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Text Teens Into Reading

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By JACK HARRIS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 27, 2008

With school now under way and educators facing the daunting task of trying to capture the attention of their sometimes reluctant charges, I think I've come up with a bold step that might lead to a dramatic increase in the amount of reading that teenagers do.

We must translate all of our textbooks and reading material into a language with which they are familiar. We must start publishing in "text" language. This is something with which they are so facile and so comfortable. Reading will become as natural as ... well ... text messaging.

Imagine how attractive a history book might be with Lincoln's pièce de resistance:

"4 score n 7 yrs ago our 4fathers brot 4th on this cn10nt....".

Or how about an English class and the Hamlet soliloquy: "2b or not 2b, that is the QstN..."

Or maybe the famous Kennedy quote: Ask not wt yr cntry cn do 4 U, but wt U cn do 4 yr cntry..."

You get the idea. It's a language that kids today can understand and embrace. And it would mean that the term "text" books would certainly live up to their names.

Everywhere But Tampa

I read this week that they just had a topping-out ceremony on the construction of the Trump Tower and Hotel on Wabash Avenue in Chicago, which at 92 stories will make it the second-tallest building in the United States behind the Sears Tower, also in Chicago.

Trump also has eponymous condos and hotel towers adjacent to Central Park, and soon to be in SoHo, as well as in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and soon in Ft. Lauderdale, New Orleans, Waikiki, Toronto, Panama, Baja, Mexico, and, believe it or not, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Frankly, if Baja can support a Trump Tower, it's a little embarrassing that we couldn't make one happen here. Maybe we need to give it a little more distinction, since Donald Trump has such narcissistic tendencies. We'll call it the world's shortest hotel ... The Trump Dump.

Early Voting Debacle

I had the opportunity to participate in early voting last week at the Jan Kaminis Platt Library on Manhattan Street in Tampa. I was accompanied by my running mate - that would be my wife - and there were eight people to assist us in making sure we followed all the proper procedures and registered our preferences.

The original intent of the early voting when it was initiated by the Legislature in 2004 was to make it more convenient for the electorate so that more people vote. For the most part, it has not worked. The net result has been almost no increase in turnout.

Personally, I long for the days when we all went to the polling place on Election Day, amid the excitement of campaigners with their signs, media with their exit polls and lines of folks eagerly waiting to exercise their most precious right, selecting those who lead us.

Jocularly,

Jack

Jack Harris co-hosts AM Tampa Bay from 6 to 9 weekday morning on WFLA-

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