While it’s been a publishing phenomenon, the seven-book Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling will come to an end on July 21, 2007, with the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The book is the long-planned capper to the series, and will contain the deaths of two major characters, according to Rowling.

Rowling stirred media speculation as early as last summer when she said she now understands what drove Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to attempt to kill off his popular hero, Sherlock Holmes – namely, to prevent others from coming along years later and adding to the canon.

Of course, in the fantasy world of Harry Potter, even if she wrote an ending in which, say, Valdemort was victorious and left Harry, Ron and Hermoinie dead as doorknobs, that wouldn’t necessarily prevent another author coming along and reviving the characters – and the series – years from now. In fantasy, anything’s possible.

However, the identity of the killed-off characters remains under wraps, and even after it gets published, it’s likely the folks making the movie series will want to keep the roar down to a minimum, so as not to destroy interest in the final two movie installments.

Book sellers claim they have to discount the Potter series so deeply under the pressures of customer demand, they never make money on the series anymore. If that’s so, perhaps there is more money in printing and selling professional business cards than there is in Harry Potter.

According to several reports online, a video of Paris Hilton and her sister, Nikki, was posted on YouTube.com this week. The video, which didn’t display a date when it was taken or specify the location of the video that was shot, appears to show Paris and Nikki uttering the “N-word,” as well as making comments that could most tastefully be described as “anti-Semitic.”

Of course, the Hilton sisters have never made a movie expressing their religious views, as Mel Gibson did, so it’s unlikely the bubble-headed pair will pay much of a price for their outspokenness. Their hard-working lawyers have already had the video pulled from YouTube.com and other video-sharing Web sites.

Of course, the video may be a cruel hoax.

However, it wouldn’t be the first time that a celebrity who keeps up public appearances projecting one type of image, gets caught uttering objectionable stuff that’s contrary to that public image. Of course, considering Paris is best known for a bootleg porn video and uttering phrases like, “that’s hot,” to hard-working middle Americans she can’t stand and doesn’t like, I guess there’s not much of a public image standard for her to maintain.

Perhaps Paris, Nikki and Mel can all go into business card printing, where they can share their Neanderthal views with each other over lunch break, and no one will give a rat’s patoot!