laugh or cry...

I am still up to my eyes cataloging the 150 or so items from the auction...nearly done and a post or two to follow on such things. I had to get this little gem up right away. Apparently a recent study has found that "more than half of students at four-year colleges -- and at least 75 percent at two-year colleges -- lack the literacy to handle complex, real-life tasks such as understanding credit card offers." The study examined three different types of literacy: analyzing news stories and prose, understanding documents, and basic math skills (needed, eg, for balancing checkbooks or calculating restaurant tips).

I know we have more important things to do, like tracking down "evil evildoers," but at what point does "our" inability to read/comprehend/calculate become important enough that a fraction of the saber rattling wasted in other areas will be focused on something silly...like schools. More to the point, what are the odds that, by the time the issue becomes grave enough to warrant attention from the emboldened masses it will be far too late? We live in the most driven, passionate, brilliant, apathetic, ignorant and xenophobic country...at least it is never dull.