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White House officials feared J.K. Rowling promoted witchcraft

Forums: Presidential Medal Of Freedom
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djjd62
 
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 01:13 pm
White House officials feared J.K. Rowling promoted witchcraft

http://scifiwire.com/assets_c/2009/09/RowlingWhiteHouse-thumb-550x390-24823.jpg

Who knew that politicians are more afraid of magic than they are of mutants? Strange but true"at least if the confessions of a former Bush speechwriter are to be believed.

Remember when George Bush awarded the 2008 National Medal of Arts to Stan Lee for revolutionizing the American comic book? There wasn't any controversy stirred up by that honor, at least not that we can recall.

But it was a very different story when the name of Harry Potter's creator came up as a possible recipient for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as reported by Think Progress. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civil award, and is given to those who have contributed to: 1) the security or national interests of the United States, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

According to his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer revealed that Bush administration officials objected to awarding author J.K. Rowling that honor because her writing "encouraged witchcraft," as per this quote from page 201:

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged witchcraft.

Lucky for Stan Lee that the White House had apparently never heard of Doctor Strange"also known as the Master of the Mystic Arts"or the medal might have passed him by!
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at least stan lee's wizard was an american

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Type: Discussion • Score: 14 • Views: 3,967 • Replies: 100

 
contrex
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 01:38 pm
I am far more worried that JK Rowling promotes bad writing and lower standards in childrens literature.
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 01:42 pm
My boss tried to tell us to avoid Harry Potter for the same reasons that concerned the White House. Had she kept her mouth shut, I might never have read a Rowling book. I enjoyed the first two, but tired of the series down the line and never finished them all. Still, I wish the series had been available when I was a boy. It would have been one of my big favorites.
0 Replies
 
Reyn
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 01:42 pm
@djjd62,
I really find this hard to believe. Haven't they got enough on their plate worrying about terrorism?
edgarblythe
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 01:47 pm
@Reyn,
I don't think Obama has given it a thought.
0 Replies
 
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 01:50 pm
@djjd62,
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation's highest civil award, and is given to those who have contributed to: 1) the security or national interests of the United States, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.
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The lady is not an American citizen so why would she be in the running for the Medal of Freedom in the first place?

Sound like an internet hoax story to place the Bush's Whitehouse in a bad light and little else.
djjd62
 
  3  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 02:03 pm
@BillRM,
lots of foreign winners on the list

List of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
djjd62
 
  2  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 02:06 pm
@djjd62,
including these folks

Foreign heads of state or government

* Tony Blair (2009)
* Lord Peter Carrington (1988)
* Don Luis A. Ferré (1991)
* Václav Havel (2003)
* John Howard (2009)
* Helmut Kohl (1999)
* Joseph Luns (1984)
* Nelson Mandela (2002)
* Wilma Mankiller (1998)
* Luis Muñoz Marín (1963 - Awarded with Special Distinction)
* Mary Robinson (2009)[3]
* Pope John XXIII (1963, posthumously)
* Pope John Paul II (2004)
* Carlos P. Romulo (1984)
* Anwar El Sadat (1984, posthumously)
* Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2007)
* Margaret Thatcher (1991)
* Álvaro Uribe (2009)
djjd62
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 02:11 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/24/bush-officials-objected-to-awarding-medal-to-j-k-rowling-because-harry-potter-books-promote-witchcraft/

more to the story in bold

Bush Officials Objected To Awarding Medal To J.K. Rowling Because Harry Potter Books Promote Witchcraft

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civil award, and is given to individuals who have contributed to: 1) the security or national interests of the United States, 2) world peace, or 3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.

In his new book, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor, former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer reveals how politicized the revered Presidential Medal of Freedom became during the Bush administration.

Latimer writes that administration officials objected to giving author J.K. Rowling the Presidential Medal of Freedom because her writing “encouraged witchcraft” (p. 201):

This was the same sort of narrow thinking that led people in the White House to actually object to giving the author J.K. Rowling a presidential medal because the Harry Potter books encouraged withcraft.

Latimer also writes that when he suggested bestowing the honor upon Ted Kennedy, who had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor, fellow speechwriter Marc Thiessen objected because Kennedy “was a liberal” (p. 201):

When Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, I suggested that the president might at least consider awarding Kennedy the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Marc objected wtih the genteel diplomacy he was known for. “That’s crazy!” he thundered. Kennedy was a liberal, he noted (of which I was well aware).

The Bush administration was notorious for awarding the medal to its staunchest Iraq war allies. Bush’s final three recipients of the Medal of Freedom were two supporters of his war in Iraq " former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard " and leading human rights violator and Bush foreign policy ally Alvaro Uribe. Other recipients included a whole lineup of figures heavily involved in the Iraq war, including Paul Bremer and George Tenet.

When President Obama took office, he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 recipients, including Kennedy and former congressman Jack Kemp, a Republican.
0 Replies
 
OmSigDAVID
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 02:39 pm
@contrex,
contrex wrote:

I am far more worried that JK Rowling promotes bad writing
and lower standards in childrens literature.

What do u find bad about her writing ?
contrex
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 03:02 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
The hackneyed nature of the plots, the partial episodic reset at the end of each book, the sacrifice of believability to book structure, the incoherence of the depicted universe, her clumsy handling of character interactions. The personality of Harry Potter is extremely two-dimensional and sketched-in. Ideas, plot elements, and settings exist only to drive a superficial rescue fantasy and cliched children's plot, and need make no sense whatsoever outside of that role. The world of wizards is a hodge-podge of cute ideas that have nothing to do with each other and have no unifying theme. Common-sense implications are ignored or shoved under the rug unless Rowling finds them interesting. Her books are howlingly bad.
Merry Andrew
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 03:53 pm
@djjd62,
My initial reaction was exactly like BillRM's. Thanx for setting me straight.
0 Replies
 
NickFun
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 04:07 pm
I'm still looking for some Eye of Newt for my recipe. Rowling doesn't tell us where to get it. Any suggestions?
OmSigDAVID
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:06 pm
@contrex,
contrex wrote:

The hackneyed nature of the plots, the partial episodic reset at the end of each book, the sacrifice of believability to book structure, the incoherence of the depicted universe, her clumsy handling of character interactions. The personality of Harry Potter is extremely two-dimensional and sketched-in. Ideas, plot elements, and settings exist only to drive a superficial rescue fantasy and cliched children's plot, and need make no sense whatsoever outside of that role. The world of wizards is a hodge-podge of cute ideas that have nothing to do with each other and have no unifying theme. Common-sense implications are ignored or shoved under the rug unless Rowling finds them interesting. Her books are howlingly bad.

Will u explain your meaning as to "partial episodic reset" ?
BillRM
 
  2  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:10 pm
@contrex,
This is the only auther I am aware of that had gotten millions of young children to read books of a thousand pages, in fact wait in lines to get ahold of the books as they come off the trucks

Yes she is a poor writer in your opinion and all I can say about that is we need more such poor writers!

Talk about magic.
roger
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:13 pm
@contrex,
Well yes, but other than that. . . ?
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:16 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
My first take on Dowling, gleaned from the public relations stuff, was that she constructed a storyline, or set of storylines, based on past successful storylines, with commercial success in mind.

Eh... I may be a2k's person least interested in fantasy, or whatever you call this genre.
I suppose that if I were a witch-history afficionada, which I am not, I'd be offended.

OmSigDAVID
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:21 pm
@ossobuco,
ossobuco wrote:

My first take on Dowling, gleaned from the public relations stuff,
was that she constructed a storyline, or set of storylines,
based on past successful storylines, with commercial success in mind.

Eh... I may be a2k's person least interested in fantasy,
or whatever you call this genre.
I suppose that if I were a witch-history afficionada,
which I am not, I'd be offended.


I take it that u do not have the Salem witch trials in mind, right ?
0 Replies
 
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:26 pm
@ossobuco,
She is not the first author who had set up an alternate universe where there are laws of magic that work just as well as the laws of physic does. That does no say anything about the evil one or any religion faith and need not have any connection with witches or the devil.

Second even Robert Heinlein a very hard science fiction writer indeed did such stories.

You also should not judge stories written with entertaining children in mind with the standard of adult fiction of any kind.
0 Replies
 
OmSigDAVID
 
  1  
Reply Sat 3 Oct, 2009 05:35 pm

I don 't believe that she shoud receive a medal of FREEDOM
until she writes significantly about FREEDOM.
0 Replies
 
 

 
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