A fic rec - Tetleybag's "Goodwill"

http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/tetleybag/goodwill01.html

Professor Grubbly-Plank takes a walk in the Forbidden Forest and finds a young girl beating seven bells out of Draco Malfoy. The reason why shows perfect sense and a real understanding of the teen-age experience. These are children doing as children do, not, as so often in HP fiction, shortened adults: in fact, I would not be surprised if it was based on some painful personal memory of early teen embarrassment. And while the point that Tetleybag has to make could, in the wrong hands, be controversial and even offensive, the truth to life of the story places it beyond argument. It is written with delicacy and elegance, with not one word too many, without any attempt to make any point except what arises from the story itself. In short, it is a lesson in every aspect of short story writing.

It's growing worse, not better

Years ago, I saw a couple of homosexual friends of mine coming home beaten black and blue, the victims of a gay-bashing assault. Now I read of a whole string of assaults on homosexual tourists and prominent gays in Italy, and of the gay-bashing murder of the captain of the women's national soccer side - a known homosexual - in South Africa. And I am told that queer-bashing is normal in the poorer areas of Washington DC.

In a different moment, one might debate why this poison is spreading. Here and now, I will only say that one does not have to have a San Franciscan outlook to find this revolting, unacceptable and to be suppressed.

Google are crass

Is it really a good idea to celebrate Michael Jackson's birthday? Although God knows the LA coroner had cause enough to call it homicide, Jackson's death was ultimately self-destruction. It is probably the most squalid and far from the most excusable of the many cases of pop stars self-destroying.

ANASTASIO ATTANASIO ALIAS RICKY AND THE KING OF THE CATS

- The first chapter in the Adventures of Anastasio Attanasio -

When he was three, Anastasio Attanasio, fifth and last child of an old and famous wizarding family( Read more... )