Journalist Thom Hartmann invokes Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese author of The Art of War, to argue that we must know our enemy first in order to fight him better. This introduces his review of James Howarth and Bruce Lawrence's collaboration entitled Messages of the World, the Statements of Osama bin Laden.
Somehow, this book has disappeared from the shelves of all New York City Barnes & Noble stores, per my brother-in-law. It didn't sell out, but was removed by the store without explanation. Howarth and Lawrence, of course, do not support bin Laden's message and are not trying to get the word out, as it were, but simply want Americans to know what bin Laden says and why he says it.
We might think we know what bin Laden is all about because The New York Times and CNN helpfully summarise his message, but to read his actual words (in translation) provides a far more illuminating picture. Every now and then, according to Hartmann, he makes some interesting, even edifying, points.
As Hartmann writes, "There are no Arab military bases in Texas or California, no Arab contract mercenaries stationed in Britain or France, no Arab fleets in the Gulf of Mexico, no Arab-sponsored schemes of forcible settlement in the Mid-West. All the lines of intrusion and violence historically run in one direction."
Hartmann goes on to describe American and Western imperialism and aggression against Arab states over recent decades, and also makes the argument that if Americans had only read Mein Kampf - instead of removing it from their bookstor shelves in the 1930s, we might have been better prepared to handle Hitler.
Link to Hartmann's review:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/hartmann/010
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Israel Says: No Peace Deal by End of 2008
Contrary to the overhyped reports in our U.S. media about Israelis and Palestinians reaching a final accord by the end of 2008, Israeli officials promised that their government would refuse to compromise on any outstanding issues. Israel is not willing to make a single concession, according to multiple Israeli officials speaking out in Israel.
As Dion Nissenbaum and Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy Newspapers report today, the Palestinians expected that their compromises would be met with reciprocal Israeli compromises. However, an Israeli official today bragged that, "At the end, we arrived at a delcaration that contains almost no Israeli concessions."
Past Israeli leaders like Rabin and Peres assured their nation that negotiations were designed to be drawn out over several decades, by which time "facts on the ground", like Israeli encroachment onto, and confiscation of, Palestinian land would make a Palestinian state impossible.
This has already happened, with the West Bank currently chopped up into over 120 separate, noncontiguous cantons (per UN and Israeli maps available to the public), cut off from each other by illegal Israeli settlements, making a viable Palestinian state infeasible. However, Prime Minister Olmert and the Israeli government want to buy still more time to demolish Palestinian homes and build Jewish-only neighbourhoods in their stead. They want to reduce the Palestinians to less than their current Native American-like reservations.
This is offical Israeli policy, well-documented in statements made by their own leaders in all of their newspapers. Somehow, Americans are unaware of it.
Link to McClatchy article that contains above quote:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/22257.html
As Dion Nissenbaum and Warren P. Strobel of McClatchy Newspapers report today, the Palestinians expected that their compromises would be met with reciprocal Israeli compromises. However, an Israeli official today bragged that, "At the end, we arrived at a delcaration that contains almost no Israeli concessions."
Past Israeli leaders like Rabin and Peres assured their nation that negotiations were designed to be drawn out over several decades, by which time "facts on the ground", like Israeli encroachment onto, and confiscation of, Palestinian land would make a Palestinian state impossible.
This has already happened, with the West Bank currently chopped up into over 120 separate, noncontiguous cantons (per UN and Israeli maps available to the public), cut off from each other by illegal Israeli settlements, making a viable Palestinian state infeasible. However, Prime Minister Olmert and the Israeli government want to buy still more time to demolish Palestinian homes and build Jewish-only neighbourhoods in their stead. They want to reduce the Palestinians to less than their current Native American-like reservations.
This is offical Israeli policy, well-documented in statements made by their own leaders in all of their newspapers. Somehow, Americans are unaware of it.
Link to McClatchy article that contains above quote:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/22257.html
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Fuck Whitey?
"Fuck Whitey." That's the only thing one can think to say, according to one of my readers, after reading about the case of Bisher al-Rawi.
Mr. al-Rawi is a British resident who worked for the MI5 (UK equivalent of the CIA) for several years on anti-terrorism intelligence. American terrorists - I mean, soldiers - kidnapped him from Gambia in 2002 and sent him to Guantanamo, where he spent the next four years. In March 2007 he was released after found not to be related to terrorism in any way.
Mr. al-Rawi's family fled Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime in Iraq in the 1980s. Later, Mr. al-Rawi worked with the MI5 and was given "cast-iron assurances" from the organisation that if he ever needed their help, they would provide it. However, the MI5 did nothing to free Mr. al-Rawi from extraordinary rendition and illegal detention forced upon him by the United States.
This is a man who spied on British Muslims in order to help the British government and keep his nation safe. He was rewarded with four years of imprisonment and torture. What do you make of a people who would do that?
And then they ask, "Why aren't Muzzlims more cooperative with law enforcement agencies? Why don't Muzzlims use their A-rabic speaking skills to help the FBI and CIA?"
Fuck Whitey, indeed. But what does that mean?
Link to shorter article (Associated Press): http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/29/asia/rendition.php#end_copy
Link to longer article (The Guardian): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2137161,00.html
Shorter Article Text Below:
British Iraqi denounces U.S. and British officials after 4 years at Guantánamo
The Associated Press
Published: July 29, 2007
LONDON: A British resident who was seized by the CIA, transported on an "extraordinary rendition" flight and held at a U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sharply criticized U.S. and British officials in an interview published on Sunday.
Bisher al-Rawi, who moved to England as a teenager after fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq, reportedly had served as an intelligence source for MI5, the British domestic spy agency, and had helped it keep track of Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric in London accused of being Osama bin Laden's "ambassador in Europe."
But the MI5 did little to protect Rawi, 39, when the CIA detained him in Gambia in November 2002. He was taken to the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and held there for about a month before being transferred to Guantanámo.
Rawi was released in March, after more than four years in U.S. captivity.
Last week, a British parliamentary report criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for ignoring British concerns and sending Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, another British resident, to Guantánamo.
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament said the incident had "serious implications for the intelligence relationship" between the two countries.
The committee said British spy agencies passed on intelligence about Rawi and Banna on the understanding that no action would be taken by the U.S. authorities.
In an interview with The Observer, Rawi said he was bundled onto one of the illegal "extraordinary rendition" flights chartered by the CIA to take terror suspects to other countries.
He said he was stripped naked by U.S. agents, clad in diapers, a track suit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear earmuffs, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a secret CIA jail in Afghanistan, according to The Observer.
"All the way through that flight I was on the verge of screaming," Rawi was quoted as saying.
"At last we landed. I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't; it was just a refueling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go."
Rawi added that he was kept from moving while on the flight.
"My back was so painful, the handcuffs were so tight. All the time they kept me on my back. Once I managed to wriggle a tiny bit, just shifted my weight to one side. Then I felt someone hit my hand. Even this was forbidden."
He said he was thrown into the CIA's "dark prison," deprived of all light 24 hours a day in temperatures so low that ice formed on his food and water. He was taken to Guantánamo in March 2003 and released this year after a tribunal cleared him of any involvement in terrorism.
Rawi alleged that the CIA told him it had been given the contents of his MI5 file, information he had given his British handlers as their source.
He criticized Britain's spy services for this, saying an MI5 lawyer had previously given him "cast-iron" assurances that anything he told them would be treated in the strictest confidence and, if he ever got into trouble, the MI5 would do everything in its power to help him.
Mr. al-Rawi is a British resident who worked for the MI5 (UK equivalent of the CIA) for several years on anti-terrorism intelligence. American terrorists - I mean, soldiers - kidnapped him from Gambia in 2002 and sent him to Guantanamo, where he spent the next four years. In March 2007 he was released after found not to be related to terrorism in any way.
Mr. al-Rawi's family fled Saddam Hussein's oppressive regime in Iraq in the 1980s. Later, Mr. al-Rawi worked with the MI5 and was given "cast-iron assurances" from the organisation that if he ever needed their help, they would provide it. However, the MI5 did nothing to free Mr. al-Rawi from extraordinary rendition and illegal detention forced upon him by the United States.
This is a man who spied on British Muslims in order to help the British government and keep his nation safe. He was rewarded with four years of imprisonment and torture. What do you make of a people who would do that?
And then they ask, "Why aren't Muzzlims more cooperative with law enforcement agencies? Why don't Muzzlims use their A-rabic speaking skills to help the FBI and CIA?"
Fuck Whitey, indeed. But what does that mean?
Link to shorter article (Associated Press): http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/29/asia/rendition.php#end_copy
Link to longer article (The Guardian): http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2137161,00.html
Shorter Article Text Below:
British Iraqi denounces U.S. and British officials after 4 years at Guantánamo
The Associated Press
Published: July 29, 2007
LONDON: A British resident who was seized by the CIA, transported on an "extraordinary rendition" flight and held at a U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, sharply criticized U.S. and British officials in an interview published on Sunday.
Bisher al-Rawi, who moved to England as a teenager after fleeing Saddam Hussein's Iraq, reportedly had served as an intelligence source for MI5, the British domestic spy agency, and had helped it keep track of Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric in London accused of being Osama bin Laden's "ambassador in Europe."
But the MI5 did little to protect Rawi, 39, when the CIA detained him in Gambia in November 2002. He was taken to the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and held there for about a month before being transferred to Guantanámo.
Rawi was released in March, after more than four years in U.S. captivity.
Last week, a British parliamentary report criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for ignoring British concerns and sending Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, another British resident, to Guantánamo.
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament said the incident had "serious implications for the intelligence relationship" between the two countries.
The committee said British spy agencies passed on intelligence about Rawi and Banna on the understanding that no action would be taken by the U.S. authorities.
In an interview with The Observer, Rawi said he was bundled onto one of the illegal "extraordinary rendition" flights chartered by the CIA to take terror suspects to other countries.
He said he was stripped naked by U.S. agents, clad in diapers, a track suit and shackles, blindfolded and forced to wear earmuffs, then strapped to a stretcher on board a plane bound for a secret CIA jail in Afghanistan, according to The Observer.
"All the way through that flight I was on the verge of screaming," Rawi was quoted as saying.
"At last we landed. I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't; it was just a refueling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go."
Rawi added that he was kept from moving while on the flight.
"My back was so painful, the handcuffs were so tight. All the time they kept me on my back. Once I managed to wriggle a tiny bit, just shifted my weight to one side. Then I felt someone hit my hand. Even this was forbidden."
He said he was thrown into the CIA's "dark prison," deprived of all light 24 hours a day in temperatures so low that ice formed on his food and water. He was taken to Guantánamo in March 2003 and released this year after a tribunal cleared him of any involvement in terrorism.
Rawi alleged that the CIA told him it had been given the contents of his MI5 file, information he had given his British handlers as their source.
He criticized Britain's spy services for this, saying an MI5 lawyer had previously given him "cast-iron" assurances that anything he told them would be treated in the strictest confidence and, if he ever got into trouble, the MI5 would do everything in its power to help him.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thanksgiving in Palestine
It's Thanksgiving Day in America, when Americans gather round to celebrate the myth of a multicultural past of European settlers sitting down to share a meal with exotic indigenous people, when in reality the unsuspecting natives were slaughtered in cold blood and the whitefolk's original Thanksgiving was a celebration of the massacres.
On this Thanksgiving Day in Palestine, farmers are not allowed to share their food with white Europeans. Palestinian strawberry farmers, nearly 5,000 of them, are being denied the right to export their goods to Europe.
People often ask me, "What, in concrete terms, does Israel do to the Palestinians that's so bad?"
Apart from murdering them in their homes, bulldozing their homes, kicking them out of their homes to make room for Jewish settlers, bombing their pre-schools, maiming the old and further maiming the already crippled, using human shields, and violating every norm of human rights known to man and beast, and starving or malnourishing millions of children, they use economics as a weapon. They rob the Palestinians of any and every opportunity to make money lawfully (not to mention the literal robbing committed by Israeli soldiers' walking into Palestinian banks with machine guns and walking out with millions of dollars in cash).
The article below, from McClatchy Washington Bureau, explains in some detail how Israel is crushing the greatest strawberry harvest in Gaza history. Ask yourself how you would respond if someone did this to you for 40 years. Where would you turn? What recourse would you have? Appeals to the international community have failed. The UN, the EU, and the US sit on their hands, occasionally lifting a finger only to harangue you.
CLOSED ISRAELI BORDERS SQUEEZE GAZA FARMERS
By Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers
Wed Nov 21, 1:06 PM ET
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — It's harvest time on the sandy hillsides of the northern Gaza Strip , but about the only one picking strawberries on a recent afternoon was 2-year-old Ala Abu Halima, who quietly smushed berry after berry into his mouth.
The strawberries going into the boy's mouth should have been on their way to upscale markets across Europe . Instead, what was expected to be the largest strawberry harvest in Gaza Strip history may turn out to be one of the worst.
"It's making me crazy," said Ahmed Abu Halima , Ala's father and a farmer. "Every day I come and go, but there's nothing to do."
On the eve of the Bush administration's Middle East conference in Annapolis, Md ., which is scheduled to begin Tuesday with diplomats from as many as 40 countries attending, the Gaza Strip remains under economic lockdown. Virtually nothing is getting in or out as Israel retains a chokehold that's intended to force rulers from the Islamist group Hamas , who control Gaza , into submission. And fears are rising that the anemic Gaza economy will be unable to recover if the crisis doesn't end soon.
On Wednesday, under heavy pressure from European nations and Israeli businesses, the Israeli government announced that it would allow Gaza farmers to export strawberries and flowers— the first real export of Gaza goods in nearly six months. But carrying out the decision could prove impossible.
The main import-export terminal in Gaza remains closed, and Israel refuses to reopen it while Hamas remains in control. It's doubtful that smaller border crossings can handle the volume. Israel also is unlikely to allow any goods out of Gaza without taking time to inspect their contents— a process that could leave the flowers and berries rotting at the border. Since June, exactly seven truckloads of potatoes have left Gaza .
"It's very hard to implement from a security point of view," said Shlomo Dror , a spokesman for the branch of the Israeli military that oversees the nation's borders with Gaza .
At one time, Abu Halima's strawberry fields were expected to become part of the foundation for a rejuvenated Palestinian economy.
After Israel razed its Gaza Strip settlements in 2005, international donors invested millions of dollars in Palestinian farms, which export everything from strawberries to fresh-cut flowers to Israel and Europe . U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used significant political clout to force Israeli leaders to accept a deal that was supposed to open up Gaza's borders.
But then came the Hamas victory in elections and the U.S.-backed international boycott of the Palestinian Authority, followed by prolonged combat over Palestinian rockets fired into Israel , which Israeli forces responded to with air strikes and regular artillery bombardments.
When Hamas seized military control of Gaza last summer, Israel clamped down even harder. Now only medicine and food gets in, and almost no one gets out.
That's meant death to Gaza factories, which rely on raw material to make soda, ice cream, furniture and other goods. Soon, it could cripple Gaza's 4,500 strawberry farmers.
There were high hopes that this year the Gaza farmers would produce the biggest strawberry crop in history. Even though the ban on imports prevented farmers from getting the plastic and pesticides needed to protect their crops, they planted more than 600 acres, which were expected to produce 2,000 tons of strawberries for export.
With the first strawberries of the season ready, however, the borders remain closed.
The same thing already has happened to flowers. Earlier this year, Dror said, Israel approved the transfer of 3 million flower seedlings into Gaza . The flowers were meant for shops in the Netherlands . But the flower growers watched their goods blossom and then rot in the fields.
In a letter to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair , who's now a special Middle East envoy for the United States , Russia , the European Union and the United Nations , leaders of Gaza's farm union warned that continued closure would rob 8,000 Palestinian families of their livelihood and cost them $14 million .
The farm leaders warned that desperate farmers might be forced to look for other ways to make money.
"All the farmers will leave their farms and approach other income means that are meanwhile available in the Gaza Strip , which is terrorism," the union wrote.
Abu Halima isn't ready to embrace such extremes. But the 35-year-old father of seven is growing tired of being caught in the middle of a political feud without end. If the season goes bust, Abu Halima said he would have to sell his tractor to pay his debts.
"I blame them all," Abu Halima said while carrying his 2-year-old through his strawberry fields. " Hamas . Fatah . Israel . All of them. Things here have been bad, but never this bad."
(Special correspondent Cliff Churgin contributed to this report from Jerusalem .)
==END OF MCCLATCHY ARTICLE==
On this Thanksgiving Day in Palestine, farmers are not allowed to share their food with white Europeans. Palestinian strawberry farmers, nearly 5,000 of them, are being denied the right to export their goods to Europe.
People often ask me, "What, in concrete terms, does Israel do to the Palestinians that's so bad?"
Apart from murdering them in their homes, bulldozing their homes, kicking them out of their homes to make room for Jewish settlers, bombing their pre-schools, maiming the old and further maiming the already crippled, using human shields, and violating every norm of human rights known to man and beast, and starving or malnourishing millions of children, they use economics as a weapon. They rob the Palestinians of any and every opportunity to make money lawfully (not to mention the literal robbing committed by Israeli soldiers' walking into Palestinian banks with machine guns and walking out with millions of dollars in cash).
The article below, from McClatchy Washington Bureau, explains in some detail how Israel is crushing the greatest strawberry harvest in Gaza history. Ask yourself how you would respond if someone did this to you for 40 years. Where would you turn? What recourse would you have? Appeals to the international community have failed. The UN, the EU, and the US sit on their hands, occasionally lifting a finger only to harangue you.
CLOSED ISRAELI BORDERS SQUEEZE GAZA FARMERS
By Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers
Wed Nov 21, 1:06 PM ET
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip — It's harvest time on the sandy hillsides of the northern Gaza Strip , but about the only one picking strawberries on a recent afternoon was 2-year-old Ala Abu Halima, who quietly smushed berry after berry into his mouth.
The strawberries going into the boy's mouth should have been on their way to upscale markets across Europe . Instead, what was expected to be the largest strawberry harvest in Gaza Strip history may turn out to be one of the worst.
"It's making me crazy," said Ahmed Abu Halima , Ala's father and a farmer. "Every day I come and go, but there's nothing to do."
On the eve of the Bush administration's Middle East conference in Annapolis, Md ., which is scheduled to begin Tuesday with diplomats from as many as 40 countries attending, the Gaza Strip remains under economic lockdown. Virtually nothing is getting in or out as Israel retains a chokehold that's intended to force rulers from the Islamist group Hamas , who control Gaza , into submission. And fears are rising that the anemic Gaza economy will be unable to recover if the crisis doesn't end soon.
On Wednesday, under heavy pressure from European nations and Israeli businesses, the Israeli government announced that it would allow Gaza farmers to export strawberries and flowers— the first real export of Gaza goods in nearly six months. But carrying out the decision could prove impossible.
The main import-export terminal in Gaza remains closed, and Israel refuses to reopen it while Hamas remains in control. It's doubtful that smaller border crossings can handle the volume. Israel also is unlikely to allow any goods out of Gaza without taking time to inspect their contents— a process that could leave the flowers and berries rotting at the border. Since June, exactly seven truckloads of potatoes have left Gaza .
"It's very hard to implement from a security point of view," said Shlomo Dror , a spokesman for the branch of the Israeli military that oversees the nation's borders with Gaza .
At one time, Abu Halima's strawberry fields were expected to become part of the foundation for a rejuvenated Palestinian economy.
After Israel razed its Gaza Strip settlements in 2005, international donors invested millions of dollars in Palestinian farms, which export everything from strawberries to fresh-cut flowers to Israel and Europe . U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used significant political clout to force Israeli leaders to accept a deal that was supposed to open up Gaza's borders.
But then came the Hamas victory in elections and the U.S.-backed international boycott of the Palestinian Authority, followed by prolonged combat over Palestinian rockets fired into Israel , which Israeli forces responded to with air strikes and regular artillery bombardments.
When Hamas seized military control of Gaza last summer, Israel clamped down even harder. Now only medicine and food gets in, and almost no one gets out.
That's meant death to Gaza factories, which rely on raw material to make soda, ice cream, furniture and other goods. Soon, it could cripple Gaza's 4,500 strawberry farmers.
There were high hopes that this year the Gaza farmers would produce the biggest strawberry crop in history. Even though the ban on imports prevented farmers from getting the plastic and pesticides needed to protect their crops, they planted more than 600 acres, which were expected to produce 2,000 tons of strawberries for export.
With the first strawberries of the season ready, however, the borders remain closed.
The same thing already has happened to flowers. Earlier this year, Dror said, Israel approved the transfer of 3 million flower seedlings into Gaza . The flowers were meant for shops in the Netherlands . But the flower growers watched their goods blossom and then rot in the fields.
In a letter to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair , who's now a special Middle East envoy for the United States , Russia , the European Union and the United Nations , leaders of Gaza's farm union warned that continued closure would rob 8,000 Palestinian families of their livelihood and cost them $14 million .
The farm leaders warned that desperate farmers might be forced to look for other ways to make money.
"All the farmers will leave their farms and approach other income means that are meanwhile available in the Gaza Strip , which is terrorism," the union wrote.
Abu Halima isn't ready to embrace such extremes. But the 35-year-old father of seven is growing tired of being caught in the middle of a political feud without end. If the season goes bust, Abu Halima said he would have to sell his tractor to pay his debts.
"I blame them all," Abu Halima said while carrying his 2-year-old through his strawberry fields. " Hamas . Fatah . Israel . All of them. Things here have been bad, but never this bad."
(Special correspondent Cliff Churgin contributed to this report from Jerusalem .)
==END OF MCCLATCHY ARTICLE==
Monday, November 19, 2007
My Illiterate Nation
Yup, it's official: Americans are illiterate and stupid. You don't have to point to the results of our past two presidential elections to know that; hard data bears it out ever more clearly.
A new, comprehensive government study shows that only 31% of Americans are proficient in reading the English language, and only 28% are proficient in writing it.
Only half of all American adults even read a single book a year.
For the very few people who do read, there are immense benefits. People deemed "literary readers", according to the study, are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work.
Link at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_en_ot/books_nea_study
Full article text from Associated Press below:
GOVERNMENT STUDY: AMERICANS READING LESS
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Mon Nov 19, 12:31 AM ET
NEW YORK - The latest National Endowment for the Arts report draws on a variety of sources, public and private, and essentially reaches one conclusion: Americans are reading less.
The 99-page study, "To Read or Not to Read," is being released Monday as a follow-up to a 2004 NEA survey, "Reading at Risk," that found an increasing number of adult Americans were not even reading one book a year.
"To Read or Not to Read" gathers an array of government, academic and foundation data on everything from how many 9-year-olds read every day for "fun" (54 percent) to the percentage of high school graduates deemed by employers as "deficient" in writing in English (72 percent).
"I've done a lot of work in statistics in my career, and I've never seen a situation where so much data was pulled from so many places and absolutely everything is so consistent," NEA chairman Dana Gioia said.
Among the findings:
• In 2002, only 52 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24, the college years, read a book voluntarily, down from 59 percent in 1992.
• Money spent on books, adjusted for inflation, dropped 14 percent from 1985 to 2005 and has fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s.
• The number of adults with bachelor's degrees and "proficient in reading prose" dropped from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent in 2003.
Some news is good, notably among 9-year-olds, whose reading comprehension scores have soared since the early 1990s.
But at the same time, the number of 17-year-olds who "never or hardly ever" read for pleasure has doubled, to 19 percent, and their comprehension scores have fallen.
"I think there's been an enormous investment in teaching kids to read in elementary school," Gioia said. "Kids are doing better at 9, and at 11. At 13, they're doing no worse, but then you see this catastrophic falloff. ... If kids are put into this electronic culture without any counterbalancing efforts, they will stop reading."
Publishers and booksellers have noted that teen fiction is a rapidly expanding category in an otherwise flat market, but the NEA's director of research, Sunil Iyengar, wondered how much of that growth has been caused by the "Harry Potter" books, the last of which came out in July.
"It's great that millions of kids are reading these long, intricate novels, but reading one such book every 18 months doesn't make up for daily reading," Gioia said.
Doug Whiteman, president of the Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA), said sales of teen books were the strongest part of his business. But he added that a couple of factors could explain why scores were dropping: Adults are also buying the "Potter" books, thus making the teen market seem bigger on paper, and some sales are for non-English language books.
"There are so many nuances," Whiteman said. "Reading scores don't necessarily have any relevance to today's sales."
The head of Simon & Schuster's children's publishing division, Rick Richter, saw another reason why sales could rise even as scores go down: A growing gap between those who read and those who don't. Richter considers it "very possible" that the market is driven by a relatively small number of young people who buy large numbers of books. Test scores, meanwhile, are lowered by the larger population of teens who don't read.
"A divide like that is really a cause for concern," Richter said.
The report emphasizes the social benefits of reading: "Literary readers" are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work.
"This should explode the notion that reading is somehow a passive activity," Gioia said. "Reading creates people who are more active by any measure. ... People who don't read, who spend more of their time watching TV or on the Internet, playing video games, seem to be significantly more passive."
Gioia called the decline in reading "perhaps the most important socio-economic issue in the United States," and called for changes "in the way we're educating kids, especially in high school and college. We need to reconnect reading with pleasure and enlightenment."
"'To Read or Not to Read' suggests we are losing the majority of the new generation," Gioia said. "The majority of young Americans will not realize their individual, economic or social potential."
==END OF AP ARTICLE TEXT==
A new, comprehensive government study shows that only 31% of Americans are proficient in reading the English language, and only 28% are proficient in writing it.
Only half of all American adults even read a single book a year.
For the very few people who do read, there are immense benefits. People deemed "literary readers", according to the study, are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work.
Link at
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_en_ot/books_nea_study
Full article text from Associated Press below:
GOVERNMENT STUDY: AMERICANS READING LESS
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Mon Nov 19, 12:31 AM ET
NEW YORK - The latest National Endowment for the Arts report draws on a variety of sources, public and private, and essentially reaches one conclusion: Americans are reading less.
The 99-page study, "To Read or Not to Read," is being released Monday as a follow-up to a 2004 NEA survey, "Reading at Risk," that found an increasing number of adult Americans were not even reading one book a year.
"To Read or Not to Read" gathers an array of government, academic and foundation data on everything from how many 9-year-olds read every day for "fun" (54 percent) to the percentage of high school graduates deemed by employers as "deficient" in writing in English (72 percent).
"I've done a lot of work in statistics in my career, and I've never seen a situation where so much data was pulled from so many places and absolutely everything is so consistent," NEA chairman Dana Gioia said.
Among the findings:
• In 2002, only 52 percent of Americans ages 18 to 24, the college years, read a book voluntarily, down from 59 percent in 1992.
• Money spent on books, adjusted for inflation, dropped 14 percent from 1985 to 2005 and has fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s.
• The number of adults with bachelor's degrees and "proficient in reading prose" dropped from 40 percent in 1992 to 31 percent in 2003.
Some news is good, notably among 9-year-olds, whose reading comprehension scores have soared since the early 1990s.
But at the same time, the number of 17-year-olds who "never or hardly ever" read for pleasure has doubled, to 19 percent, and their comprehension scores have fallen.
"I think there's been an enormous investment in teaching kids to read in elementary school," Gioia said. "Kids are doing better at 9, and at 11. At 13, they're doing no worse, but then you see this catastrophic falloff. ... If kids are put into this electronic culture without any counterbalancing efforts, they will stop reading."
Publishers and booksellers have noted that teen fiction is a rapidly expanding category in an otherwise flat market, but the NEA's director of research, Sunil Iyengar, wondered how much of that growth has been caused by the "Harry Potter" books, the last of which came out in July.
"It's great that millions of kids are reading these long, intricate novels, but reading one such book every 18 months doesn't make up for daily reading," Gioia said.
Doug Whiteman, president of the Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA), said sales of teen books were the strongest part of his business. But he added that a couple of factors could explain why scores were dropping: Adults are also buying the "Potter" books, thus making the teen market seem bigger on paper, and some sales are for non-English language books.
"There are so many nuances," Whiteman said. "Reading scores don't necessarily have any relevance to today's sales."
The head of Simon & Schuster's children's publishing division, Rick Richter, saw another reason why sales could rise even as scores go down: A growing gap between those who read and those who don't. Richter considers it "very possible" that the market is driven by a relatively small number of young people who buy large numbers of books. Test scores, meanwhile, are lowered by the larger population of teens who don't read.
"A divide like that is really a cause for concern," Richter said.
The report emphasizes the social benefits of reading: "Literary readers" are more likely to exercise, visit art museums, keep up with current events, vote in presidential elections and perform volunteer work.
"This should explode the notion that reading is somehow a passive activity," Gioia said. "Reading creates people who are more active by any measure. ... People who don't read, who spend more of their time watching TV or on the Internet, playing video games, seem to be significantly more passive."
Gioia called the decline in reading "perhaps the most important socio-economic issue in the United States," and called for changes "in the way we're educating kids, especially in high school and college. We need to reconnect reading with pleasure and enlightenment."
"'To Read or Not to Read' suggests we are losing the majority of the new generation," Gioia said. "The majority of young Americans will not realize their individual, economic or social potential."
==END OF AP ARTICLE TEXT==
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