A lot of people have been raising some hoopla about Amazon’s Kindle, e-books, and the death of print. Consider this post a hoopla-lowering exercise. I think people are right in saying that some books are slouching off to the Internet for all perpetuity: cook books, encyclopedias, some types of text books, computer instructions, etc. You know, searchable stuff. That’s entirely reasonable: I’d much rather my doc look up “The Beauty of Spleens” on her iphone than lug around an out-of-date copy of the “Gray’s Anatomy” doorstop. And some people will buy the Kindle, read a lot of e-books, and save some space in their carry-on. I’m cool with that. But print, as we know it, is not going to go away completely.

The chart below demonstrates why:

Can you:

• Stab it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Shoot it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Sit on it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Drop it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Freeze it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Soak it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Bury it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Scratch it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Put it near magnets? Books Y, E-readers N
• Put it near children? Books Y, E-readers N
• Put it near cats? Books Y, E-readers N
• Squash bugs with it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Use it for exorcisms? Books Y, E-readers N
• Leave it in your attic for 40 years and know people will still be able to use it? Books Y, E-readers N
• Burn it? Books N, E-readers N

The score? Books 14, E-readers 0. We have a winner. Seriously, though, in college I was lucky enough to touch a page of the Gutenberg Bible. It was a very, very awesome experience. I was tingly all over. The page was in such great shape because printers used to make paper out of cloth: they would pay beggers for their rags, which the printers would bleach and chop up into pulp. The longer the fiber, the longer the page lasts. Cool, huh? Any medium that can survive hundreds of years gets my vote. Try reading something from a 8″ floppy disc today. Now try reading a page from a Shakespeare folio. That’s right–paper kicks butt. You heard it here first.