To the Editor,

The wonderful thing about America is that almost everybody knows how to read. The sad thing is that people don’t know what to read.

We sharpen our minds today by reading text messages, business signage and advertising, office memos, social media posts, magazines with lots of pictures. Hurray for us!

But we don’t read newspapers to stay up with local and regional news anymore. That whole national pastime has been evaporating like dew on a hot summer day. And we don’t read books anymore either.

Remember the song that started, “Don’t know much about history . . .” That was a frank admission of our culture in the 1960s.

Think it has gotten better? It has gotten much worse.

Some few men might read a little sports history or military history. Women maybe read a little history with romance or fantasy or families in it. But real comprehensive history, with real breadth and depth?

Uh-uh. Not a thing in America, and it shows, especially when we have no idea what or who to vote for when the time comes.

And how about the handwriting on the wall? Do we really know how to read where things are headed?

Not a clue. Not even interested.

Kimball Shinkoskey

Woods Cross, Utah