The latest craze: children reading to shelter pets.

It's a win-win situation that's catching on lately: children practicing their reading skills on animal shelter dogs and cats. Children develop their reading abilities, all while Fido and Mr. Whiskers receive some attention while cooped up day after day. The added incentive? Fido can't offer feedback.

One of the latest videos to come out is from the Humane Society of Missouri showing kids reading during the recent holiday season.

The dog at the 0:11 mark seems deeply intrigued by the book's gripping narrative. The drama! The suspense!

And the dog at the 1:36 mark? He's had enough, thanks.

A man, an easel, some chalk, and all of the day's news.

In downtown Monrovia, Liberia, Alfred Sirleaf prepares a chalkboard with the latest local, national, and international news for residents to peruse. Sirleaf defines his reader base simply as the literate, semiliterate, and illiterate--with photos included on the chalkboard for those who cannot read, and Sirleaf or an assistant offering aid to those struggling to understand.

The board goes by a simple name: The Daily Talk. In a nation with a poor telecommunications network and struggling educational infrastructure, Sirleaf's endeavor is more than a conversation. It's a daily lifeline, a knowledge, a need.

Andrew Luck has a book club. Wait--what?

"So when I read, I feel it tingle up in here."

For those of you not the slightest bit athletically inclined or aware of professional sports, Andrew Luck is a superstar NFL quarterback who plays for the Indianapolis Colts. He's like Peyton Manning without the Papa John's endorsements and noodly throwing arm or Tom Brady without the Brazilian supermodel wife and illicit air pump equipment. Andrew Luck is that good.

This makes it all the more surprising that Andrew Luck has started a book club. Athletes read? you might ask--and I know, I'm as startled as you by this revelation. But starting this month, Luck will introduce two books--one for "Rookies" (books for kids and teens) and one for "Veterans" (or, as he describes, "more seasoned readers")--as part of an online book club. During the NFL season he plans to have guest athletes hold down the fort with their suggestions while he plays until the Super Bowl has come and gone.

If you're wondering what the gimmick is, well, it seems to be a ploy to read. That's the gimmick. Otherwise, there isn't one. No cross-promotion, no alliance with BIG BOOKSTORE, no advertisements, nothing. If this book club became any more innocent there'd be a recommendation for the Poky Little Puppy. (Get on it, Luck.) He seemingly just wants people to read.

Listen, Andrew. Peyton Manning didn't build his brand on a silly thing like books. Those can be had free at a library! FREE! Manning built his brand on Papa John's, Mastercard, Buick, Gatorade, Reebok, Sprint, Nationwide, ESPN, DirectTV, and little Sally's lemonade stand down the street. At no point was there a free communal shoutout to some favorite John Grisham thriller.

The list about America's most and least literate cities has little to do with actual literacy rates.

Central Connecticut State University has come out with their annual list of most and least literate American cities, a collection of urban centers ranked according to...uhh...how often they use a Kindle? How often they rent books from a library? How many bookstores they have? Newspaper circulations? College degrees attained?

In essence, the focus is supposed to be on how a city reads, not if the city can actually read. If you're illiterate, yet borrowing books from the library, you're considered literate based on this study.

The lists:

Most:
1.  Washington, D.C.
2.  Seattle, WA
3.  Minneapolis, MN
4.  Atlanta, GA
5.  Pittsburgh, PA
6.  Denver, CO
7.  St. Paul MN
8.  Boston, MA
9.  St. Louis, MO
10.  San Francisco, CA


Least:
1.  Bakersfield, CA
2.  Corpus Christi, TX
3.  Stockton, CA
4.  El Paso, TX
5.  San Antonio, TX
6.  Anaheim, CA
7.  Chula Vista, CA
8.  Fresno, CA
9.  Aurora, CO
10.  Mesa, AZ


Clearly, Alabama needs to step up its game if the rest of America is going to keep mocking it.





Also, California being an illiterate mess? It might be because of state budgetary issues, where state funding has crippled local libraries, shuttering them recently. That hardly makes millions of Californians crippled readers.

New York Times Debate: Can Writing Be Assessed?

The Times asked a variety of experts (middle school teacher, novelist, professor, etc. yada, same old), and the verdict?

We're all illiterate and hjgkvgc rrcktck uucjb. God help us all.

Children read books to homeless cats.

At the Berks Country (PA) Animal Shelter, children between between grades 1-8 have taken up reading to the shelter's homeless cats, all part of a reading program called Book Buddies.

The program started around August 2013, when a then-10-year old son of the shelter's coordinator, Kristi Rodriguez, was having trouble reading. She recommended he read to the cats. As Rodriguez told TIME, "The cats aren't going to care if you mess up."







From this sprung up the program. Now participating children can earn rewards for reading often to their feline friends, earning small prizes with every five books they complete.

According to the Berks County Animal Shelter website, the benefits work both ways. "The program will help children improve their reading skills while also helping the shelter animals. Cats find the rhythmic sound of a voice very comforting and soothing."

You'll never seen Mr. Whiskers more comatose than when you read a little Virginia Woolf to him, trust me on that one.




photos: Berks County Animal Shelter

World's richest woman is also part-time poet.

The world's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, recently said that in order to become a millionaire you simply need to work a lot. Which makes total sense when you consider she inherited $75 million to start her own empire.

She also writes poetry--poetry as amazingly crafted as you'd imagine a fantastically wealthy iron ore mining magnate to jot down in a moment of artistic inspiration--AND she had it engraved on a plaque which was placed on a 30-ton iron ore boulder. Top that, Emma Lazarus.



Let's get to the magic. I'm tingly with excitement:

Our Future
The globe is sadly groaning with debt, poverty and strife
And billions now are pleading to enjoy a better life
Their hope lies with resources buried deep within the earth
And the enterprise and capital which give each project worth
Is our future threatened with massive debts run up by political hacks
Who dig themselves out by unleashing rampant tax
The end result is sending Australian investment, growth and jobs offshore
This type of direction is harmful to our core
Some envious unthinking people have been conned
To think prosperity is created by waving a magic wand
Through such unfortunate ignorance, too much abuse is hurled
Against miners, workers and related industries who strive to build the world
Develop North Australia, embrace multiculturalism and welcome short term foreign workers to our shores
To benefit from the export of our minerals and ores
The world's poor need our resources: do not leave them to their fate
Our nation needs special economic zones and wiser government, before it is too late


Well, that was dreamy.

The poem's irregularity reminds me of Ogden Nash's poetry, while the inability to understand grammar reminds me of an illiterate 5th grader.

And it's safe to say 5th graders are among the world's greatest poets.





photo: The Telegraph

Today is National Bookmobile Day.

Yup. There is such a thing.

I remember my hometown's bookmobile making rounds throughout the city when I was a wee lad. It looked like an abused school bus that just got out of a stint in rehab. Like it had scabies. Like a bad imitation of a predator van, minus the Dateline NBC camera crew in tow.

I never went inside that bookmobile. I like to think this is why I haven't needed therapy in adulthood.




(That's an old-timey photo from Nashville, TN, showing their bookmobile. Their bookmobile looks like it belongs to a prison, and the warden will walk out, sunglasses on, rifle over his shoulder, telling you in a thick, southern accent that what we have here is a failure to communicate.)

Scrabble now making you question reality.

Here I was thinking that Scrabble was for the literate crowd, and it turns out regular Scrabble is just some sort of anti-literature, authoritarian syndicate mind screw. Because, otherwise, what's the point of this new version?

According to the thelibraryshop.org, this new Scrabble: Book Lovers Edition has:

• Traditional Scrabble game board customized with a literary theme.
• 26 Plot Twist Cards provide directives for added game play and the opportunity to enhance scoring.
• Players earn bonus points for book related words.

Now...............aren't words generally related to books? Like all those pages of ink mean something, right?

Illiterate, mid-90s old man learns to read, writes book, and shames all of our lazy asses.

According to a story from USAToday, Jim Henry was a lobsterman most of his life. And like many young people who came of age during the Great Depression, he was forced to work to support his family.

Pulled out of the third grade before he had a grasp of reading, he spent the next 85+ years faking his ability to read around friends and family.

By the time he retired from the lobster trade in his mid-90s, Henry decided it was time to learn how to read. And learn he did. And write, too. The one/two combo has led Henry to write down the interesting vignettes from his very, very long and industrious life--which he's had published now. In a Fisherman's Language came out late last year.

Now 98 years old, and an expert reader for about three years, Henry is emotional. "I'm so happy, I catch myself crying," he told USAToday.

Makes you feel a little lazy now by comparison, eh? I feel like a total deadbeat.



photo: USAToday

World Book Night: 100 Greatest Books...as selected by you.

Well, not really. More like "selected by you and an undetermined number of other people across the globe [with a decidedly British flavor]."

World Book Night will be held April 23, 2012, to coincide with...umm, well it's going to parallel the, uh, the...um. April 23 is the date when the, uh...

I got nothing. I don't know why the organizers picked that date. Earth Day? Isn't that in late April? Yeah, let's go with that. When you think about the sheer amount of trees that give up their lives every day to become a book, it only makes sense to align yourself with an environmental cause. It's called synergy, folks. It's the Circle of Life! Strike up the Elton John!

Plymouth, MA, high school diplomas just a bit off on the spelling.

263 high school seniors in Plymouth, MA, graduated the other day. And all 263 diplomas given out had two misspellings within the text praising the student for being so bright and astute and all-around intelligent.

I like to imagine that the school was trying one last subtle test to see if the kids learned anything.

I think it's safe to say at this point that Washington, D.C., is functionally illiterate.

At least when it comes to sports and uniforms--no matter what studies show.

For the third time we have a report of some team in the DC area misspelling its own name. The guilty party this time? Theodore Roosevelt High School. In reality, can we blame a school for misspellings? After all, among other things, they're in school to learn all the the wonderful possibilities vowels offer.

The school goes by the nickname "The Rough Riders"--taken from Teddy Roosevelt's own nickname. Their uniforms now read "Ryders" for reasons the school blames on the uniform vendor.

The school complained to the vendor, who replied that "Ryder" was the cool way to spell it.

Because, you know, telling a school to spell something the cool way is always going to fly.



Photo: Washington Post

Washington, DC, is most literate city in America, says study that blames you for not reading the newspaper.

Did you know there is no universal, worldwide definition for what constitutes literacy? It's pretty much up to any country, organization, university, library, or Oprah's book club to decide if you qualify as literate. Don't believe me? The CIA (yes, that CIA) even states as much in their own literacy database.

That doesn't stop Central Connecticut University (potential school slogan: "Centrally located on your drive between Boston and New York City!") from proudly declaring that Washington, DC, is the most literate city in America. This is a shocking development, considering that only recently it was pointed out that Washington, DC, area sports teams are confused by the awesome complexities of how vowels work.

Central Connecticut University based their study on very high-minded reasoning:


1.) Newspaper circulation (hahaha...ha...sorry)
2.) Number of bookstores
3.) Library resources
4.) Periodical resources
5.) Educational attainment
6.) Internet resources.

CCU says this measures a society's "use of literacy." It's very noble of them to use newspaper circulation then. Very old-timey and nostalgic if you ask me. You half expect a reporter named Scoops McGee wrote this story using his typewriter and then transmitted it via Western Union Telegraph.

Washington, DC, is literate...STOP.
Central Connecticut University cites newspapers...STOP.
FDR promotes war bonds to finance push in Pacific...STOP.
Greta Garbo becomes more reclusive by the day...STOP.