Orwell on the Rise

As the seconds tick away on the Bush II presidency, it's good to know that his administration's Alice in Wonderland interpretation of facts hasn't given up the ghost. The latest example is the NEA's report Reading on the Rise.

The report trumpets the increases in number of people who read in the US (the First Lady wouldn't have it any other way). However, a closer look at the data makes me wonder.

For instance, they separate readers based on whether they read "literature" or not. Huh? Who gets to decide what's "literature"? And, what does it matter what people read (more about that in a minute). In fact, if you go to page 10 of the link above, you'll see that book readers (book reading defined in the survey as something not required by work or school) have actually declined since the last survey. Funny how that's not the headline of the report.

The report occasionally mentions online reading, but I doubt that they have the longitudinal data to draw any conclusions. Good luck to the researchers in classifying what people read online.

The snobbishness of the study kills me. Why differentiate between "literature" and book reading? Maybe the books being read today will be considered tomorrows literature? I think they found the one positive result (people are reading more fiction in school!) and cherry picked it to make themselves look good. Like all other Shrub departments, don't let the facts get in the way of your agenda.