In this episode we travel to the jungles of Brazil to track the elusive albino @ant

Your video, Albino Owl, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 24 Badge!

Deaf and blind... and albino?

Cute dog. Doesn't look at all like it stinks.

You're right - it's a British institution if we're to take the books as they come. But let's look at it from a J K Rowling point of view - from a brief scan of wikipedia, she went to an average british school with presumably average british children probably around 30 years ago - vastly different from the stats quoted above in 2011. There weren't many africans, pakistanis, etc. nor were there many gay, bi, transgendered people when i went to school about 20 years ago (1 black girl and everyone was "straight"). What she wrote came from imagination based on her own experiences and why on earth would people chastise her for the sheer happen-stance of her life experiences? She didn't write a book to exclude people, she wrote a book that just happened to not include every type of person in a fantasy world where there existed entirely different sorts of people. Are we to expect another video from professional-offence-takers about how JRR Tolkein - another FANTASY writer - didn't represent the diversity of humanity in any of his books?

And that's selling her short; there are elements of the books that make allusions to homophobia, racism, etc. - "Mudblood," is a xenophobic term used by characters in the book and it's not accepted by any of the extended main characters, and people really should think long and hard before placing their own expectations and values on other people and judging them for it.

Whether you like the books or not, they are popular and i think their popularity stems from the belief she has in her characters and story. Sure, she could have replaced Ron with an albino lesbian transgendered midget who would have lived happily ever after with Hermione, but would the books have been as good with a character that didn't come from Rowling's heart, someone that Rowling felt like she understood? What if she wrote a gay part for someone and got it wrong, is she then liable to take an ear bashing from the gay community for misrepresenting gay people? Where do you draw the line? Do we - at the expense of the story - put one gay person in and then suddenly we're taking abuse for including a "token" gay person?

It should not be the responsibility of anyone to compromise their art to appease someone else's sense of right or wrong, especially when it seems that their right or wrong is balanced on "is there someone like me in there?" In my opinion, if you come away from a story like Harry Potter with the burning question "Where were all the gay/whatever people?" then it's probably you that has the problem with diversity.

I say this - homophobia and racism are dead when no one even considers the issue any more. Now you can't do that in the workplace and stuff, because there are genuinely racist people out there who we try and keep in check. But this is the absolute worst place to direct your anger - no one was hired or fired based on their creed, no one did anything wrong here, all this woman has done is draw attention to what i consider to be her own contradiction. We want to encourage the idea that "Everyone is equal; there is no black or white, straight or gay, everyone is simply the same - we're just people!" And quickly follow that up with "Hey, where are all the GAY people in this fictional story?"

And finally, how the fuck does she know that every character in the book was straight? Isn't it a bit strange (i want to say homophobic) for her to expect gay people to act differently to the degree that she can spot them in a crowd? 95% of the people in Huffelpuff could be single and gay for all anyone knows. The main 3 characters are straight, all of their parents had to be straight for them to be their parents, but all the rest of them we never need to know about their sexuality, so why should they stand out, why should we even discuss it in a kids book anyway? There's only about 4 relationships in 7 books and some of them happen to the same characters.

These are just some of the problems i have with this nonsense and i've written an entire page.

He is literal??!!!

The man who ended the cave painting film with a long rambling discourse of albino alligators?

I guess.

Oh critics say something...well they must be right...make crimes harder to prosecute...yeah must be true. Please present some evidence for your claims.

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-01-29/local/me-25875_1_hate-crime-cases

Also I disagree it's Orwellian unless it's the powerful subjugating the weak with thought crimes. When it's a law for protecting the weak and minorities, I don't agree. Just doesn't make sense unless the scales are balanced.

What's more powerful than government and its badly written, randomly-enforced laws?


----

Here is the simplest way I can think of to describe it. @quantumushroom

Say some teenagers spray paint their names on one side of a Mosque and a neo-nazi group spray paints 'death to all Muslims' on the other side. Is there a difference between these crimes? Is there a difference in intent? Absolutely. The teenagers have committed vandalism. The neo-nazis have committed both vandalism and a targeted act of terrorism against a group of people.

Attacking someone because of their sexual orientation is both battery and a calculated act of terrorism against a group of people.

You don't have to agree with it, but do you at least get the distinction?

I'm aware of the difference, however, if someone hands out flyers and holds a sign saying "Exterminate all left-handed albinos", that is protected speech. What the 'hate crime' lobby is saying is, if the same individual spray paints this message on a wall that is not his property, he is to be punished both for vandalism AND the message; the latter would then be punishment of thoughtcrime.

---

The idea is that the crime is politically motivated. It is their status within society that is being targeted not themselves as individuals. What makes it a hate crime is the likelihood of it triggering others to do the same in a way that a non-politically motivated instance of crime would not.

You are smart enough to know this already QM.

Per my previous excellent examples, we can only make assumptions as to the intent of a criminal. Do you seriously think some violent teenaged punk targeting a weaker target has political motivations? How do you prove it? You cannot. A much more plausible but equally unknowable motive is that this school does not swiftly punish offenders for committing acts of violence.


Changing tracks slightly, this video is also an excellent example of how you cannot expect government to save your bacon and watch over you all the time. Every feminine-acting boy--indeed, every picked-on youth--must decide for himself at some point, though he may not like training, whether it would be worthwhile to learn rudimentary boxing or martial arts, or at the very least, how to take a punch. Krav maga on youtube: 25K videos.

Wow, that non-albino gator is gonna be one hellova scary mofo when it grows up!

I cant believe there is not more outrage at this albino line drawing standing in for a badge of honor.

Thanks for the quality!

In reply to this comment by hpqp:
*quality cuteness overload!

As if the albino raccoon wasn't surreal enough...

>> ^KnivesOut:

Someone's off their meds again, and/or has been listening to too much Rush.
<div><div style="margin: 10px; overflow: auto; width: 80%; float: left; position: relative;" class="convoPiece"> quantumushroom said:<img style="margin: 4px 10px 10px; float: left; width: 40px;" src="http://static1.videosift.com/avatars/q/quantumushroom-s.jpg" onerror="ph(this)"><div style="position: absolute; margin-left: 52px; padding-top: 1px; font-size: 10px;" class="commentarrow">◄</div><div style="padding: 8px; margin-left: 60px; margin-top: 2px; min-height: 30px;" class="nestedComment box">The only reason ASSange is a "hero" to the left is because he's an anti-American POS. If he posted leaks about all the fraud and waste of socialist governments and the 100 million murdered by communist governments, he'd be all alone.
An enemy spy who published national security secrets would be assassinated; that's what the albino turd is.
</div></div></div>

All of the above...

Someone's off their meds again, and/or has been listening to too much Rush.>> ^quantumushroom:

The only reason ASSange is a "hero" to the left is because he's an anti-American POS. If he posted leaks about all the fraud and waste of socialist governments and the 100 million murdered by communist governments, he'd be all alone.
An enemy spy who published national security secrets would be assassinated; that's what the albino turd is.

The only reason ASSange is a "hero" to the left is because he's an anti-American POS. If he posted leaks about all the fraud and waste of socialist governments and the 100 million murdered by communist governments, he'd be all alone.

An enemy spy who published national security secrets would be assassinated; that's what the albino turd is.

On the one hand you have a biased pushy interviewer, on the other hand you have Assange who is weaseling himself through the answers like an experienced politician.

"No court documents have been provided to me, in English" -> So apparently they have been produced in Swedish....

"That I appear in one of every 10 google hits for rape shows the smear campaign against me is working" -> I am sure that has nothing to do with Assange being a press whore (or if you want it put less biased, a famous person in an ever growing Internet entangled in a longwinded public case). If you were to look for 'Assange' and 'albino' you get a disproportional number of hits as well...

Huge congrats to you, my friend! Your videos and wit are of the highest quality, and you're a lot of fun to be around. I had the pleasure of meeting Rae this summer and let me assure you, she's just as cool and charming in meatspace as she is in digital format.

Most deserved, and welcome to the Royal league! We have weekly meals of endangered animals. This week it's albino bengal tiger stew. See you there!