My friend Hannah has an excellent new blog, called Plausible Story.
Recent news indicates that 1 in 20 Americans is illiterate in English, despite increasing college graduation rates. I suggest Americans might be innumerate as well – 1 in 20 is 5%, and if people understood that 5% of the country could not read or write simple English, we would have a good understanding of why the President can repeatedly and without apology break the law, and violate the constitution, and claim that he will continue to do so, while most people just go Shopping. Perhaps worth a comparison to other fascist and totalitarian propaganda efforts. Bonus link for extra credit reading.
The reason I bring all this up is that Hannah is highly literate, writes really well, and her blog’s premise – “Where stories might even be true” – intersects nicely with the state of “news” today. Go take a look; if you like what you see, subscribe – and more importantly, leave a comment which will serve to encourage her! (FYI: It’s a TypePad blog, and they’ve had some techical issues recently, in case you see odd behavior over there.)
December 18, 2005