Saturday: September 15, 2007 : 2:09 P.M.

I have two hobbies at work: eavesdropping and reading the paper. Today I choose the later. In between bites of free bagels I read an article in the USA today discussing literacy rates. The articles bold headline immediately grabbed my attentions – “1 in 4 Americans Do Not Read”. The article really had nothing more to communicate than it’s statistics and those are rather sobering. Not only did 1 in 4 Americans not read a book last year, the religious population of the country read significantly less than it’s “secular” counterparts. Being a person whose global consciousness is awakened, the privilege of reading is never something I will take lightly again. To choose not to read – to disregard that which is made available to us simply because of our place of birth – is to spit in the face our brothers and sisters across the world.

Reading is a revolution. Reading makes the powerless powerful. If one possesses the ability to read and the resources to obtain materials (a privilege not possessed by many), every door of knowledge is opened. And these doors are open for free. Knowledge that has taken years, yes even lifetimes, for one to achieve are given away – all through reading. It is my conviction that any change will be led by the literate. It is injustice that this privilege is not made available to all…and even more saddening that it is ignored by most.