And then Pat Buchanan, looking irritated as always, made a showing of solidarity with these Hatfields and McCoys of environmentalism. When historians make a list of this century's oddest cause pairings, I vote for the time Karl Marx praised Jesse James and his long-barreled shotgun for advancing class warfare, the cola wars that somehow linked Pepsi, Coke, religion and Joan Crawford together and last week's protests in Seattle. Seattle may win for the Gen X mountebanks protesting in the streets were actually protesting the president they adore. It was Chicago '68 with the added screwiness that they were upset about sea turtles, not war. Seattle was the Molly Maguires under the influence of Morris Albert's Feelings.
Feelings permit superficial demands along political lines and analysis along nonsensical ones.
Last month, the New York Times offered parents insights into what attracts children to today's best-selling books. It made sense, since Harry Potter is essentially the story of a closeted individual, . . . living with relatives who do not understand him and who are horrified by his special abilities. It would not be difficult for a gay teen to read this book as an allegory for the experience of homophobia at school. Professor Jenkins should understand teens don't read, grade school children don't either, if national tests are correct, but Harry Potter is read to them. Last week, a child at one of my son's bus stop had his notebook Velcroed around his head, and my son wets his toothbrush to feign cleaning his teeth.