Drop a Nintendo for Peace

"We should think about terrorism not as a battle between Islam and the West but as a battle within Islam, says author Salman Rushdie. And video games might just be the way to resolve this conflict. 'I often think that the best way to liberate Iran is just to drop Nintendo consoles from the air. And Big Macs,; he tells us."

Maybe he's onto something. Crime has decreased since young men have gotten so involved in video gaming...

"In his Big Think interview, the literary giant tells us about how video games influenced his newest novel 'Luka and the Fire of Life.' As he proves in this and previous novels, fantasy can be a vehicle for writing about truth. That is after all the whole premise of fiction. 'We don’t need to know that Anna Karenina really existed; we need to know who she is and what moves her and what her story tells us about our own lives,' he says. 'Once you accept that stories are not true, then you understand that a flying carpet and Madam Bovary are untrue in the same way, and as a result both of them are ways of arriving at the truth by the road of untruth and so then they can both do it the same way.'"

Voldemort: He who cannot help but be hot?

Apparently. Ralph Fiennes reads erotic fan fiction. I have no idea what Mme LeStrange thinks of this. Fiennes seems to think it's a bit silly...

Happy Books at McDonald's

McDonald's is replacing its Happy Meal toys with books, at least in the UK. The first selection is Michael Morpurgo's Mudpuddle Farm series. Adults will recognize the author of WAR HORSE, recently made into a movie. At Huffpo.

My first reaction to this was, Great! But then I thought, I hope they also replace their Happy Meals food with something nutritious for kids to eat, some real food, not things that can be kept on the shelf for years without going bad... cf. The Burger That Wouldn't Die.

Good to start somewhere, tho, as parents will still be taking kids to Mickey D's.