Posted on July 28, 2008 - by deCadmus

Various and Sundry

• It was only a matter of time before Rupert Murdoch’s poisoned hand of glory made itself manifest on the pages of the Wall Street Journal. I shouldn’t have imagined, however,  it would appear so blatantly, so soon. Talking Squid takes ‘em on in a blog ditty entitled, Sanity Finally Snaps at Wall Street Journal.
• It’s clear to me the Internet has brought about changes in my own reading habits, and my reading habits go back, er…  a ways. (As I child I essentially started at one end of the local library and read my way to the other.) In one of the more thoughtful pieces I’ve seen on the intersection of the Internet and reading, and the resulting impact on literacy, the NY Times asks, Online: R U Really Reading?
  

  Clearly, reading in print and on the Internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author’s vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and, in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends.

  Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line,” said Rand J. Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”

  See also: Is Google Making Us Stupid?

• Finally, get thee to Subterranean Press for their irregularly offered Grab Bag Sale! It’s like Woot!, but with words!