So I've had this conversation several times with various friends over the course of the past few months. It generally degenerates into discussions as to the relative hotness/homeliness of British actors and the fact that Keira Knightley is an amazingly gorgeous exception.

The discussion starts out like this: British people are homelier than American ones (to all of my British friends--I apologize for the crassness of this statement. it will perhaps make more sense later). I back up this assertion with a simple test: name three British actors and three British actresses who are unquestionably good-looking. Then name three Americans for each. It's quite simple...British cimena is strangely (in comparison to America's tendency to cast models in ugly duckling roles and the corresponding legitimacy crisis) full of realistically imperfect people. Gap-teeth, normal body weight for women, moles, less-than-impressive hairlines...REAL people!

Imagine my horror, then, at reading the following from Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz.

"Television drives me crazy sometimes because everybody is so good-looking, and yet you walk through the aisles of the grocery stores, and nobody looks like that. Somebody told me that in London people don't judge you as much by the way you look, and I think it is true because late night on PBS they play shows out of England and the actors aren't good looking, and I sit there wondering if anybody else is watching and asking the same question: why aren't the actors in London good looking? And I already know the answer to that question, it is that America is one of the most immoral countries in the world and that our media has reduced humans to slabs of meat."

Crazy! Where does this Miller go off stealing my idea? Ooooh...vindication...someone who had that same idea published it. Hmmmm.....