Some things I forgot to mention.

Post #25,407 by static 1/23/02 11:50:08 PM Reply	Some things I forgot to mention. They are first and foremost fantasy stories. They just happen to be set in modern-day England... :-) That said, Rowlings has also plundered both popular fantasy and traditional mythology for many of the creatures: pixies, unicorns, hippogryff, etc. This, I think, is a good idea because many writers do, too. I've also remembered that a lot of people seem to be upset that it is promoting the use of magic. That's not really true. Magic is a central premise to the story, but whilst the world of HP seems to intersect with ours, the magic itself is firmly in the realm of I-wish-it-were-real-but-I-know-it-ain't. Much adult fiction is also oriented around something-I-can't-have-but-would-if-it-were-possible, after all, and kids of the age to understand the HP books are better at separating fact and fantasy better than many over-vocal adults think. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #25,793 by Ashton 1/25/02 6:58:20 PM Reply	Never understood the proscription of 'magic'. Even by the tawdry mechano-view of all things (as practised by MBAs and other loosers) .. a sufficiently advanced culture ___ [they mean: techno advanced natch. Yawn] yada yada. My view - to the extent that our metaphors of the day are just like those of yesterday (except now we know that the At.Wt. of Be is 9.013 'stead o' "9.02") - all non-material processes like homo-sap operations: Are 'magic'! We don't understand any more 'about us' than we did long ago! [hint 1564-1616 are his dates]-- we just have a plethora of entertaining new stories to marvel at + a Great deal of new Noise. My 2 Eloian Tribble-coins, Ashton
Post #25,799 by hnick 1/25/02 8:19:04 PM Reply	Re: Never understood the proscription of 'magic'. Ummm... I think that in Willy's day you got your ass in a sling over joking about magic.. Was agin the kirk y'know... I just got around to reading the first book last night. I thought it was a nice kids book. I'm going to get a couple copies for some nephews that I am trying to wean away from the blabber box. It may be entertaining enough to work. Probably won't be around in another couple centuries, but then, neither will I. Regards, Hugh (who would hate to code the utilities for the owl network...)
Post #25,811 by Ashton 1/25/02 10:02:22 PM Reply	General Question (for all) Does anyone here remember the day you -realized- then: that You Could Read!! ??? That is, I can recall not some moment but ~ That Day when I announced to self.. and mater and anyone elso who'd listen or (not) ... Hey! I Can Read (anything next..) ! Give the endangered reader in the land of passive techno some encouragement; I'd like to see every kid have a 'recognized' mini-holiday for his/her 'I Can Read' Day: maybe your local Corporate Bookstore could give such, a $x gift certificate? Lots better that some &^#$& BigMac Chinese toy-thingie.. Ashton Holiday Construction AG
Post #25,836 by wharris2 1/26/02 1:41:35 AM Reply	For me, reading was weirdly constructed When I first entered first grade, I was in a school that was using an experimental phonics system. (This must have been circa 1968.) Phonics was taught, but with a special character set. Halfway through first grade, my parents moved and I was jolted into another school system in which my teacher took at look at my spelling test and probably internally said "OMG" but publically said "Let's give him some time". :=) Nevermind the other experimental program I was in when I was in 4th grade, by that time I was placed in the 6th grade reading class. Before then, at home, I was reading from Cat in the Hat and so forth, but I'm not sure if I was really reading, or if I was just memorizing the words from when my parents read it to me. Hell, given that I don't remember much before I was 6 or 7 years old, I don't really remember any given time when I couldn't read. There really was no one brilliant defining moment in time that I can declare as to being able to read. As far as I can remember, I've been able to read all my life. Whatever experimental programs I may have gone through, and I damn the 60's and the teacher's unions and whoever else decided to throw the dice with kids like me, I wish everyone could have my experience: not really knowing when they learned to read. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #25,909 by wharris2 1/26/02 9:30:51 PM Reply	Anyone remember those SRA reading comprehension modules? I think it was SRA, not sure. Little plasticized things that had a story, then a questionaire at the end of it. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #25,910 by a6l6e6x 1/26/02 9:38:30 PM Reply	Yep, SRA. IBM owned them in the past... when i took a speed reading course in the 1960s. Looks like it's McGraw-Hill [link\|http://www.sra-4kids.com/\|now]. Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Post #25,911 by admin 1/26/02 9:38:52 PM Reply	Yep. I loved them, because I could go ahead at my own speed. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #25,848 by hnick 1/26/02 9:30:19 AM Reply	After some thought, no. I was raised in a house full of books and no television. My parents would read to me, and in return I would read back to them. My books were initially mostly pictures, I suppose. After time, I could read the words of any book in the house, but the sometimes the concepts bored or eluded me. Sometimes they still do... But there was no watershed that I can define. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it... Hugh
Post #25,858 by a6l6e6x 1/26/02 11:22:55 AM Reply	No epiphany here. I learned to read Ukrainian in first grade in a WW-II refuge camp run by the UN in Germany. At the time, my parents probably did not have a single book, at least not one I can remember. Consequently, they did not read to me. There were a few books in the family in the years that followed. I read those on my own. Alex Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
Post #25,899 by boxley 1/26/02 8:44:40 PM Reply	Could read in Kindergarten but it was the second grade that it took wings. LitComp class consisted of 2 page well written storiettes that had comprehension questions and were based on skill level. By the end of the year I was reading grade 6 work and that summer my father marched me down to the library on a rare day off and explained I could checkout anything in there including the adult section. Weird you hadda be in Jr High to check out non juvenile stuff. thanx, bill My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #25,907 by admin 1/26/02 9:28:27 PM Reply	Nope, not really. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #25,914 by static 1/26/02 11:28:00 PM Reply	I dunno, exactly. I think it was in third grade when I asked the School Librarian about books for my age, probably from not understanding how libraries were laid out. The books she pointed to were not challenging and not wholly interesting, but they weren't beyond me. It took another year, during which the Library moved into a much more spacious building, before I became a bookworm. Now that's not to say it came all at once. I had been generally in front of the class as far as words go since early kindergarten. Mum said she used to read to me lots when I was little and we have always had lots of books at home. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #25,937 by Ashton 1/27/02 6:02:45 AM Reply	Second thought Yes, I suppose it has to have been a gradual acquisition - and prolly did start with memorizing words before grokking sentence mysteries, much earlier - pre kindergarten. So I guess my 'day' was more like a first vivid realization of what had been assembling itself. Kinda like first solo? (music, plane or cycle ;-) Ashton
Post #25,942 by CRConrad 1/27/02 10:04:18 AM Reply	Pretty much like Harris, can't remember when I couldn't. Vague glimpses of sitting on the floor laboriously spel-ling thr-ough so-me mag-a-zine, der Stern or der Spiegel (German mags, although this was after we'd arrived in Sweden); must'a been around five or six years old I think. But AFAICR, although it was somewhat lab-or-ious, I already had the confidence that I could do it by then. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #25,972 by wharris2 1/27/02 7:19:33 PM Reply	Addendum After 4th grade, my family moved (again) and I was in a "normal" school and was nearly bored out of my mind. Fortunately Mr. Rohr's classroom had a rack of books up front that I read when (as always) I finished up my work early. I was the first student to score 100% on the science tests. Every science test through the entire year. (They probably should have skipped me a grade, but... nah, this was a normal school.) "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #25,981 by JayMehaffey 1/27/02 8:51:50 PM Reply	Can't remember that far back Except for a few short bits that made a big impression on me, I can't remember anything from before I could read. Some of my first really clear memories are sneaking out of bed and camping out by the nightlight with The Hobbit, LOtR and Asimov's books. My mother always encouraged me to read, to the point of giving me some books that where way over my head. The first time I read Dune I was probably on 8 or 9, and it didn't make a bit of sense to me. It wasn't till the second time I read that it, that I appreciated the complexity of the story. Jay
Post #26,907 by Arkadiy 2/1/02 4:20:27 PM Reply	That was some day! My grandma taught me (5 years old) my (Russian) letters using a preface in a book for teachers. After 2 months of it I knew how to read words (Russian reading rules are much, much simpler than English), but I had not a slightest inclination to read on my own. Then I happened to come across a real book for children. I'd read it through in a few hours, and when my mom came back from work, she found me in a state of the most unbelievable excitement. I could not stop telling her that I had read _a_whole_book_! That was a big day in my life, for sure.
Post #26,957 by Ashton 2/2/02 5:10:20 AM Reply	Think I know whatcha mean! It was of a higher class of High than when.. managed to get going on a slightly too big bicycle - with no idea how! I was gonna get off it when it stopped = ran out of straight-ahead space. ('Turning' is the advanced course) Hey! the skinned knees didn't even hurt.) But reading... {sigh} Imagine our wasting that ability to Read Anything! - on some #$%$ a-hole's AD for some piece of crap which nobody needed before and still doesn't :( (That's how far: we have fallen from grace) Nice story. Spaceba! Ashton whose first learned phrase was, Tui! grosnya kapitalistichiskaya svinya !! :-\ufffd My multilingual friend coached me on the nuances of pronunciation - it's fun; love the subtlety that can be added by a small inflection -- as when "hurling the above invective"! Next: the Ukrainian version (?) [I live for the day of face-time with Billy + the above] Well.. sorta; he's such a boring little twerp, mute or speaking: lifeless eyes.
Post #27,261 by Arkadiy 2/4/02 5:04:08 PM Reply	Oops. :) Not "gr_o_znaya svinya" (menacing swine) but "gryaznaya svinya" (dirty swine), Otherwise - almost perfect. Spacibo. :)
Post #27,265 by a6l6e6x 2/4/02 5:26:18 PM Reply	Thanks! That helps me as well. Now "gryaznaya", I could almost make sense of. Filthy capitalist swine 'R Us. Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,288 by CRConrad 2/4/02 6:56:20 PM Reply	Obviously: = "Greasy"!
Post #27,346 by Ashton 2/5/02 8:59:35 AM Reply	Toosend tak She did pronounce it as you spell it; think I must have screwed up the 'transliteration' spelling all by myself :( (It's fershure a more effective sounding snip in Russ. than in English words! IMO) Gotta go work on the Cyrillic, next Cheers A. PS Akshully, and if speaking to Billy - the former might be more appropriate an adjective! :-)
Post #26,914 by Another Scott 2/1/02 4:57:57 PM Reply	Earliest reading memory for me... I was walking home with my brother one day and looked up at a triangular yellow sign. I asked him, "What does that sign say?" He said, "Yield." I had an inkling of what it meant as I'd heard the word before. I was 4-ish I guess. I have no idea why that memory has stuck with me so long.... The earliest memory I have of being exicted about reading was in 2nd grade or so when a Bookmobile came to school and I was able to order some obscene number of books on dinosaurs and the like. It was fun. :-) But I don't remember any epiphany about being able to read specifically. I do remember being terribly frustrated on going to a new school in 3rd grade. My class was working on cursive writing and it took me a long time to get the hang of that. :-( Cheers, Scott.
Post #26,958 by Ashton 2/2/02 5:27:16 AM Reply	Looks as if it's just Arkadiy & moi who can pin it to a Day. I suspect we both had most of the pieces in place, no doubt did some deciphering er 'reading' all along. Just didn't realize what had happened - or especially - the implications (wouldn't have known that word, too). (Hmmm for some it might take the form.. 'when did you first find yourself out-of your body? Another thread..) \ufffdthereally, Ashton
Post #27,349 by drewk 2/5/02 9:29:45 AM Reply	Can't remember when I couldn't By the time I was in kindergarten I was reading. By second grade, when they expected everyone to be reading well enough to do book reports -- on the little 25-page children's books -- I was reading Hardy Boys books. Some of my book reports seemed to be longer than the books other kids were reading. The school library ran out of them before I finished the grade. I think I remember my mother saying once that my older brother (two years older) read to me before he was in school, so we both started really early. She doesn't seem to recall how early he started. But I am sure that my parents made a conscious decision not to "baby talk" to us, so our verbal skills were definitely advanced. Fluent conversation with adults by the time I was ~3 or 4. We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists. -- [link\|http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/05/opinion/BIO-FRIEDMAN.html\|Thomas Friedman]
Post #27,384 by wharris2 2/5/02 11:53:31 AM Reply	(wince) baby talking I have an aunt who goo-gooed and baby talked so much that her sons were pretty messed up for a while. If you've never seen the results, it isn't pretty. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #25,983 by JayMehaffey 1/27/02 9:06:11 PM Reply	Get inside their world view The complaints about promoting magic seem very strange on the surface but if you get inside their worldview it suddenly makes a fair degree of sense. People that object that these sorts of books promote magic are almost always extremly conservative christians. These are the sort of people that believe that God takes a direct hand in manipulating this world, that prayers can cause God to take action, and so on. The obvious counter point to that is that they also believe that you can invoke the other power also. And since, in their world view, there are only two powers, if your not invoking the first you must be invoking the second. They think books like this are dangerous for exactly the same reason we would think a book showing kids being raised in a Nazi boarding in a positive way would be a bad thing. The faults of this world view are many, but from their world view it is certainly self consistant and resonable. Jay
Post #26,012 by CRConrad 1/28/02 2:22:40 AM Reply	But even given that, there's no justification... Jay points out: The obvious counter point to that is that they also believe that you can invoke the other power also. And since, in their world view, there are only two powers, if your not invoking the first you must be invoking the second. Naah. Where in the books does it say that it is "the other power" they're calling on? What's to say it isn't "God" that makes their magic work??? Fuck, they claim to believe he actually did it for Moses and people like him -- burning bushes and the like -- so why shouldn't that be what these fairy tales are portraying? Naah, sorry, Jay... But their world view is certainly NOT "self-consistent and resonable"; on the contrary, it IS just stupid narrow-minded bigotry. That's inherent in the concept of religion, I think; it's just that it only comes to the fore this starkly when you overdo it. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #26,019 by wharris2 1/28/02 3:43:47 AM Reply	Rah Rah CR! Stupid narrow-minded bigotry isn't quite descriptive enough, but it'll do. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #26,022 by ben_tilly 1/28/02 7:37:51 AM Reply	Sorry, they are being consistent The Bible warns against false prophets, etc. And, obviously, anyone who who has a world view they don't share can't be prophesying Truth, so they cannot be representatives of God. So in their world there is only one thing to call it. Call it narrow-minded, arrogant, bigoted, etc, etc, etc as much as you want and I will agree. But it is at least a consistent narrow-minded bigoted arrogance. Cheers, Ben
Post #26,222 by Ashton 1/28/02 11:54:21 PM 1/28/02 11:54:48 PM Reply	Either/or, black/white: one could call it er, 'digital' :-\ufffd Edited by Missing User 70 Jan. 28, 2002, 11:54:48 PM EST Expand All History

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