Disasters and Wizards

Last week while perusing the Internet, I came across a disturbing story - disturbing for a couple of reasons. First of all, it made the World Headlines on the British Broadcasting Corporation website. I could have sworn that there were more important stories such as the continual crises in Africa, or the minor detail that San Diego (which yes, is in the United States) is basically on fire. Second of all, it was just weird. For those of you who haven’t heard, Snape kills Dumbledore! Wait… no, that was a few years ago. Ah yes, the correct headline was: “J.K. Rowling Outs Dumbledore as Gay” on the home page of a world-renowned news agency. Umm… Right. On par with AIDs in Africa and equal to genocide in Darfur. Well, a tip of the hat to J.K. Rowling, who managed to put Dumbledore on the front page of newspapers for the second time in two years (the first being the Dumbledore toast image that sold on eBay). They’ll print anything these days. Seriously, the next thing will be a woman marrying a dolphin; actually, I saw it that last year on BBC as well.

Fortunately, as I clicked away, I found some real news. Apparently Georgia (the state, not the country) is about to run out of water. The story is that the rainfall in Georgia has been behind for a few years. Now after a really dry summer, the reservoirs in many parts of the state are down to ninety days of supply, including Lake Lanier, which supplies Atlanta. Officials had hoped that hurricanes would recharge the water tables. That’s right, Georgia wanted hurricanes. Fortunately for the Gulf Coast and much to the chagrin of Georgia, it was an abnormally light hurricane season. Talk about a Faustian choice... Either the coast is pummeled by a hurricane, or Georgia shrivels up like a prune. The only worse situation would be a Category 5 hurricane in which the rain misses Georgia. Then everyone loses. Of course, Georgia doesn’t have it as bad as California, which caught on fire this week. Well, California catching fire is nothing new, but this time the wild fires are burning exceedingly close to Los Angeles - as in burning Malibu to the ground. A million people have already been evacuated from the area. Clearly it’s not a good week to be rich and living in Malibu or living in the San Diego area at all for that matter. Comparatively, it’s a great day to be broke and going to Rose - as long as you keep the nitrogen dioxide in the fume hood (an eight-hour death by suffocation isn’t my thing...). So, my condolences and best wishes go out to everyone in the midst of a natural disaster. I suppose if you need something to take your mind off of it for a while, you could always pick up a good book. Barring a good book, there are plenty of random stories on the BBC website. Some of those stories are even about sexually confused headmasters from, well, good books.