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         |  PORICK
             from fucking IRELAND on 2008-11-12 19:21 [#02251943] Points: 1911 Status: Lurker
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 | There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as
 the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level.
 Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or
 barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an
 estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are
 supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this
 image-based existence. A third of high school graduates,
 along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a
 book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the
 families in the United States last year did not buy a book.
 
 
 
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         |  spelunker
             on 2008-11-12 19:31 [#02251945] Points: 233 Status: Regular
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 | Pretty much everything you have to say is about stupid negative shit porick. Shit that no one really gives a fuck
 about. We understand there is a lot of stupid people in the
 world, ok?
 
 so fuck off now
 
 
 
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         |  PORICK
             from fucking IRELAND on 2008-11-12 20:04 [#02251949] Points: 1911 Status: Lurker | Followup to spelunker: #02251945
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 | don't be so negative, man 
 
 
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         |  b6662966
             from ? on 2008-11-12 20:34 [#02251950] Points: 1110 Status: Lurker
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 | Look on the bright side Americans, atleast you dont live in the potato and alcoholic shithole they call Ireland.
 
 
 
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         |  rockenjohnny
             from champagne socialism (Australia) on 2008-11-12 21:14 [#02251955] Points: 7983 Status: Lurker | Followup to PORICK: #02251943
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 | reference? 
 
 
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         |  PORICK
             from fucking IRELAND on 2008-11-12 22:00 [#02251957] Points: 1911 Status: Lurker | Followup to rockenjohnny: #02251955
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 | LAZY_TITLE 
 
 
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         |  PORICK
             from fucking IRELAND on 2008-11-12 22:04 [#02251958] Points: 1911 Status: Lurker
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 | oink invites 
 
 
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         |  mimi
             on 2008-11-12 22:14 [#02251959] Points: 5721 Status: Regular
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 | you don't really do justice to chris hedges's very interesting essay by posting a paragraph out of context
 without a link to read the rest.
 
 
 
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         |  PORICK
             from fucking IRELAND on 2008-11-12 22:21 [#02251960] Points: 1911 Status: Lurker | Followup to mimi: #02251959
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 | got to stir up the porick-hatred first to reel them in. 
 
 
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         |  mimi
             on 2008-11-12 22:25 [#02251961] Points: 5721 Status: Regular | Followup to PORICK: #02251960
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 | you would rather trawl around for attention that talk about something interesting, ok
 
 
 
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         |  rockenjohnny
             from champagne socialism (Australia) on 2008-11-12 23:10 [#02251965] Points: 7983 Status: Lurker
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 | things seem hopeless around here. when i take a ride on the train, i have to listen to most kids under 25 use the word
 'like' to join all of their phrases. 'and its just like, i
 was like ..'. the european tourists do it too.
 
 
 
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         |  spelunker
             on 2008-11-13 00:16 [#02251971] Points: 233 Status: Regular
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 | Its just lame, and boring to whine and bitch about human stupidity and ignorance. You think we haven't figured that
 out by now? You think it helps to think about it? Talking
 about it is of no consequence, just like you porick, and the
 rest of us, all of us, of no consequence. The world is how
 it is, and it isn't changing.
 
 
 
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         |  ijonspeches
             from 109P/Swift-Tuttle on 2008-11-13 03:42 [#02251998] Points: 8089 Status: Regular | Show recordbag
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 | ok, xlt if you want to see good news only go watch supreme master television
 
 i for one really dig statistics be they good or bad.
 and poricks post was interesting imo.
 
 
 
 
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         |  cuntychuck
             from Copenhagen (Denmark) on 2008-11-13 04:50 [#02252004] Points: 8603 Status: Lurker | Followup to spelunker: #02251971
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 | lol. 
 
 
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         |  noseburger
             on 2008-11-13 13:25 [#02252108] Points: 1198 Status: Lurker | Followup to PORICK: #02251943
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 | good job we have superior intellects such as you to save us. 
 
 
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         |  SlipDrinkMats
             from Thanks (Bhutan) on 2008-11-13 13:29 [#02252113] Points: 1744 Status: Regular | Followup to ijonspeches: #02251998
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 | What in the name of fuck is that? 
 
 
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         |  ijonspeches
             from 109P/Swift-Tuttle on 2008-11-13 14:13 [#02252125] Points: 8089 Status: Regular | Show recordbag
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 | hehe, its a tv channel founded by some woman, that calls herself the supreme master.
 it shows only news of improvements of any kind
 and (of course) the speeches of the supreme master.
 its broadcatsed in many languages now all over the globe
 via satellite.
 
 
 
 
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         |  cyrstal dude
             from LA all day! (United States) on 2008-11-13 14:20 [#02252128] Points: 900 Status: Addict
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 | Pretty much everything you have to say is about stupid negative shit porick. Shit that no one really gives a fuck
 about. We understand there is a lot of stupid people in the
 world, ok?
 
 so fuck off now
 
 
 
 
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         |  SValx
             from United Kingdom on 2008-11-13 16:24 [#02252171] Points: 2586 Status: Regular
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 | How can there be 42million people in the US but 50million of them read at 4th or 5th grade level? Did I misread that!?
 
 
 
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         |  mimi
             on 2008-11-13 18:11 [#02252217] Points: 5721 Status: Regular | Followup to SValx: #02252171
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 | Yeah, I think so. There are roughly 305 million americans. It's 42 million American adults who cannot read, he says,
 but out of this 42 million, 20 percent have diplomas anyway.
 And then there are another 50 million, apart from the
 illiterate 42 million, who read at a 4th or 5th grade level.
 
 
 
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         |  cyrstal dude
             from LA all day! (United States) on 2008-11-13 18:13 [#02252219] Points: 900 Status: Addict
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 | i never learned to read or write, and i do ok. 
 
 
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         |  ph
             from United States on 2008-11-13 21:51 [#02252247] Points: 411 Status: Regular
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 | assuming the article is actually factual and not made up leverage for certain purposes...
 
 reading and writing should be mandatory to pass third
 grade.
 
 thank the Liberals and No Child Left Behind (with the few
 Republican scum) for endorsing that one.
 
 what I would be interested in knowing is who actually owns
 Alternet. I'm betting it ends in "Soros" and begins with
 "George". just a hunch of mine in regards to who is behind
 all the "donations" from agenda driven non-profits.
 
 but what is funny about all of this, is that the majority
 (of most countries) was not literate for how many thousands
 of years again?
 oh right, since recorded history.
 
 
 
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         |  PORICK
             from fucking IRELAND on 2008-11-13 22:23 [#02252253] Points: 1911 Status: Lurker | Followup to ph: #02252247
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 | but what is funny about all of this, is that the majority
 (of most countries) was not literate for how many thousands
 of years again?
 
 That doesn't make it alright. We're in the 21st century, and
 we're talking about a developed nation which is the world's
 only superpower.
 
 It's inexcusable.
 
 what I would be interested in knowing is who actually
 owns
 Alternet. I'm betting it ends in "Soros" and begins with
 "George".
 
 What does it matter who owns Alternet? Surely it only
 matters who wrote the article, and their reputation, if it's
 the factual quality of the article you're getting at. And as
 it happens, the author wouldn't be someone I'd be
 cynical about.
 
 
 
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         |  mimi
             on 2008-11-13 22:24 [#02252254] Points: 5721 Status: Regular | Followup to ph: #02252247
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 | Actually, there was broad bipartisan support for NCLB. Do you know much about this incarnation about the ESEA? It's
 based around achievement standards, holding schools
 accountable for student achievement by withdrawing federal
 funds, among other "remedies," to "failing schools"--in
 which students do not meet state-determined levels of
 proficiency in reading and math. One of the many, many
 criticisms of NCLB is that schools retain students who they
 deem unlikely to do well on the culture-bound standardized
 assessments. It turns into high-stakes testing for students,
 rather than for schools. While I think NCLB is garbage on a
 number of grounds, you seem to have confused with for
 something else (???) entirely.
 
 
 
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         |  mimi
             on 2008-11-13 22:27 [#02252255] Points: 5721 Status: Regular | Followup to mimi: #02252254
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 | I should say not all schools retain low-achieving students (as if beating them over the head with the exact same thing
 twice is going to do them any good), but there is a perverse
 incentive to do so.
 
 
 
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         |  goDel
             from ɐpʎǝx (Seychelles) on 2008-11-13 23:28 [#02252264] Points: 10240 Status: Regular
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 | haven't read the articles - can't be arsed - but presenting figures without information on the development of these
 numbers over time is pretty useless.
 
 maybe these figures present a relative all-time high
 (probably not though), but the point is: who knows? with the
 'right' context these figures could be something you should
 be proud off. like the illiteracy wrt to the national debt
 per capita is way lower wrt to its third world counterparts.
 that'd be good, right?
 
 
 
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         |  larn
             from PLANET E (United Kingdom) on 2008-11-14 00:02 [#02252270] Points: 5476 Status: Regular | Show recordbag
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 | no no it's fine, they can just lower the pass mark a little, then they will achieve a better grade, see?
 
 
 
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         |  oxygenfad
             from www.oxygenfad.com (Canada) on 2008-11-14 02:51 [#02252281] Points: 4442 Status: Regular
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 | And the rest are memorizing Ulysses, asking their mothers to buy more of their favorite juice, and are most likely
 sexually deprived by virtue of their "intellectual
 pursuits". A once unused family weight room , now a cerebral
 snipers foxhole for our cyber antagonist to shoot the
 sitting ducks in an agora of sub culture avatars resembling
 people of a world they will never visit nor understand. The
 previous run on sentence infuriates the Manchild into a fit
 of melancholy pretentiousness.
 
 
 
 
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