[NLA] Practitioner-based research

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Hold on, Catherine,

I can't make the seque from my research point to what you are saying about 
research and democracy.  I'm an ethnographer, don't dissect anything.  We're 
fairly holistic people, anyway.  Do like to do a close read of a text, though.

I liked Marsha's point about return on investment, doesn't bother me a bit, 
though I know it riles up some folks.  Read an article in the Chronicle of 
Higher Ed this week about Amish Farmers (I'm related) and how they do return 
on investment--pasture their cows on fields and they've got a 
manure-making/fertilizing organism right there.

Democracy itself is quite a return on investment.. Amartya Sen says,  
"Indeed, no substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country--no 
matter how poor.  This is because famines are extremely easy to prevent if 
the government tries to prevent them, and a government in a multiparty 
democracy and free media has strong political incentives to undertake famine 
prevention."  

I would like to think of literacy like democracy as famine prevention, but in 
the US poor people and homeless people go to food pantries, beg for money, 
sleep in  cemeteries, parks, under bridges.  Some hold printed signs-- 
literacy.  At least we've got the food pantries.

Literacy isn't enough, maybe only a couple of cows on a big field.  We need 
more cows.

NE hayseed,

Andrea