or anything pop culture/nerd-tastic, these days is that you can keep finding fun stuff on the internet.


I am grateful to John Rogers @jonrog1 who started following me today, which is how I found his blog and this video.  The internet is a wonderful place...

Wither the Wizarding Alliance: Fighting Alone, Not Together

With great power comes great responsibility, so when I see this on twitter:

@zackbeauchamp This sounds like a job for @smsaideman.
— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) February 4, 2014

I must respond.  After all, I have demonstrated here at the Spew (and in my classes) a mastery of all that is Harry Potter, including extensive fieldwork AND I now have a handy dandy book on NATO co-written with Muggle expert David Auerswald.  So, where was the alliance when Britain succumbed to a civil war between the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army versus Voldemort and the Dark Forces?

To be clear, just as the British police force and army were not involved in this particular battle, I would not expect NATO to enter this war either. 

• NATO has never intervened in the intra-state conflicts of members... only non-members such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Afghanistan and Libya.  NATO never got involved in the "troubles" in Northern Ireland or Spain's Basque conflict, so I am not sure why a wizarding war would be any different.
• To intervene, NATO would have to gain consensus to do something.  That is not easy and probably would be most difficult when it comes to a magical war, given that some countries might just be under the influence of the dark magic users/xenophobes.  Indeed, if there was some risk of intervention, Voldemort almost certainly would have gained enough control over the Prime Minister so that the UK would not have agreed to the intervention.  
• NATO, as far as we know, has no magical capabilities, either by itself (such as its AWACS planes) or generated via NATO's force generation process.  It is not clear how muggle weaponry would have been useful against the Dark Forces especially given the latter's ability to hide among the population.  So, NATO really had no role to play.

We know that there were magic users elsewhere, that Dumbledore had allies in other countries, and so on.  This question then breaks down into two distinct ones: what about a Wizarding Alliance?  If not a formal alliance, why not a Coalition of the Willing Wizards?  While JK Rowling does not mention any NATO-like alliance among the wizarding communities of the world (there is some international cooperation, but seems more focused on games and trade restrictions), one could imagine that the countries that were on the same side in World War II, which was really about the rise and fall of Gellert Grindelwald, might have formed a lasting alliance aimed at the wizards and witches that used Communism as cover.  In search of a post Cold War mission, this Wizarding Alliance could have been interested in intervening, but again, the difficulties of gaining consensus might have gotten in the way.  Voldemort, despite being a poor tactician, was adept enough to put a stick in the spokes of international organizational decision-processes. 

The primary advantage of ad hoc coalitions is that one does not need to gain consensus to act.  So, one could imagine the magical governments within the U.S. (Department of Magic), Canada (the Department of National Magic), and a few others cooperating to fight the Dark Forces.  Since the HP series was written by a Brit, it is not surprising that it underplayed the role of the outsiders.  I mean, the Brits still think Monty was the bee's knees.  So, in this case, my guess is that there was some assistance rendered to the British wizards and witches.  However, it might have been in the form of sending over mass-produced wands (since the British lost their primary supplier), advanced brooms, and the like. 

Of course, more research is required to better document the role of outsiders in Britain's civil war among magic users.  I have no doubt that kinship ties mattered and so did the complex dynamics of nationalism and xenophobia.  Time to write up a new grant application.

Back to Blog Basics: Overanalyzing Harry Potter

After much of a week spent engaging in contentious politics within academy, it is time to go back to what blogging was really meant to do: over-think Harry Potter.  JK Rowling has suggested in an interview that Ron and Hermione should not have paired up.  For realz?  This, of course, opens up all of the possible romantic pairings for debate anew:  Harry and Ginny vs. Harry and Hermione vs. Harry and Luna vs. Harry and Cho vs. Hermione and Victor Krum and so on.

I must say I didn't have a problem with the way things played out then or now, although I could see how one might imagine that not all teen pairings lead to life-time marriages (even if that was the pattern that JK set with Harry's parents).

Lots of folks hate Ginny, and the movies mostly did not treat her well.  But she actually did have a heap of personality in the book--more Fred and George's sister than Ron's, as she possessed a mischievous streak that Harry damn well needed after the traumas he experienced.  Plus she was good on a broom and with a wand, so Harry met someone who shared his interests.  I really liked the way that story played out in the books.  It was inevitable, of course, given Harry's ties to the Weasleys.

Harry and Luna?  Harry needed humor but that much whimsy?  Perhaps not.  Neville and Luna make far more sense.

How about Ron and Hermione?  Again, someone a bit less serious with someone too serious.  Seems right to me (perhaps, I, like JK, am projecting).  Given all the stresses and adventures these folks faced together, it is not really that surprising that they end up together.

Plus the Weasleys desperately need to marry Muggle-born or half-Muggles, given that their family is very much pure-blood.  Have to stop the inbreeding now. 

This looks right to me:

Appropriately from "Why Ginny W is Hated"

But, then again, I am a sentimental sap....

Sunday Silliness: Make Mine Gryffindor

Mrs. Spew found this:



and yes, make mine (that is, Mrs. Spew) Gryffindor

Some Magic in the NFL

I never really like it when they introduce players by their colleges, as it just reminds me of how college football programs become the tail that wags the schools.

However, I have to say I liked how it played out last night--one of the players, Greg Hardy, gave his self-appointed nickname (he had named the defensive line after Monster's Inc, so he then had to nickname each player as a distinct monster) and then gave his school: Hogwarts.



Of course, a key difference between football and Quidditch is that it is far more difficult to hide and then deploy a wand in the former.  Which might explain why the defensive line were unable to stop Drew Brees last night.  Nary a Patronus was seen.