latest outrage from the vatican: harry potter is subversive

even though i'm quite catholic, some things must be disagreed with.

we live in a day and age where children would much rather sit in front of the tv screen, watching tivo'd programs; the computer screen, chatting away for hours with their "buddies"; or the tv screen (again), playing mindless video games, than they would play outdoors like we did when we were kids (note the influx of obesity as you sit at starbucks sipping your latte). also note that when we were kids, mcdonalds was a special treat, not every night's dinner. granted, i'm not ancient, or even old by any stretch of the imagination. but the observation must still be made. even further out of this generation's reach is the desire to take on more antidiluvian pastimes: reading, collecting baseball cards, playing dress up (or g.i. joes), coloring, etc. catching a child reading an actual book, setting foot into a bookstore, or (help us) a library, have become almost obsolete occurences.

the even bigger problem lies not in the physical inactivity of today's kids, but inactivity of a less obvious arena: the brain. suffice it to say, imagination is dead. and, if it has not quite kicked the bucket yet, then it certainly is about to. though the insurgence of popular electronics, i'm sure, won't slow the obliteration of any comeback it may be planning an attempt to make. i wonder how long it will be before we can listen to books on our iPods (note that i will always prefer the bound variety. . . and do not yet [or intend to] own any macintosh associated device).

the church, while once claiming the harry potter books were marginally appropriate to help children distinguish between good and evil, now practically strikes them down as the anti-christ. please, Pope Benedict, kids today already know about the difference between good and evil. certainly if they are old enough to pick up an 800 page book, then they are old enough to have understood what happened in america in 2001 on september 11th. they are also old enough to understand that family friends and possibly older siblings are leaving to fight in a war across the world, and why. they are also probably old enough to understand, if their parents clue them in to world affairs at all (which, now that i think about it, considering the level of involvement parents have in their childrens' lives these days, this possibility is slim), that the people of London are pissed off because they, too, were attacked by, in the words of our president, faceless cowards. they have already had too harsh of a realization about what is good and what is evil in the world.

these "kids" are too old already; their minds and bodies will be defunct before they reach the age of 25. too often, we tell them how things are, leaving them no time to consider or ponder how things ought to be, or could be.

obviously, Pope Benedict is overlooking the fact that these books are getting children to read. while illiteracy rates continue to climb, while children continue to be "diagnosed" with behavioral disorders they don't have, while test scores continue to suck in the nation's largest cities, while thousands upon thousands of volunteers are looked to for help in boosting the literacy rates, isn't it slightly refreshing to know that, at midnight tonight, kids all over the country will be in line at their local borders or barnes and noble for a copy of a book? If kids are waiting for a book to be released at midnight on a non-school night, i think it's pretty obvious where they stand on the whole good vs. evil continuum. and, while these "subversive harry potter books" aren't restoring any kind of physical activity, they are restoring their imaginations, and giving them perhaps a glimmer of hope that, even though the "real" world seems to be chasing down evil to no avail, good can triumph in the end. at least it's a step in the right direction, and i can't see anything wrong with that.

xo,

kellieannie