Something depressing, something maybe amusing

[altivo]

The NEA has issued the results of another study on the decline of reading in the US. It's not pretty, nor is it very hopeful.

Summary available here.

Now for the good part, which should get a laugh even though it has a worrisome issue buried in it. On Friday evening at MFF, a small group of us who went out for dinner made a stop afterwards at a Meijer's (big box type store) to pick up some painkiller and cold medicine for a furry friend. While we were in the store, a little girl about five or six perhaps spotted the fact that I was wearing my tail.

I heard her ask, "Daddy, why does that man have a tail?"

Her father answered, "Because he's a fox."

She wasn't satisfied. The next question was, "Daddy, WHY is he a fox?"

I don't think she got any further answer to that, as he quickly steered her away from us. It would just be amusing, except that my tail is a horse tail. Not knowing the difference between a horse and a fox by the look of their tails seems like a pretty bad case of city-itis to me. No wonder we find that people have no respect for wildlife or animals any more.

Comments

thanks for sharing

[vimsig.livejournal.com]

Maybe this reflects what would be the outcome in many first world countries if they made a similar survey - the exception would Finland and Iceland

Re: thanks for sharing

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm very much afraid it does reflect either the current situation or the situation shortly to come in most of them. Finland might indeed be an exception and there may be a few others.

The problem, I fear, is penetration of the "cool media" just as McLuhan predicted. You'll notice that the study found that typical US teens spend 8 to 16 times more of their free time watching television than they do on reading of any sort.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I blame the drop in literacy on the long hours culture. I noticed a sharp drop in the amount of reading I have done (of books, rather than webpages) since I left University, and started the world of work.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

While you and I may feel that pressure, the study in this instance focused heavily on school age kids, mostly under 20. I think the decline in reading is a result of social pressure and distractions that require less mental effort, such as television, movies, and videogames. In the US at least, reading is viewed as nerdish and weird.

[linnaeus.livejournal.com]

Maybe he was using the word "fox" in the slang sense, and was just telling his daughter that he found you attractive? :)

Not sure how even a city dweller could mistake a horse tail for a fox tail, though. Don't people watch cartoons anymore?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Uhh... Have you looked at any "modern" cartoons? They're all full of things like Pokemon and Transformers. You won't learn much about animals from them, or at least, not wildlife type animals. Even Warner Bros. felt it necessary to recast their old standby characters to modernize them. When they got done, the results were hardly recognizable as having any connection to real life animals.

It would be even more amusing if the guy had been finding me attractive, but I'm quite confident that the reverse was true. ;p

[delphinelicorne.livejournal.com]

Now, that still not answers the question: WHY are you a fox? :p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fox. I guess the guy was too near-sighted to tell the difference.

[corelog.livejournal.com]

Of course, you do remember that my wolf tail was called by several different people, "squirrel", "horse", and "rabbit".

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I had forgotten about that. At least a squirrel is an animal they probably have seen live and up close. No one thought you were a fox? Looking only at the tail, I can well believe that many people couldn't tell wolf from coyote from fox, even with the obvious color differences.

In fact, at a historic recreation last summer I stumbled into a tent filled with (ack) fur trading stuff. They had many real tails hanging in bundles, and even I had trouble making that distinction. But a horse looks like almost nothing else, and even if they only ever saw a horse on television westerns, they should be able to see the connection.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Your fortunate you got the kind foxtail comment.

Usually you'd get "He's a bad man, he eats little
girls and probably has been on To Catch A Furry on
MSNBC like we watch every night. Hurry now little
one, lets leave this odd freak to his drug search"

Personally? I'd have told her to pull your tail
and see what you say.

XD

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Please don't reply that you'd just fart.

XD

[schnee.livejournal.com]

She wasn't satisfied. The next question was, "Daddy, WHY is he a fox?"

That's cute. ^_^

But yeah, I agree - how could ANYONE possibly confuse a horse tail and a fox tail? o.o

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The simple answer?

This is the US, where people don't even know the difference between carbohydrates and fats.

[ducktapeddonkey.livejournal.com]

It is really sad to see confirmation that the reading level is dropping. But I couldn't say it's unexpected.

When I was working down south in a town of about 10,000 people, there were something like a dozen liquor stores and not one library. I'm not even sure where the closest one would have been. Sad. But who's to blame? If the people there really wanted one, they'd surely have one.

I can truly say that I was indeed blessed with a grandmother that simply insisted that I must learn to read before I started school. Maybe it was an Italian thing. But she came to stay with us for several months when I was around 4 years old, and by the time she left I could pick up just about any book in the house and read it by myself. All it took was a little dedication (and patience) from one person and I was reading at a practically a high school level when I started kindergarten.

It was unfortunate that other factors detracted from my learning experience in public school. But with the voracious appetite I had for any and all books back then, there wasn't much they could teach me anyway.

I was lucky. Some parents don't even talk to their children. They ship them off to the babysitters, then plunk them in front of the television when they bring them home. Spongebob Squarepants is their tutor now. (Mind you, I kinda like Spongebob. But it is not a show for children)

When I ran into an old co-worker at a recent symposium, he mentioned being at a WalMart in Alabama and hearing "readers" being paged to different parts of the store. Curious about what a "reader" was supposed to be, he asked. He was told that with the 30% illiteracy rate in that area, that they only had so many people on staff at a given time to read product labels and instructions.

Just sad.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh gods. That's the first time I've heard that Walmart story. The scary part is, I have no trouble believing it at all any more.

I have seen too much of that kind of illiteracy now to be able to accept the official claim from Washington that it doesn't exist or is limited only to immigrant populations. The really frightening thing is that I saw it most recently in college students. Yes, bona fide, admitted to an accredited institution of higher education, not even required to take a remedial course. Our standards have sunk so low, and the schools are so desperate to keep their enrollment up and the money coming in, that some of them will accept anything as a student, even if that student is guaranteed to fail within a year.

[doc-moreau.livejournal.com]

WAIT A SEC.

Tivo ...You're a horse?!? :O

...
...lol. Yeah, that's a little bit unsettling, though... you know some people go their whole lives without ever seeing animals other than dogs and cats other than in pictures... I wonder if some of those types of city people end up with their own mythological ideas about what animals are... and i'm certain there are plenty who don't care anything about what they know nothing of.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're exactly correct. These are people who wouldn't eat an egg if they really knew where it comes from...

Why are you a horse?

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

Just why are you a horse, anyway?

Imperator

Re: Why are you a horse?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Because horses have more fun?

Maybe I'm not a horse. Next year I may be a wolf. ;D

Hugs,
Rider

[duraji-synth.livejournal.com]

I didn't even see you at all during the convention! :(

[altivo.livejournal.com]

And I didn't see you. I thought I remembered that you were going to be there, but I never spotted you in spite of the fact that I spent a lot more time standing around in the corridors chatting than I did last year. I also spent a lot more time fursuiting, though, which may have helped hide me from you and certainly limits my ability to see and recognize folks who aren't right next to me.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

In the spirit of illiteracy, here's a link to a video for when you get to work, showing just how little Americans learn in schools these days.

Get some Kleenex before you watch it, this'll draw more tears than Casablanca.

[calydor.livejournal.com]

Epic fail. Here's the link. http://www.slide.com/r/0CaLHJQ7uT9evFaIaSzyw8-AyoJ--2sq

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

That was a pretty cute exchange :)

If she asked that question in London, her dad would definetly know what a fox tail was. There are a lot of Urban foxes :) I think the fox population in ENgland is most concentrated in London.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/foxes-london.html
http://london.metblogs.com/archives/2005/06/urban_foxes.phtml

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Here we have more coyotes in urban settings. I imagine that either the fox or the coyote are adapting to a very similar niche in that environment, though.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

"I see you've been looking at my herd a long while and you look a bit puzzled. Something bothering you?"

"Er.. I was wondering why those cows don't have horns."

"Well, not all breeds of cattle have horns. Some do and some don't. In some breeds, only the bulls, the males, have horns. And sometimes even breeds that do have horns are de-horned when young to make handling a bit easier and to keep them them gouging each other. But the reason these particular cows don't have horns is... they're horses."

[altivo.livejournal.com]

LOL! I believe this completely.

I was a summer camp counselor when I was in college. Most (but not all) of the kids were suburban, as were most of the counselors. We took a couple of busloads to a county fair one day, and about the only thing I remember from that trip is one counselor yelling "Hey, kids, come see the funny dogs." They all galloped off to where she was standing... so they could pet the goats.