JK Rowling denied top US honour

[belfastuniguy 18]

JK Rowling denied top US honour

JK Rowling's Harry Potter's books have sold more than 400 million copies

Harry Potter author JK Rowling missed out on a top honour because some US politicians believed she "encouraged witchcraft", it has been claimed.

Matt Latimer, former speech writer for President George W Bush, said that some members of his administration believed her books promoted sorcery.

As a result, she was never presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The claims appear in Latimer's new book called Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor.

He wrote that "narrow thinking" led White House officials to object to giving Rowling the civilian honour.

The award acknowledges contributions to US national interest, world peace or cultural endeavours.

Past literary recipients of the award include John Steinbeck and Harper Lee.

Others denied the privilege under the Bush administration included Senator Edward Kennedy, who died in August this year.

Latimer claimed, in his book, that the veteran politician and health care activist was excluded because he was deemed to be too liberal.quote>

BBC Article

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 8, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Duke87 1,070]

Coming from the Bush administration, this sort of thing is hardly surprising.

Then again, there's just as much insanity coming out of the Obama administration (see, for instance: the "Diversity Czar"). Only difference is it's liberal insanity rather than conservative insanity.

[kellydale2003 2,276]

Well that's disappointing - Although I'm not a fan of Harry Potter, we should ban the Bush Administration for Promoting unfairness to the lollipop kingdom.

[Easy Bakes 253]

So we should give this award to Steven King for promoting Terror?

[MattShizzle 11]

Religious nuttery was a hallmark of the Bush administration and is still very strong in many parts of the US.

[fukuda 351]

Presidential Medal of Freedom.quote>

Freely bound to superstition

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Who cares whether a British citizen gets an American honor?  The only honour this lady deserves in the Unitied States is the one she has already guaranteed by the first amendment to the U.S. constitution.

If anyone in the United States believes in witchcraft as a real thing (not Wiccan), I have this neat land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean I can sell him.

Did she not get at least an OBE?

[belfastuniguy 18]

Who cares whether a British citizen gets an American honor? quote>

It's an American honour, but one awarded to many people from various nations.

She does have an OBE yes

[SomeRandomAmerican 5]

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy

Who cares whether a British citizen gets an American honor? quote>

It's an American honour, but one awarded to many people from various nations.quote>

Correct. Didn't Gorbachev get one back in the 90s?

[Meg 368]

I still think it's insulting that they edited the UK English in the original books into US English before they printed them over here.   It implies that American kids are too stupid to use a glossary.

But that's another subject.

Originally posted by: MattShizzle

Religious nuttery was a hallmark of the Bush administration and is still very strong in many parts of the US.quote>

 

Sad but true.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Meg

I still think it's insulting that they edited the UK English in the original books into US English before they printed them over here.   It implies that American kids are too stupid to use a glossary.quote>

Not really. It's commonly accepted practice that when things are "localized" some tweaks get made because you're marketing things to different audience. It's not a matter of "they're too stupid to understand it", it's a matter of "they'll like it better if it's more familiar".

The argument could also be made that exposing American children to British spellings of words is a bad idea because it will confuse them. You could plausibly see things happening like kids ending up thinking "colour" is the proper spelling and then getting points off for writing it that way in their essay. And then throwing a fit and arguing that "it's spelled that way in Harry Potter!"

Besides, all things considered, it's pretty good as localizations go. They "translated" the UK English into US English but they didn't actually change anything, meaningwise. It's not like the crap that happens all the time with stuff brought over from Japan where the localization team does things like blunt the tips of all the swords (except in one scene where they forgot to do it...), or change "Killerman" to "Eraseman" becuase we can't have a character in a children's game with "Killer" in his name!

[goodspeed 9]

I don't understand why they would "translate" it into US English. It wasn't done in Canada. But who ever did it had there reasons....

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: goodspeed

I don't understand why they would "translate" it into US English. It wasn't done in Canada. But who ever did it had there reasons....quote>

Apparently they figured that American kids wouldn't understand it if Harry called Ron a git so they changed "git" to "butthead". 

At least that was the example I heard.  It should be noted that I have not read the books.

There is also the bit about lorries vs trucks and lifts vs elevators and so forth.

[N106 10]

Denying an author an award because it "encourages witchcraft"?!

There are several things wrong with that...

1) That sounds absolutely fundamentalist. We shouldn't allow for religious nutjobs to do this kind of stuff! Fundamentalist reasons are never an excuse to not give someone an award they deserve (or start wars, or commit genocide, for that matter) The world would be a better place if people wouldn't become religious to the point of fundamentalism.

2) Look, I know children are annoying... but saying that Harry Potter encourages witchcraft isn't going to do anything about it. No matter what, 10 year olds are going to find some silly thing to become obsessed with and annoy the living crap out of everyone else.

3) Bush was stupid. And a meanie. Nyah-nyah to Bush! Why? Because I said so!

[MattShizzle 11]

N106 I'm guessing you are European or Canadian and have never been here and seen how bad religious extremism is in the US - the only place worse would be in the mideast. I'm an atheist and can see examples daily.

[Legosim 14]

why would she get an honor in the U.S. if she never lived in the states in the first place

[Z77 3]

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy

ending up thinking "colour" is the proper spellingquote>

Colour is the correct spelling.quote>

Actually, it really depends where you live. You guys over there may say that its spelled colour, yet thats wrong in the US. (in fact, my spell check is going nuts, b/c i spelled it that way, yet it says that b/c is a word..) it would be like comparing portuguese to spanish and saying that everything that is different in portuguese from spanish is wrong....ANYWAY..enough off topic ranting....

yes i think that the way the US government handled it was wrong. its like they are treating harry potter like a demon witch book. but unfortunately, there is nothing us common folk can do about it. except rally. then we'll get clobbered with nightsticks and tazered cuz they'll say we were rioting..but, i do have to say, at least they kept the british spelling for the movies...

[Sam 163]

Originally posted by: belfastuniguy

Harry Potter author JK Rowling missed out on a top honour because some US politicians believed she "encouraged witchcraft", it has been claimed.

Matt Latimer, former speech writer for President George W Bush, said that some members of his administration believed her books promoted sorcery.

As a result, she was never presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. quote>

Ok, so they have a Medal of Freedom, in a country where freedom of religion (among others) is a big thing and they deny an award based on religious reasons? How does that work?

Originally posted by: Duke87

The argument could also be made that exposing American children to British spellings of words is a bad idea because it will confuse them. You could plausibly see things happening like kids ending up thinking "colour" is the proper spelling and then getting points off for writing it that way in their essay. And then throwing a fit and arguing that "it's spelled that way in Harry Potter!"

quote>

Yes the argument could be made, but that doesn't necessarily mean it would be a very good argument. Thanks to Sesame Street I'd learnt US reading, writing and spelling long before I went to school as had many of my classmates. It never did anyone any harm to learn more than one way, nor to learn early that sometimes other people didn't do things the same way and you just deal with it.

Part of writing is establishing voice for a character or sitution. If that gets changed I think it takes away part of the story. I think an important part of Harry Potter is its very British style. But then I grew up with very British books and tv.

Originally posted by: Meg

Originally posted by: goodspeed

I don't understand why they would "translate" it into US English. It wasn't done in Canada. But who ever did it had there reasons....quote>

Apparently they figured that American kids wouldn't understand it if Harry called Ron a git so they changed "git" to "butthead". 

At least that was the example I heard.  It should be noted that I have not read the books.

There is also the bit about lorries vs trucks and lifts vs elevators and so forth.

quote>

I heard they also changed the title of The Philospher's Stone to The Sorcerer's Stone.

Originally posted by: Z77

but unfortunately, there is nothing us common folk can do about it. except rally. then we'll get clobbered with nightsticks and tazered cuz they'll say we were rioting..

quote>

You don't have the right to lawful assembly and peaceful protest?

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

If anyone in the United States believes in witchcraft as a real thing (not Wiccan), ...

quote>

I used to work with a Jehovah's Witness, when the Harry Potter books first reached popularity.  He truly believed witchcraft was a real thing and went into some detail of the dangers of summoning demons. He got quite stressed that the rest of us were all enjoying reading Harry Potter (not on work time).

Originally posted by: N_O_Body

  ...I have this neat land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean I can sell him.

quote>

He's already got one of those. But yes, there are people who believe witchcraft is real and some of them are probably in positions of power.

[hym 358]

Why does it really matter whether she is presented with an award? Humans have far more important problems to be solving.

[Sam 163]

I doubt the fact that she didn't get a particular award is what matters to most people. It is probably more the person who refused to give it and the reason why that is more on people's minds. Character matters, and not just in story telling.

[JanYpe 17]

Originally posted by: hym

Why does it really matter whether she is presented with an award? Humans have far more important problems to be solving.quote>

It matters because someone who promoted reading to an audience that is all too often apathetic about it was denied public recognition on extremely tenuous grounds. I should think that one of those important problems for humans to solve involves hunting down the kind of cretins who think children's books really do "encourage witchcraft" and locking them up in a nice padded cel, instead of letting them roam the political landscape.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: JanYpe

Originally posted by: hym

Why does it really matter whether she is presented with an award? Humans have far more important problems to be solving.quote>

It matters because someone who promoted reading to an audience that is all too often apathetic about it was denied public recognition on extremely tenuous grounds. I should think that one of those important problems for humans to solve involves hunting down the kind of cretins who think children's books really do "encourage witchcraft" and locking them up in a nice padded cel, instead of letting them roam the political landscape.quote>

Thats the shamefull part. Someone finaly encouraged reading into the youngsters for how many years?

ah well , for those who care heres the list of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipiants for 2009.

16 too many?

Nancy Goodman Brinker

Pedro José Greer, Jr.

Stephen Hawking

Jack Kemp

Sen. Edward Kennedy

Billie Jean King

Rev. Joseph Lowery

Joe Medicine Crow – High Bird

Harvey Milk

Sandra Day O’Connor

Sidney Poitier

Chita Rivera

Mary Robinson

Janet Davison Rowley

Desmond Tutu

[Duke87 1,070]

So Teddy K. got the medal anyway, then.

Let's be honest about this, though: denying JK Rowling the award was stupid. Ted Kennedy was another story because, come on now, can we really expect a highly conservative president to give an award to someone who's highly liberal? It's not gonna happen.

And I don't think too many highly conservative people will be recieving the award over the next few years, either.

Any award given by a politician is going to be partisan like that.

[belfastuniguy 18]

The award is not meant to be partisan though. Kinda defeats the purpose of an award that rewards contribution to American society or important world figures.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I hope we have now said enough about this tempest in a teapot.

[belfastuniguy 18]

Storm in a teacup