The Children's Hour

Sorry to be so tardy posting, I could plead the exigencies of employment but in fact I was catching up on my napping. A big shout out to my researcher Roswell Bentadene, who despite being disappointed that the stimulus package that PODM received didn't cover his promised bonus, still made his usual yeoman like effort at fact checking.

I am shocked, shocked I say to find that my old friend John at Write Enough is dropping good money (Well, American money anyway.) on the latest Harry Potter opus. For those of you that have been living under a rock these films are based on the bildungsroman novels of Henry Rollins, former lead singer of Black Flag, and concern the efforts of a group of apprentice wizards and witches attending Hogwarth Prep to recover a magical ring of fire stolen by Gollum and Valdemorte. Apparently they use their magic powers to defeat evil and allow Frodo to destroy an army of muggles, a plausable enough concept, but danger lurks in the details. These are adolescents armed with supernatural powers and we all know what has happened to Smallville since those strange teenage visitors from another planet started setting up shop.

Its a conspiracy to subvert our values and distract us from the actual danger young people with supernaormal abilities actually represent.

Have we learned nothing from British horror movies from the sixties? If Village of the Damned was such a fluke why make Children of the Damned? When I hear apple cheeked youngsters waxing rapsodic about witches and wizards I recall that Twilight Zone Episode where Billy Mumy wished everybody into the cornfield and The Lord of The Flies and am terrified! You may scoff, guffaw and chortle at my concern, just rent The Children of the Corn, parts 1 through 666 and be afraid, be very afraid.

We at PODM have no problem with actual magic. If someone wants to sit around and make quarters come out of someones ear for drinks and then hit on bored housewives who think a night at the Magic Castle is a night out, that is all well and good. In the hands of children though its like giving your credit card to a Democratic legislator and telling them to have a good time.

Isn't it time we returned to our traditional values regarding witchcraft and burned a few of the lovable tykes at the stake.