Aliteracy--various rants--why I'm not British

[Scott]

ME A BRIT?

Amy thought I was British! I don't know whether to be amused or 
delighted or horrified! ;-) I assure you I'm an American, though 
Anglophile wouldn't be stretching it I'm certainly not British. (My 
friend predicted I was really a stalker of Brits since I seem so 
infatuated. UK list members beware! BWHAHAHAHA!!!);-) In fact I've 
never even lived outside of NC; visited lots of other places, but a 
tarheel at heart! 

The fact is my Yahoo page is set on UK and so it gave me a .uk email. 
It was sort of a mistake.

ALITERACY

I love this list! The one thing I cannot imagine living without is 
books. Take away all modern media even (gasp!) computers, but never 
books. I took a technology class once (big mistake) and the teacher 
would go on about the best invention ever being some integrated 
specialised super computer chip, and I was like uh, no books are the 
best thing ever....obviously!

Some of my earliest memories  come from my mother reading the 
classics to me. If she had just popped in a video tape, well thank 
goodness she didn't, because I probably wouldn't be here typing right 
now. (Some of you may be wishing I wasn't, but I for one am 
thankful for finding this group and HP!)

I'm still really wary of condemning movies though, because they can 
be quite a stimulating piece of visual art. Like Amy I'm sure that 
this isn't the purpose of WB's Harry Potter rendition, it's to make 
money of course, but once in awhile you run across a wonderful movie. 
Once in awhile. I should also add that I rarely go to the movies, 
just once or twice a year, so maybe I'm totally naive, but I believe 
that movies can be good. 

Most of you are also completely anti-Disney, but I did grow up on 
their animated movies as my main source of cinematic enertainment, 
and I don't think I'm worse for the wear. I'm also not your typical 
example, I mean how many other 11-12 year olds saw the animated 
"Hunchback of Notre Dame" (which was horrid) and then went on to read 
Victor Hugo's classic. (Confession: I didn't read the WHOLE thing 
but...)

I'd agrue that advertising and media are only as influential as we 
allow them to be. Most children who grow up to love reading weren't 
in homes that frowned upon books, some were and this only encouraged 
them however I don't think that's the norm. It's about imagination. I 
have an extremely active one, and I'd guess so do the rest of you. 
What's there to imagine anymore?

Imagination is what dreams are made of (old cliche I know but it'll 
do.) It's colouring in the black and white, making the world come 
alive with the beauty that lives only slightly below the suface of 
the ordinary "muggle" world. It's realising that that world isn't 
ordinary at all. 

Imagination is magic, and for that matter so is reading.

Scott