MuggleNet Academia PodCast: ‘The Law and Harry Potter’

The fourth MuggleNet Academia [MNA] podCast, a show that I co-host with MuggleNet’s Keith Hawk, is now available for uploading and for your Serious Reader critique! Here is how MuggleNet describes the Law show over at the program’s MNA page, with a list of links for the program right after:

The latest episode of MuggleNet Academia is now released for your listening and learning pleasure. Lesson 4: The Law and Harry Potter discusses the law in the Muggle World as it compares to the law as seen in the Wizarding World as well as how events in the Hogwarts Saga would be viewed in an American court room. [Read more…]

Letter from a Reader: ‘How Harry Potter Changed My Life’

The letter below is a ‘thank you’ to me, oddly enough, when it is readers like this that I am most thankful for. The hero of the story, though, isn’t Gilderoy Granger but the High School teacher that recognized the brilliant light shining beneath the surface of this struggling student. There should be an Albus Dumbledore Award for mentors with this kind of penetrating vision and a heart of solid light to act on what s/he saw. I look forward, of course, to meeting this reader at Ascendio 2012 and serious readers with a similar experience, that is, all of us whose lives have been enriched and forever changed, made more real by their contact with ‘The Boy Who Lived.’

Mr. Granger,

When I told my story last year at LeakyCon it was suggested by numerous people that I share it with you.  During the chaos I never did catch up with you, meet you, or get to share my Potter story.  When Ascendio 2012 promoted your blog post today, well, I remembered this and thought it would be an excellent time to share.

I grew up loathing reading and writing.  I am dyslexic.  I struggled so much, especially with writing and school.

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Ascendio 2012: The Hogwarts Professor Schedule

Being a Potter Pundit isn’t a lonely life, but there is a certain abstract quality to it. Most of my contacts with readers is right here in the comment boxes below or through email. The place I meet these writers and correspondents face-to-face, of course, is at talks and the Meet-Up Mecca for Hogwarts Saga fandom has been the annual HPEF convention. 2012 promises to be no exception and I’m counting down the days until next month’s Ascendio 2012 super finale gathering in Orlando.

I’ve already discussed the Authorpalooza spectacular they’re throwing this year as well as the Formal Programming talks I’m looking forward to. Today I want to share what I’ll be doing Thursday-Friday-and-Saturday as my official and personal invitation to you to make a reservation and book a flight to the last and best HPEF fan gathering. Less than a month to go!

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HogPro Mailbag: Olympic Quidditch, Cracked, O.W.L.s, Etc.

Catch-up Time for the HogPro Mailbag! Here are five ‘shorts’ and an extra that I can pass on to you with links but without full-post length comment:

(1) MuggleNet’s Keith Hawk, my co-host at MuggleNet Academia, is excited about the Ordinary Wizarding Level Exams (O.W.L.s) on the “world’s most popular Harry Potter fan site.” He is a Saga Trivia fiend — he knew the number of which Umbridge decree made student groups illegal at Hogwarts on the most recent show we recorded — but said the MNet O.W.L.s are fun even for those whose strength is not in the details. He writes:

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The Standard Rich and Famous Contract: Some Unconventional if Totally Appropriate Catching Fire Casting Suggestions

It seems like everyone is weighing in on casting suggestions for Catching Fire. The Girl on Fire site has been doing a “Finding Finnick” series; one of our recent posts presented a wonderful possible structure for the film, prompting a commenter to quail in terror at the thought of Harrison Ford as Plutarch Heavensbee. All of this prognosticating and wondering has led me to a very different possible direction for casting the Victors chosen to compete in the Quarter Quell. Why not cast actual celebrities, a la The Celebrity Apprentice and other horrible reality shows? Before you start throwing things at me, follow me after the jump to see my suggestions and to see why having actual athletes and movie and rock stars as the Victors would actually be completely in line with Collins’s story of entertainment as slavery for both its viewers and those it ostensibly glorifies.
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