Reading???

I ran across an interesting literacy statistic the other day. “The average American annually spends 10 times more on what he puts on his head than what he puts into his head.”

Here are some other interesting thoughts.

* If you read just one book a month for 12 straight months, you will be in the top 25 percentile of all intellectuals in the world.

* If you read five books on one subject, you are one of the world's foremost leading authorities on that subject.

* If you read just 15 minutes -- every day for one year -- you can complete 20 books.

It doesn’t sound like it is hard to be well read. Of course 15 minutes with Superman comic books is probably not what the creator of those comments had in mind. Reading isn't expensive either. you can read great writing for free and even some not so great more resent works for practically nothing.

Yes, the internet is one source. I like the Project Gutenberg site. It was the first producer of free electronic books and they have over 25,000 free books. They are classics that are beyond copyright protection so you can get anything from Plato to Shakespeare. Yes, that’s fiction and non-fiction. They even have books in over fifty different languages if you are so incline to read something in Gamilaraay or in Swedish.

There is your local library. It may seem old fashion but, it is still nice to have a warm dry place to go with friendly knowledgeable people around to help you find a great read and actually sit quietly and leave the now behind for a while! How "novel" is that? I always enjoyed sitting in a comfy chair in a quiet corner of the library to read feeling almost decadent with the luxury of it all.

There are lots of media to use too. I’m just old fashioned enough to still prefer a book. But I have adjusted to reading on screen. Hard to write notes in the margins though. LOL

It is a marvel of our times that through public education we have so many writers and writing opportunity. Yes, a lot is junk. I remember a line from a Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in which the crew travels back in time to San Francisco of the 1990s, Cpt. Kirk describes the era to Spock as a time known for it’s trashy novels and cheap architecture. He names a few writers known for their sex scenes and overly simplified plots ( I think he mentions Danielle Steele). We also have far easier access to good writers and good writing on any subject – fiction or not – you could possibly want.

Is it really so difficult to read fifteen minutes once a day? How about reading to your kids before they go to bed? The parental responsibility to enhance children’s potential is so easy to do this way and reaps so many benefits just by sharing a little time reading. I loved reading Uncle Remus and all those Brer Rabbit tales to my kids.

It's all about education, stupid.

When I read this article I felt I could replace the word "Florida" with just about any state in our nation and most assuredly I could pick any southern state. Just image if we spend the kind of money on our educational system that we wasted in Iraq this last 5 years. Our return on investment would be so much more rewarding.

Our reputation for flakiness is at stake
Posted on Sun, Feb. 17, 2008

By CARL HIAASEN
In a move that could endanger Florida's flaky backwater reputation, the state Board of Education is poised to endorse the teaching of evolution as a science.
This is a dangerous idea -- not the presentation of Darwinism in schools, but the presentation of Florida as a place of progressive scientific thought.
Over the years the Legislature has worked tirelessly to keep our kids academically stuck in the mid-1950s. This has been achieved by overcrowding their classrooms, underpaying their teachers and letting their school buildings fall apart.
Florida's plucky refusal to embrace 21st century education is one reason that prestigious tech industries have avoided the state, allowing so many of our high-school graduates (and those who come close) to launch prosperous careers in the fast-food, bartending and service sectors of the economy.
By accepting evolution as a proven science, our top educators would be sending a loud message to the rest of the nation: Stop making fun of us.
Is that what we really want?
On Tuesday, , the Board of Education is scheduled to vote on a proposed set of new standards that describe evolution as the ''fundamental concept underlying all of biology'' and ``supported by multiple forms of scientific evidence.''
Certainly that's the position of every reputable academic group on the planet, including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Science Teachers Association.
But forget the fossil record, OK? Forget DNA tracing. Forget the exhaustively documented diversification of species.
This battle is about pride and independence; about boldly going against the flow, in defiance of reason and all known facts.
In recent weeks, the Board of Education has been swamped by e-mails and letters from religious conservatives who advocate teaching creationism or intelligent design, and who believe evolution should be discussed strictly as a ``theory.''
For those who wish to see Florida standing still, if not sinking, this is a fantastic strategy. In fact, it could be expanded to revise other educational doctrines.
Let's start teaching gravity as a ''theory,'' too. And don't forget the solar system -- what proof do we really have, besides a bunch of fuzzy, fake-looking photos, that Mars really exists?
At a recent public hearing in Orlando, opponents of evolutionary teaching rose one by one to assail the proposed curriculum standards. Some had traveled all the way from the Panhandle, and were, like presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, exclusive believers in the Bible's version of creation.
According to The St. Petersburg Times, one speaker compared Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary science, to Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, well-known tyrants and mass murderers. Such loony gibberish is actually good for the anti-evolution crusade, providing the best evidence that the human species has not advanced one iota in the last 100,000 years.
With this in mind, several school boards in North Florida have passed resolutions opposing the teaching of evolution as fact. True, students in those same districts have produced some of the worst science scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, but who needs Newton or Copernicus when you've got the Corinthians?
The notion that humans descended from apes has never been popular among fundamentalists, but what of the apes themselves? Given the gory history of Homo sapiens on Earth, no self-respecting chimp or gorilla would claim a genetic connection to us.
The outcry against evolutionary instruction has been so heated that 40 members of the committee responsible for the new science standards felt compelled to sign a letter stating, ``There is no longer any valid scientific criticism of the theory of evolution.''
Caving in to groups that question the soundness of science, the letter warned, ``would not only seriously impede the education of our children but also create the image of a backward state, raising the risk of Florida's being snubbed by biotechnology companies and other science-based businesses.''
Nice try, pinheads, but there's no sin in being a slightly backward state with extremely modest expectations for its young people. That's been the guiding philosophy of our tightwad lawmakers for years, and the degree to which they've succeeded is illuminated annually in the FCAT charade.
If snubbing is to be done, Florida should be the snubber, not the snubee. Keep your elite biotech payrolls up North and out West -- we've got hundreds of thousands of low-paying, go-nowhere jobs that require little training and minimal education.
Should state officials vote this week to put evolution on the teaching agenda, it will be a small yet radical step out of Florida's backwarding-thinking past.
Resistance is not futile. We've worked hard to keep ourselves so far behind in education, and we must stay the course.