Archive for the ‘literacy’ Category

On the rhetoric surrounding Tim Russert’s death one year ago

Posted on August 4th, 2009 by by Administrator

The rhetoric surrounding the death of Tim Russert did not take me off guard. Though saddened and admittedly prayerful for the loss of his humanity on our fair planet, I questioned the repeated encomiums (particularly those issuing from other NBC colleagues of Mr. Russert’s from CNBC (the financial incarnation) and MSNBC (the political version) marked [...]

Language Truth & Logic, and the Essay Form

Posted on July 9th, 2009 by by Administrator

f we are simply a nation which absorbs information through sound bites (see below) and have become “visual junkies” deficient in our abilities to read information in full context, how can we be literate users of information in the world-at-large? That is, how can we be good consumers in a consumer marketplace, or more importantly, [...]

It’s between cable & telecom, and “paramount” & “tantamount”

Posted on June 27th, 2009 by by Administrator

David Lazarus in a recent Consumer Confidential column in the Los Angeles Times quotes Michael Shames of the Consumer Action Network on the “duopoly* of “two titans battling for the hearts, minds and wallets of consumers.” The two competing titans are posed as cable versus telecom, sort of like Coca Cola versus Pepsi Cola.
Lazarus writes [...]

If you can’t write, how can you be a good consumer or voter?!

Posted on June 23rd, 2009 by by Administrator

The U.S. Department of Education has found in its “Nation’s Report Card” (National Assessment of Educational Progress) that only in the City of Cleveland have students scored worse in writing skills than Los Angeles.
Nationally, “private school students scored higher than public school students, and Catholic school students scored the highest of all.” Perhaps most interestingly, [...]