At our live DA meeting on September 30, 2009, Andrew, Karen, and Hallie discussed Magical Acts of Kindness (MAK) week, which will take place October 1-7, 2009. Subscribe through iTunes or download here.

Among the many ideas and actions discussed were:

What is Magical Acts of Kindness?

MAK came from the idea of performing small acts of kindness for someone who makes a difference in your life; much like Hermione did for the house elves that worked at Hogwarts School.  Magical Acts of Kindness (MAK) is an amazing way to spread your love and appreciation for others! Make your acts of kindness anonymous! Anonymity requires creativity and special thoughtfulness.

There are many possibilities for a MAK!

Writing an anonymous letter of gratitude for an old teacher or friend, knitting warm, fluffy scarves and leaving them on the doorstep of a local shelter, baking two dozen cookies and sneaking them into the break-room before work.

Gives Me Hope

Magical Acts of Kindness Week is working with Gives Me Hope. The folks at Gives Me Hope are going to publish many of the stories of what people do throughout the week, so post them in our Common Room using 350 characters or less!

Share your ideas!

If you’re looking for ideas, or want to share your ideas for Magical Acts of Kindness, please share them with our online community in the Harry Potter Alliance Common Room.

TWITTER

We will be having an HPA staffer on our Twitter account all week ready to answer any questions you may have about MAK! Make sure to follow us: @TheHPAlliance.

Witches, wizards, friends - are you ready for a lesson in wandless magic? Then come join us tomorrow (Wednesday, September 30th) at 8:30pm EST on the UStream channel for a live DA Meeting to discuss the HPA’s newest campaign: Magical Acts of Kindness Week!

What is Magical Acts of Kindness (MAK)? We’ll discuss it in more detail at the meeting, but here’s a brief idea of what MAK is all about: during the week of October 1-7, we’re challenging everyone to think of small, meaningful ways to show your care and appreciation for others. That’s seven whole days to explore the magic of compassion and kindness, and to celebrate the power of small acts that make a big impact.

Come share your ideas with us and find out more, tomorrow at 8:30pm EST. We can’t wait to see you there!

Today marks the third day of Banned Books Week 2009. Banned Books Week is an annual event in the US sponsored by the American Library Association. Its sole purpose is to celebrate intellectual freedom and remind people of the harms of censorship. As members of the Harry Potter fan community, we are especially aware of the importance of combating censorship, as the Harry Potter series have been some of the most challenged and most banned books of the last several years. JK Rowling once wrote on her website that she saw her “inclusion on the list [of most-banned books] as a great honour,” as it places her in the company of some of her favorite writers.

We here at the Harry Potter Alliance want to join in the celebration and remind everyone to stand up against the Dolores Umbridges of the world. We’d like to challenge you to think of a banned book that you’ve read that means a lot to you (if you’re not sure which books have been banned, here is a Top 100 list you can look at) then to hop on over to our Common Room and leave a short blog post explaining what that book is and what it means to you. (We’re all obviously major Harry Potter fans, so that would seem a natural choice, but try to think outside the box and share other books that have meant something to you.)

In Order of the Phoenix, when Umbridge issues an Educational Decree banning students from reading Harry’s interview in the The Quibbler, Hermione says: “Oh Harry, don’t you see? If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!” (p. 582) Let’s prove Hermione right by continuing to read books that deal with big ideas and hard issues, despite those who would try to keep them off our shelves and out of our heads.

To all of you who are celebrating the Jewish New Year, Shanah Tova! May you have a Happy, Healthy, and Sweet New Year! And for those fasting on Yom Kippur, may you have an easy fast.

That also goes for you, Anthony Goldstein!*

*Anthony Goldstein is probably the only Jewish student at Hogwarts.

Today is a very magical because its the birthday of our very own Karen Bernstein, Chapters Coordinator Extraordinaire and Senior Staffer! I first met Karen a year and half ago (on a conference call) and ever since she has been one of my very best friends. Join me and the rest of our staff in wishing Karen a Very “Harry” Birthday!

Some thoughts from the rest of the staff….. Read the rest of this entry »

I tend to dislike comparing actual people to regimes. However, I have no problem with comparing “Global Warming” to Voldemort.

It is almost amusing to watch the “Seamus Finnigans” of the world make bold declarations that this real world “Voldemort” is just a made up tale by environmentalists and members of “the Order.” Then you watch as this “Seamus” nervously tries to convince himself that he is right to believe in the nonexistence of Global Warming. However, the world’s “Seamus’” are on the decline and as governments are regulating CO2 emissions, it turns out Global Warming is growing weaker.

I imagine somewhere that Global Warming is commanding the Coal Industry to break into the Hall of Prophecy and find out the secrets that will make him more powerful. For now, these regulations are having an effect.

If I was asked to put together a list of my top ten favorite shows of all time, one might expect me to include all of the biggest ones: LeakyCon, Prophecy, Wrock Chicago, the Yule Balls, Wrockstock, and so forth. Certainly, those shows would be among the first to come to mind; the big shows have an inherent sense of excitement and importance in everyone’s memory, and they’ve helped shape me as a performer and as a member of the wizard rock community.

However, after touring extensively for two years, I’ve had the opportunity to play a variety of shows, with audiences ranging from literally 1 to 1,000, and venues ranging from fancy hotel ballrooms to backyards and unfinished basements. One of my favorite shows of all time happened just a handful of months ago in Carrollton, Georgia; the show was set up by my friend Hope and it took place in her friend’s living room. There were about 15 people in attendance, and I’d guess that half of them were more accurately classified as curious friends of the host than wizard rock fans. Justin and I have played many shows like this during our house party tours, and most of the time it’s an awkward experience and we have to search fairly hard for the silver lining (which is something we make a habit of doing at all of our shows, lest we forget how lucky we are to be touring full time).
Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight from 6 to 7 pm EST please join us right here for a live DA meeting where we will be talking about the new approach of activism that all of us in the HPA are building together - an approach that incorporates the messages of Harry Potter along with the Arts, pop culture, standing up for justice, and spreading love.

We’ll be discussing why it’s so important to invest in this kind of activism as well as discussing our upcoming Magical Acts of Kindness Campaign.

Please come back to the same ustream channel right here at 9:45 pm for a “Late Night Snack with Andrew Slack” where we will be discussing the film “Beauty and the Beast” and its unexpected connection to the current debate around health care reform.

There is so much to share with all of you about what the Harry Potter Alliance is up to and this meeting at 6 pm EST tonight is but one of many ways that we’ll be sharing these things with you in the coming weeks.

In the mean time, please continue to invest nine and three quarters ($9.75) to the Harry Potter Alliance and the exciting ways in which we are together changing the world.

Hope to see you tonight!

The Weapon We Have Is Love,

Andrew Slack
HP Alliance Executive Director

I think it’s important to note that there is a Homophobic Legacy in this world. And thankfully the United Kingdom just took a step to address that legacy. A legacy that is tragic and horrific.

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician who helped the United Kingdom (and in turn the Allied Forces) break codes to defeat the Third Reich. He was instrumental in turning the tide of World War II. His theories later became key in creating the modern day computer. So here is a man who is perhaps one of the world’s greatest heroes in fighting and ending the Nazi regime and also one of the pioneers in laying the necessary groundwork for the very computer that I’m typing on right now. And what happened? Due to the fact that he was homosexual the government just a few years after he helped save them from Nazi occupation ruled that he had to either go to prison or face chemical castration. He chose the latter. Tragically, he died two years later in a death that should have been prevented. Ultimately he killed himself - and it should be noted that he didn’t need to do this and that there are ways of getting help always when one is feeling suicidal.

Nonetheless, Alan Turing, one of the world’s most heroic individuals was punished for nothing by the same government to which he helped save. The Prime Minister of the UK Gordon Brown has now issued an apology on behalf of Great Britain for the terrible thing they did to one of their own heroes. This came about because of a popular petition in recent days.

The legacy of what happened to Alan Turing is of course incredibly tragic. But it is not an isolated incident - it is connected to the Homophobic Legacy that is still very much alive not only in the UK but in the United States as well. Dumbledore says we all have choices. Those who wish to be part of the same legacy whose greatest achievements have been punishing heroes that’s their choice.

There is another legacy. A legacy of love. A legacy of courage. A legacy of decency and honor and trust. That is the legacy that Alan Turing is part of. That is the legacy that I think most of us wish to be the ambassadors of in our lives and our world every day.

There are some wonderful essays on reflections of September 11, 2001 right here. Amongst them, this passage from cartoonist Tim Kreider entitled “You Are Alive”:

“I experienced 9/11 the same way almost all Americans did — on TV. And I reacted the same way a lot of them did — by going temporarily insane.

“I like to think that most people who got caught up in that bellicose hysteria experienced the attacks as a spectatorial event, as unreal, and so their reaction was also unreal — like the payback-time’ montage in an action film or the impotent revenge scenarios we play out in our heads.It wasn’t until I actually went to New York City a week after the attacks that I understood how empty and inappropriate an emotion anger was to bring to the circumstances; it was like picking fights at a wake. New Yorkers, who had been so profoundly wounded, hadn’t given in to rage; what they were, mostly, was sad.

“I hesitate to say this, but that was not only a ghastly time; it was also it was a beautiful time, in the same way that a friend’s funeral can be beautiful. New Yorkers seemed to have had their shells torn off, the gelid stuff of their inner selves exposed and flinching at the air. Jealously tended hierarchies temporarily evaporated, and the worthless currency of human decency reacquired street value. Strangers made eye contact and got too choked up to speak….Graffiti appeared that actually spoke instead of just marking territory, like the overheard murmurs of a city talking to itself or fitfully dreaming. I saw a spray-painted message that would’ve seemed trite or sentimental a week before: YOU ARE ALIVE.

“Sept. 11 came at the end of an idyllic but somehow flaccid decade when a half-century’s threat of mass immolation seemed suspended, and the single biggest news story in the U.S. was not Kosovo or Rwanda…Suddenly seeing the same people we sit in traffic or ride mass transit with dying horribly may have made some of us take leave of our reason, but it also restored things to a truer perspective. It reminded us, briefly, that life is real.”

Life is real. Life is real. Life is real.