Hardly…unless you’re redefining the word so as to extinguish its meaning. The age of print media, which your mother’s letter represents so poignantly, has been in decline for some time now, such that USA Today represents the upper end of today’s ‘literate’ writing, with authentic publications such as the New Yorker now mere fringe items appealing to a few old-guard dead-enders, such as myself.

What’s missing in the new-literati, if I may be so bold, is CONTEMPLATION. All of today’s new media forms are instant to the poing of stream-of-consciousness dreck, requiring neither thought nor preparation nor really much effort. Certainly no fact-checking, no research, no critical analysis, no depth. Not to mention that inexpressible something that you found in your mom’s Xmas letter.