Reading

I just finished Wajahat Ali's fab book Go Back To Where You Came From: And, Other Helpful Recommendations on Becoming American. It's part memoir, part commentary about being Brown and Muslim in America and more. WELL worth the read!

And speaking of reading and America... (great segue, no?)

 According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old - about 130 million people - lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. (source)

What books do sixth graders read? //shrugs// Madeleine L’Engel’s A Wrinkle in Time? L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables? The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman?

The only book I recall reading in sixth grade was George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I understood that it was an allegory. It totally creeped me out and opened my eyes.

I tried reading The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings that year but found it too depressing and never finished.

Yeah, I know, Animal Farm is hardly a happy fairy tale or laugh riot BUT I learned more from it than people are cruel and treat animals like shit.

U.S.-born adults make up two-thirds of adults with low levels of English literacy skills in the United States. (source)

So, we’re not the brightest of bulbs but that comes as no surprise. After all, we put Sarah the Abominable Snowgrifter and Bone Spurs McCon on the international stage. If not for the insane damage they’ve caused, they’d be hilarious. Could an author write two more disastrously incompetent egomaniacs? What damns the US so thoroughly is the multitude of people who idolize these bin brains.

I remember, on one of our trips to Scotland, Jen and I took part in a pub quiz in Edinburgh. There was some question about the constellation Ursa Major. The quizmaster stopped to snarkily explain for the Americans in the crowd that this was The Big Dipper. Gee thanks Mister! The Big Dipper (AKA The Plough), by the by, is just one part of Ursa Major—the ass end to be all specific and shit. I didn’t point this out to him. Far be it from me to interrupt his grinning condescension.

Mind you, we didn’t exactly triumph on the quiz but *cough* let’s not dwell on that. K?

Literacy is defined as not just the ability to read and write but the capacity to use printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential. (source)

The ability to read AND understand what basic shit means and implies makes the difference between a country of sad marks, run by a klan of crooks, scammers and fecal brained haters and a well informed society, democratically governed by intelligent, honest, NOT on the take people.

Reading Is Fundamental and shit.