The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by deCadmus:

It occurred to me while watching McCain deliver his concession address that: a) he had a new speechwriter, b) he was speaking in stark contrast to the innuendo and dog-whistle-filled rhetoric of his campaign speeches, and c) probably all the better to distance himself from any unpleasantness engendered by his prior remarks, and the fueling of racial and vague hate/fear of "otherness" they inspired.

And his audience was having none of it.

I worry still about the long-term consequences of McCain's campaign. I wonder at just how easy it was for a nominally respectable gentleman from a mainstream political party to surface deep-seated resentments and stir up demons in want of exorcising.

And Nader? Complete tool. Unsafe on Any Channel.

In (rough) order:

Crayons.
Playdoh.
The yeasty richness of rising bread.
Autumn leaves at the bottom of the pile.
Milk chocolate.
Bactine.
Percolating coffee.
Toasty marshmallows over a smokey campfire.
The cold, coppery scent of blood in the snow.
Musty, leather bound volumes slowly desiccating on a library shelf.
Fresh-cut alfalfa.
Aged oil and wax patina of a 60-year-old guitar breathed in from the sound hole.
Musk gland freshly cut from a bow-shot buck.
The tinny fume of melting solder.
Frankincense and sweet myrrh of Catholic high mass.
Sweet-corn being shucked.
WD-40.
Melting beeswax.
Sweat and greasepaint.
Fermenting apples.
The clinging, briny spray of the Pacific Ocean.
The raw ozone of of 27,000 volts arcing.
The jasmine and lime scent of blooming coffee flowers.

Vermont's Autumn color is setting in early this year. I took pictures last weekend at Lake Iroquois (just south of Williston) where leaves are turning a full two weeks earlier than last year... and snapped photos around Danville, VT on Tuesday where the hills are really peaking right this moment. (Here's some of my snaps from the last few days on Flickr.)

If you're dithering between this weekend and next, I'd recommend going sooner than later.

NelC @ 12 (and subsequent comments)

While I suspect that McSame steadfastly avoided looking at Obama as a means of self-prescribed anger management, he (and his campaign) may not have realized how *weak* this behavior made him appear... the net effect was that he gave away all of his status to Obama.

On the other hand, I wonder if the dismissive "...you just don't understand" line of attack was a very carefully considered tactic to push Obabma's buttons by giving him the brush off, treating him as a child.

All in all, quite revealing.

Been through the heparin regimen and know it's no fun. No fun at all. Hang in there, Teresa, and do take care of yourself... you're the only one of you there is, and we like having you around.

I scored 30 of 34, and --actually-- I think that's wrong. I'm almost
certain I picked at least one answer that it scored as correct.

Be sure to note the hours of The Farmer's Diner in Quechee... they close at 3pm, daily.

(This I learned a couple weeks ago after hiking down the gorge and back, and arriving at the diner's door at 3:30 p.m.)

I'm disturbed by the "Blood stains behind the Bison..."

Clearly, it was the bison's first time.

Yeah! to Emma @ 92.

I think it would have been quite the challenge to introduce Dumbldore's sexual preference into the storyline.

We are looking at this world through Harry's eyes. Harry spends much of his time idolizing Dumbledore, and, on occasion, demonizing him. Harry is also a naive boy struggling with his own adolescence; the emotional and romantic needs of others are almost entirely beyond him.

Frankly we really don't get a deep background on Dumbledore, himself, until DH, and then we get more than enough material to chew on; in particular the revelation that Albus had made at least one terrible error in his past which he carried with him every day. Indeed, in light of that particular revelation it might have proved a *bad* time to introduce Dumbledore's orientation; it might well be construed by some as a ding on gay folk.

More to the point of this argument --and as Greg @ 78 notes -- an in-story revelation would be largely irrelevant. Dumbledore's sexual orientation would be meaningful to the story only to the extent that Dumbledore were presented as a sexual being... or even a person with a romantic interest. Should Jo want very much to make such a reference in story, it would be terribly difficult to justify unless it would *forward* the story. And I suspect that if it *were* revealed in-story, then it would in many ways subsume other critical storylines.

It's not as though Jo never touched on how the Wizarding world dealt with people who were "different". That Lupin was ostracized for being a werewolf is telling: Wizards were revealed to be every bit as capable as Muggles of being insufferable gits in their interaction with folks of a different stripe. If I understand correctly, it was just this sort of in story dialog about acceptance and dealing with differences that inspired the Q&A we're all talking about.

Neat, that.

If anyone is wondering whether there's still time to swing through Vermont to catch some autumn color, I can assure you it's still awfully pretty here.

I work in Waterbury -- square between the Mad River Valley to the south and Stowe / Mt. Mansfield to the north. My daily commute leads me through some of the prettiest mountain passes anywhere. (Yeah... I'm lucky that way.)

This autumn season is easily bests the two years prior in terms of color, and the last five in terms of durability. There's still leaves everywhere but the highest ridgelines, and they're most all of them a pretty glorious range of burnt orange to all-out crimson right now.

Route 100 between Granville and the Warren / Waitsfield area is lovely. (Stop for a photo at Moss Glen falls and get some maple syrup from Mom & Pop's stand there.) For my money, Bridge Street / E Warren road south off the covered bridge in Waitfield can't be beat right now.

A selection of autumn 2007 photos -- mostly foliage, and all taken in Vermont -- can be found on Flickr, here.

I'm thinking Snape was the posterboy to illustrate how Houses are sorted too soon.

Certainly when he came to Hogwarts as a student he was ambitious, and more focused on the ends than the means... much as Riddle was. Snape came from an extraordinarily challenging background (which had been hinted at before, and only fully revealed in DH) and he was surely focused on the idea that power would solve his problems. If sorting were done in, say, year three, maybe Snape would have learned that the means are as important -- or more so -- than the ends.

In the end, it was finally revealed that Snape was perhaps the most courageous player on the field, by far. While certainly he had made terrible mistakes -- done awful things -- he was trying to atone for them. By agreeing to Dumbledore's wish that Snape kill him (rather than allow Draco to) he was at the same time agreeing to end the life of the only living individual who knew Snape's real motivation, who knew that Snape had, in fact, chosen to work for the Order, and against Voldemort. There would have been no "get out of jail free" card for Snape, and his name would be infamous forever, for all the wrong reasons.

And, as J.K. has pointed out countless times in the series, it was all for love.

14:, 35:

I believe the sorting hat has already been established as not only an extremely powerful magical artifact (having something of the powers of all house founders in it) but a sentient one, too (e.g. it composes the sorting song in sings at the beginning of each year.) As a magical artifact its powers have long been discounted by those who never looked beyond its scruffy appearance, and Voldy was a fool of the greatest sort (eh) to bring it into the fray.

21:

"You know, sometimes I think we Sort too soon..."

I agree that this is among the best lines of the book, and really, it's part of the arc that's revealed in the last several chapters, where any number of characters display strengths that aren't consistent with their houses' traits. And just in case we missed this, JK has Harry make his little speech about sorting and houses to young Albus Severusin the Epilogue .

Overall, I think JK did an admirable job of tying up lots and lots of loose ends, and in such a way that the entire book doesn't come off as a bunch of less than natty stitchery (which was my greatest worry as I opened the cover.)

Scalzi notes:

Well, this is the thing. When you have a well-run site, the trolls and freaks become less interested because they don't see the spoor of other of their kind.

Much like the fixing broken windows view on urban decay and crime. Somebody sees a broken window, they break more. Somebody sees graffiti on the train, they break out their own spray can. Somebody sees nasty, worthless comments, they pile on with their own.

Just like repairing those broken panes of glass, effective moderation catches problem comments before they get out of hand.

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