I wish WB would 'splain why they left out one of the most dramatic shots of Alan Rickman ever filmed for one of these movies? It's unbelievable. Are they just made of teh stoopid or what? That's a hypothetical question - I know the answer very well.

Forget the fact that J. K. Rowling wasn't born in Scotland. We all know she is more of a "Local Heroine" who moved there to write her books in an Edinburgh Cafe.

But according to the Scottish Record, JKR is on the list of nominees for "Greatest Scot of All Time." You can see the list of nominees: HERE.
The writers nominated were:

Robert Burns
Robert Louis Stevenson
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
J. K. Rowling
David Hume
Adam Smith
John Muir (Environmentalist who was actually Scottish American, but born in Dunbar)

One huge writer was left off the list: Sir Walter Scott  and that seems incredible.

Other famous Scots-people omitted were: Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics (what?), Sean Connery (they must be joking), and amazingly, Mary Queen of Scots (what were they smoking?)

So what do you think ~ Does JKR belong amongst this "August Circle"?
(winks at the Snape fans)
Should her portrait hang among them while Sir Walter Scott's likeness is shoved into some Muggle dung heap?

For even more fun amongst the Scottish writers these days, there is the controversy over remarks made by James Kelman at the Edinburgh Book Festival slamming modern Scottish writing, especially mystery writers such as Ian Rankin and boy-wizard inventor Rowling:

"If the Nobel Prize came from Scotland they would give it to a writer of f****** detective fiction, or else some kind of child writer, or something that was not even new when Enid Blyton was writing The Faraway Tree, because she was writing about some upper middle-class young magician or some f****** crap," he said.

Contemporary literature, he said, was "derided and sneered at by the Scottish literary establishment" who were "Anglocentric" and bent on ignoring the edgier talent that is right under their noses - citing poet Tom Leonard as an example of one such cruelly marginalised Scot.

Another writer put it in Hogwartsian Terms:

Scottish crime writer Denise Mina, however, was far from taking Kelman's side in the row. Writing today in the Sunday Herald, she says: "Kelman is a beautiful writer and I love his books, but this debate actually drives readers toward genre fiction. It's like the prefects looking down on the juniors ... People in the arts are more concerned than anyone about status. And that's what this is: a play for status."

If you can stand to watch it without drinking too early in the day, CNN is showing streaming video of the AIG CEO, Edward Liddy, on a hot griddle today under fire from Congress. They also have someone from Standard and Poor's ratings service because this is where AIG got their sterling reputation for having a "3-Star Rating" in the Insurance and Banking Industry.

Everyone grab a pitchfork.

Rant Alert: I voted for Obama so we could clean up this stuff and I was willing to be patient, but I'm done. I agree wholeheartedly with Arianna Huffington on Larry King last night - Tim Geithner and Larry Summers need to go, and go soon. We were all sick of these excuses two months ago, so the Obama Team response has been lame and too little too late. 

Wall Street wizards are not the Masters of the Universe anymore. They were idiots and gamblers with other people's money and their day is done. Hello Great Depression Number Two - goodbye reputation for Wall Street superiority.  We need some Economists in charge who aren't trying to save their friends.


 
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