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Literacy is indispensible in info boom

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By TOM JACKSON

tjackson@tampatrib.com

Published: June 24, 2009

The amount of information available to modern-day humans is, to say the least, unprecedented. The extraordinary events of the past week emerging from Iran are only the latest example.

Incredible: An astonishing uprising against a brutally repressive regime reported to the world in real time by demonstrators employing everyday (!) technology connected to a global network. Streaming video. Blog entries. Text messages. And Twitter, the micro-burst social networking tool that previously seemed only the inexplicably popular province of the intensely self-absorbed.

Then the mullahs swipe an election and suddenly the streets, parks and plazas of Tehran are molten with citizen patriots inflamed by Thomas Jefferson's words of liberty and self-determination, set to parchment this very month 233 years ago.

Here in what remains of Jefferson's America, we witness with heart-rending immediacy the vicious depths Iran's thugocracy willingly plumbs to repress countrymen aspiring to the sacred unalienable rights that descend from the Creator.

Desperately seeking HAL

Although videos that go "viral" are the communique of choice in our multimedia world, nothing surpasses the written word for the thoughtful conveyance of stubborn facts and their evolved cousin, truth, as well as the opinions that attempt to illuminate both.

Writing concentrates the mind (present evidence notwithstanding) much the way a grinder hones dull steel. The determined reader experiences a similar phenomenon. We see the images from Iran, charged equally with hope and fright; we skim the tweets for news. Then we turn to the experts, politicians and pundits to read what they think it all means.

Imagine, then, existing in this data-driven world capable of deciphering only those conduits — flickering videos, still photos, audio — that provide the what, the when and the who, but are poor translators of the how and the why. Every significant sequence of events resembles the final half-hour of "2001: A Space Odyssey": baffling.

Cause and effect

Today's latest version of the Congress of The American Dream, the enduring brainchild of east and central Pasco Toys for Tots director Bob Loring, tackles the idea of literacy as a key to success in life. Set months ago, the topic emerged as prescient with last week's report of alarming declines in Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test scores across the county.

Are today's scholars backsliding despite the bewildering array of information sources, or because of them? What are the effects of constant text messaging and tweeting, which revel in shorthand at the expense of standard spelling, and exist for the punch line, but eschew the setup?

The keenly interested are invited to the Barnes & Noble at the Shops at Wiregrass Ranch for today's seminar. Registration is at 8:30 a.m., but I have it on the best available authority that late arrivals will be welcomed.

There's no bad time for improved literacy skills.

Keyword: The Jax Files, for Tom Jackson's bonus insights.

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