[weegee]

This smells of more of the “they don’t read” BS they’ve been pumping for 8 years now.

She does not read for PLEASURE. She has a 24 hour job.

I have time to kill waiting in lines, while eating, etc. I am generally reading through 2 or 3 books at any point in time as well as a periodical or two. But I read a lot of articles online too. At a point in time, you have to put the “text” down and relate with people.

You also have to give your eyes a rest.

It is a curious form of attack to take on Condi considering our own displeasure with her bowing to antisemitic Islamic supremacists (making Jews use a separate entrance and then telling the muslims that you understand how they feel???).

[ECM]

I have time to kill waiting in lines, while eating, etc. I am generally reading through 2 or 3 books at any point in time as well as a periodical or two. But I read a lot of articles online too. At a point in time, you have to put the “text” down and relate with people.

Agreed 100% (my reading habits, in quantity, are similar to yours.) This person is completely out of touch with reality because books are, apparently, the only thing with which she can relate.

[kalee]

(making Jews use a separate entrance and then telling the muslims that you understand how they feel???).

What is this? I must have missed something.

[discostu]

Last 8 years, heck I’ve been seeing the doomsday cries about people not reading since Nixon was in the White House.

The fact is that people have a lot of options for entertainment in this world, and reading is one that requires the most commitment of time and emotional involvement. So it’s not going to be really high on the mass appeal list because the masses are generally looking for casual attachment to their entertainment. They want to watch a show for an hour, or a game for 3, or play a CD for 1, or noodle around with a video game for 2, and then move on.

Now Americans have gotten a little more patient with their entertainment lately, the biggest sign being the rise of the arc TV show and the fall of the episodic show. But they still like it in clean hour increments that they can walk away from for a week.

The good news is though that it really doesn’t matter. There’s 300 million of us, so even if only 10% of us read (which is smaller than most of the estimates I see) that’s still a target audience of 30 million people, which is a pretty big audience and a lot of money.