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August 23, 2007

The horror! The horror!*

In our never ending journey into the morass of American culture, that Associated Press reports today that one in four Americans didn’t read a book last year. It only gets worse when you realized that that really means one in four Americans admits he didn’t read a book last year.

My first thought was actually that I shouldn’t worry too much. Universal literacy is a pretty new concept historically speaking, and didn’t we do alright? I mean we did create the underpinnings of western culture. In fact, things were pretty good as long as you weren’t a peasant, slave, serf, leper, woman, child, indentured servant, foreigner, or Jew.

Oh yeah. That's what happens when you don't have an educated democratic populace.

In that light, this line made a lot more sense:

There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.

Yep. That sounds about right.

* - One in four Americans doesn’t get the reference.

Posted by Drew at August 23, 2007 06:07 PM