Sitting in a quiet downtown diner, local hospital administrator Philip Meyer looks as normal and well-adjusted as can be. Yet, there's more to this 27-year-old than first meets the eye: Meyer has recently finished reading a book.
Yes, the whole thing.
"It was great," said the peculiar Indiana native, who, despite owning a television set and having an active social life, read every single page of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. "Especially the way things came together for Scout in the end. Very good."
Meyer, who never once jumped ahead to see what would happen and avoided skimming large passages of text in search of pictures, first began his oddball feat a week ago. Three days later, the eccentric Midwesterner was still at it, completing chapter after chapter, seemingly of his own free will.
"The whole thing was really engrossing," said Meyer, referring not to a movie, video game, or competitive sports match, but rather a full-length, 288-page novel filled entirely with words. "There were days when I had a hard time putting it down."
Even more bizarre, Meyer is believed to have done most of his reading during his spare time—time when the outwardly healthy and stable resident could have literally been doing anything else, be it aimlessly surfing the Internet, taking a nap, or simply just staring at his bedroom wall.
"It'd be nice to read it again at some point," Meyer continued, as if that were a perfectly natural thing to say.
Originally posted by Clovis
And millions of uninformed votes gives us 2 terms of one of the worst presidents this country has ever known.
It's not just the vote that matters. It's the ideas.
I think that is / was a case of evaluating information in a way that makes your favorite candidate look good. Just like people evaluate sports news in a way that makes their favorite baseball team look good. It might a strange and even somewhat stupid theory, but I see voting not as a factual dispute, but as fanboy-ish cheering.
MrJiveBoJingles
Seriously, though. American political ignorance is mostly an effect of the mindless media of TV (and radio to a lesser extent) dominating the conversation in ways they never have for most other countries. TV and its attendant shallowness and low attention span are not just harmless supplements to literacy and rationality: they are antithetical to them. The near absence of thoughtful political content on TV is not a conspiracy, but a direct result of the nature of the medium and its shaping of popular consciousness.
Clovis
quote:
Originally posted by Meat187
I think that is / was a case of evaluating information in a way that makes your favorite candidate look good. Just like people evaluate sports news in a way that makes their favorite baseball team look good. It might a strange and even somewhat stupid theory, but I see voting not as a factual dispute, but as fanboy-ish cheering.
Well it indeed is a lot of fanboy cheering, and it is like a big team sport.
But the facts of the matter as presented in the article above are pretty hard to dispute.
Incidentally, if you are interested, there is a big article on the history of how Americans have voted in the same issue, unfortunately it looks like its only in the print issue.
i'm totally going to shake my titties when i vote.
XaNaX
quote:
Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
A literary habit puts you out of touch with Joe Six Pack. One 2007 survey said that a fourth of American adults had read no books at all in the last year. Of course, one might hope that those millions of bibliophobes are instead spending their leisure time with newspapers and political magazines, but I have to say I'm skeptical.
I haven't read a book since well before 2007, however I have done plenty of reading in that time. I am typically reading for knowledge rather than leisure and in this day and age by the time a book is written, printed, and distributed the information in it is out of date. I share your skepticisim though, I know plenty of people for who their only source of information is the TV.
ReclusNdangrmnt
quote:
Originally posted by lücid
i'm totally going to shake my titties when i vote.
BTG
quote:
Originally posted by Frenchie
Srsly? Just because you're Canadian shouldn't mean you shut out what happens in the States.
isn't the election on nov 4th?
edit:
i just googled nov. 7 2008.
now i get it.
gears of war 2. fair enough.
Sushipunk
:/
Trance Nutter
Don't we already have about 3 threads (at least) about the election?
Sushipunk
quote:
Originally posted by Trance Nutter
Don't we already have about 3 threads (at least) about the election?
Swamper said that if we reach 10 threads, then we get a Christmas bonus.
