It’s Christmas Eve and preparations for the big day are in full swing. Some of you probably haven’t purchased all your gifts yet, or like me, had to run to the grocery store for a few important ingredients you suddenly realized you’d forgotten. We certainly can’t have Christmas Eve without cheese ball!
This morning the streets were busy with last-minute people flying here and there. They drove like Mario Andretti, tearing through traffic and spinning into parking spaces as though afraid the last carton of Eggnog would be sold. Personally, I have never tried Eggnog. It’s very far down on my list of things to do—right along with bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge and make homemade Sauerkraut in my bathtub.
As the day wanes and the sun begins to set, perhaps you’re thinking of picking up a good book to read, just until that cheese ball firms up and is ready to serve. Well, lucky for you, Minneapolis tied with Seattle for the number one spot on the list of literate cities in America. St Paul was number four, which isn’t too bad either.
How do they know we the people are reading so much and so well? They don’t. Not really. It’s all about how many libraries we have per capita and number of newspapers sold, etc. In other words, it’s not necessarily whether we actually use our resources, but that we have them available.
I’ve always thought we had way too many library outlets. Yes, reading is good, but in my own personal surveys as I’ve asked around, there are a lot of people who don’t or won’t take the time to crack a book of any kind. Ditto with the newspaper. So, when they say Minneapolis is literate, it really means we pay really high taxes for a literate façade.
Newspapers are going the way of sport teams named after Indians. Does anyone even bother to pick up the Sunday paper for coupons anymore? I think not. St Paul Pioneer Press makes a habit of giving several weeks of papers away for free every couple of months just to keep their printing press well oiled. The Star & Tribune or (hammer and Sickle) as some refer to it, only reprints rhetoric from the New York Times, so why pay for that? CNN already quotes it word for word as though their own reporters don't have time for research. They're probably too busy watching UTube videos.
Truthfully, I think people over thirty read more than under thirty, but maybe that’s because we don’t spend our free time playing video games. College age adults get their news on MTV or SNL—always a very accurate source of what’s going on in the world.
But whether or not you read books or newspapers as religiously as those in Seattle are rumored to, at least you’re literate enough to know a good blog when you see one.
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