i'd like to see ebook sales info factored in. i'm seeing many more Kindles on the bus after the holidays - i don't know that we're reading less as much as we're reading in ways that they don't track.

I knew that the loss of Bailey/Coy was a sign of the intellectual apocalypse. KNEW IT. :-/

We're number one! We're number one!

@1: I had that same thought when I was checking the bestseller lists in the Sunday paper yesterday. Seems like they're missing a lot of data.

So what happened to Minneapolis? Fire in a library?
And what happened in D.C. to slide it to the "top" of this soi-disant "list"? Is it because @barackobama has over 6M followers?

Good thing our library funding is still intact! :(

DC, seriously?

Last time I checked DC was full of illiterate ghetto dwellers and politicians, I mean politicians don't even read the bills they pass.

What are the "troubles in Seattle" that impacted our literacy?

What's happening in DC is rampant gentrification, which has replaced many thousands of poor black people with rich white staffers, lobbyists, and pundits all over town, even in neighborhoods that twenty years ago those white folks wouldn't want to be in after dark. Pundits etc. buy a lot of books and newspapers. DC is nothing like the city it used to be.

Bailey/Coy was nice, but "revered" is a little strong. Seattle is a pretty mediocre bookstore town, truth be told. The only bookstore that I can think of that could conceivably be called "revered" that's been in the news is Elliott Bay. Maybe USA Today only noticed the story of them closing their old location and missed the opening of their wildly successful new one.

Also, reprinting the same survey results every year doesn't sell many papers. Like U.S. News' "Best Colleges" edition that seems to randomly reshuffle America's top 25 schools and garnering a good amount of press along the way.

reading "Decision Points" shouldn't count as being literate.

Wow, the comments here suggest Slog readers are decidedly less than literate.

@9: Last time you checked must be about 25 years ago. D.C. has a lot of vibrant, hip neighborhoods with cafes and bookstores. It also has more and better universities than Seattle. And there are thousands upon thousands of smart, educated government staffers in the federal government.

@10: It's explained in the sentence following that one.

i CAN HAZ BUK?!?!?!?!

Big "meh" to Seattle's literate self-image.

Most people in this city can't be bothered to retain or process information properly, nor to construct rational arguments based on anything remotely approaching "knowledge."

looks at measures for [sic] six items

What is the [sic] for? Isn't "measures" a noun here? Here - replace "measures" with "data." Does that help you?

It's a horrible sentence, sure - I'd have gone with "measures six items" - but the [sic] makes you look like a sore loser.

17. I was confused by that too. Since "sic" is next to the "for," I thought maybe the phrase they were looking for would have been "measures OF six items." Just my grammatical brain making up shit, really.
Yeah, not obvious.

I had a few thoughts on DC's literacy. First of all, it seems true. I have been here nine years, and I see more and more people reading nowadays. Part of that is the subway. The US government has been implementing strategies in this area to get people onto the Metro or Metro buses as their primary means of transportation to work. I mean, come on, they pay us to use the subway. And you know what you do if you have a long commute where you're basically left alone and bored in a warm, well-lit compartment? I know that I pull out my latest book as soon as I sit down.

Also, I think Border's is getting to be more and more a place to hang out, use the Wifi, and once you're there, you might get interested in something that you're reading, and buy it.

I can really see that this would be true.

@18 - I went down that route, too - "of" is definitely better, but "for" can't be called strictly wrong. I don't think I've seen [sic] used for usage before.

If Seattle is bright enough to be #1 in literacy, then how do we explain Washington being #43 in quality of education? Is it "I got mine"???