Are you smarter than a fifth of U.S. Americans?
Incase you haven’t seen, watch this…
Miss South Carolina Teen
Pundits are having a field day dogpiling on poor Caitlin Upton, Miss South Carolina Teen. Asked in competition, “One fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map; why do you think that is?” her response was rambling and literally incoherent, with non-sequitor observations about Iraq and South Africa. She has since said she froze. Genuine freezing might have been preferable; saying nothing would have been better than what she did say.
I refuse to make fun of her. Personally–and I’m completely serious here–I’m wondering if she didn’t have a sort of mini-stroke brought on by the stress of the moment. It makes sense to me. People who have had strokes sometimes find themselves unable to say the words they’re thinking; instead random words are tossed out. Circumstances such as those that she found herself in would be enough to burst a blood vessel in anyone’s head. They probably did dry runs with her about assorted world topics and her synapses just started spitting out fragments of those replies.
Second, I don’t think that a country that has tolerated seven years of a president so characterized by malaprops that entire 365-day calendars are devoted to them–a president whose town-hall meeting questions are carefully vetted before they’re spoken–gets to laugh too hard at a scared teenager who had a tough question sprung on her. Caitlin Upton has to do her own damage control; she doesn’t have a press secretary to face reporters the next day after a session of babbling incoherence and say, “Okay, what she MEANT to say was…”
And it WAS a tough question, because in thirty seconds she had to try and come up with an answer that was fundamentally upbeat and positive because, hey, that’s what beauty pagents are all about. If someone asked me that question and I had to come up with an off-the-cuff response, it would be this…
“One fifth? I’m surprised it’s that low. On the quiz show “Power of Ten” it was recently revealed that twenty-five percent of surveyed Americans believed that the inventor of the diesel engine was Vin Diesel. The fact is that obesity is not the number one health problem in this country, it’s stupidity. A lot of Americans are stupid. Bone dry stupid. Stupid as a box of rocks. They were born stupid, they were stupid in school, and they became stupid grown-ups. And there’s enough of them out there to have a considerable impact on this country, because morons are running for high office and morons are voting for them and putting them in there. Americans are oblivious to the rest of the world, and if that were not the case, then maybe our leaders might have listened when the rest of the world said, ‘Stay the hell out of Iraq, you morons.’ Many Americans have a fundamental arrogance that stems from a basic lack of intellectual curiosity. They don’t read. They don’t learn. They don’t think. They tune out with television or computer games or Ipods and obsess about what Lindsay or Britney or whatever other troubled pop tart is up to rather than caring about things that really matter.
Our educational system needs to be overhauled beyond the test-centric mandates of No Child Left Behind. If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and he will feed himself for ever. Students need to be taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think. More money needs to be spent on programs for kids who are already gifted so that those gifts can be fully realized and brought to fruition. We need to remember that the arts enrich a civilization; that science and scientific thinking is not the enemy; that it is more important to care for poor people over here than blow up poor people in other countries.
The fact that one fifth of Americans can’t find the country on the map pales beside the likelihood that one fifth of Americans probably couldn’t find their own asses with both hands and a flashlight. And that stupidity is going to continue to be a hallmark of our country until we work together to remedy the situation from the top down.”
Not an easy thing to sound upbeat about in thirty seconds, is it.
My condolences to Ms. Upton. Now…she needs to strive to be part of the solution, rather than be dismissed as part of the problem.
PAD
Here she is on Good Morning America (which happens to be owned by the same company that owns the pagent…. hmm… I wonder if that’s just a coincidence?)
heh heh…
heh heh hA…
HA HA hA hA hA…
Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
Wander, My Friends …
I want the song I have on my MySpace page to be played at my funeral.
English Translation:
Wander my friends, wander with me
Like the mist on the green mountain, moving eternally
Despite our weariness, we’ll follow the road
Over hills and valleys, to the end of the journey
Come on my friends and sing with me
Fill the night with joy and sport
Here’s to health and the friends who have gone from us
Like the mist of the green mountain, gone forever
Yeah, it’s from Battlestar Galactica, but shut up. Shit’s emotional. You have no idea (well maybe Tom, Logan, and Jeff do).
Speaking of emotional, I read The Notebook. I’ve been wanting to read it for a while but haven’t really felt the desire to spend money on it. I was more just curious as to what was so great about it, and I’ve never really read a “love novel” before so I figgerd what the hey. Coincidentally, I was at Logan & Rachel’s apartment and Rachel has all of Nicholas Sparks’ books so I took advantage of the opportunity.
I was surprised to find that I actually liked it–well, actually I really liked it. Given the amount of stuff that I cry about, it should come as no surprise that I cried at the end. The bad thing about this (besides you all making fun of me) is that it was at work. I was outside in the courtyard for lunch and had my sunglasses on, and I finished the book, sat there for a minute, and then got up to go across the street to get something to eat. I knew my eyes were red but because of my sunglasses I knew nobody would see.
My grandmother died with Alzheimer’s disease and I saw how hard it was on my mom (imagine someone you love just forgetting about you piece by piece, right in front of you) so that part got to me. Also, the idea of two people who have spent their entire lives together now living in separate rooms in a nursing facility being taken care of by people half their age kind of struck me as a sad way to go–especially when Noah struggles to walk to her room (after his stroke) and is almost stopped by the receptionist because “you can’t make visits after hours.” And then, when the “miracle” happens and you believe that love actually beat the disease… well, there you have it. Good writing.
In the beginning of the book he says “romantics will see this as a love story, and cynics will see this as a tragedy.” As much of a love story as it was, I felt that it was way more of a tragedy. So I guess I’m a cynic, but I already knew that, I guess. (Side note: at the heritage festival parade, the “Optimist Club” was marching. I said, “hey, the Optimist Club! It’s good to see them.” I still think that’s funny.)
Well g’night.
I see your true colors shining through, and that’s why I love you…
I need a title for this idea. Suggestions?
Thanks for the comments on the last blog, they were helpful and insightful. Case in point: new ideas for apartments. Point in case: I think I might post things on www.suckstobeu.com that other people besides me make. Not sure what yet. Maybe I’ll do things like photoshop contests, or, best caption, things like that.
For some reason I’ve always been able to remember my dreams pretty well, and that’s cool because a lot of them have given me great ideas or have just been pretty cool. Well, maybe not cool, but weird enough to stick with me for a few days. I’ve had two dreams recently…
…the first one is about Sophia and wasn’t cool and was a little disturbing. She had just come back from the groomer, and I said, “oh, they forgot to do her ears.” So I get a pair of scissors and cut her ears off. Not “dock” them like a normal Schnauzer, no, I cut them off all together. She had two holes in her head for ears. I was under the impression they’d grow back.
…the second one was like a mix between Lost and Battlestar Galactica. Don’t judge me. I’ll elaborate: Basically I was kind of like “Jack,” and for some reason the world had ended and so me and a group of people had met up and decided to stick together. I don’t recall how the world ended, whether it was an asteroid or nuclear bomb or something, but I think it was man’s own fault. Most of the people were dead, most buildings were destroyed, and people were NUTS. I met up with a few friends and we roamed the country, trying to keep safe from other NUTTY PEOPLE, trying to locate family members and loved ones. We’d meet up with people along the way–some of which we knew, others we just trusted and wanted to have in our group.
At one point, we found someone who knew how to fly so we got a small cargo airplane that we traveled around in. Later, I discovered that we were being hunted; not by animals or creatures or aliens but by a group of other people. Nobody believed me until we were attacked one night and had to escape on the plane. We lost lots of people and had to leave a lot of our stuff behind, but everybody agreed not to doubt me again.
From that point on we would settle in different cities (which had become overgrown with plants and wildlife) until “the Hunters” would track us down and we’d have to move again. We had no idea why they were after us, and at one point we met this beautiful girl who became part of our group, but later ended up being one of the Hunters who infiltrated us. I killed her by dropping a knife into her head from a second story balcony as she was about to kill somebody in our group. Then we got into the plane and moved on again.
Later, we ended up at an airport. Somehow we knew that Australia had survived and life was proceeding mostly as normal over there. The problem was, our plane was too small to make it. So we gutted a 757 (or whatever the biggest plane is), so that we could load it up with barells of jet fuel (scary) so we’d have enough fuel to make the trip. The pilot we had only flew small planes so I made him take off, manuever, and land the 757 by himself before we all got on. He did fine, and we decided to sleep on the 757 that night before leaving in the morning. The problem was, the Hunters had followed us again.
We thought they might, so the night before we had bolted the doors to the airplane and everything. The problem was, when we woke up, we woke up to the sound of a welder cutting into the plane. Sparks were flying, so I got my shotgun ready and told someone to open the hatch (hatch?) to the plane. I shot the motherfucker as the pilot started up the engines. His buddy was scrambling to fight back so I grabbed him and pulled him into the plane. I told somebody to tie him up in the cargo bay on the bottom level while I took care of the Hunters. I got a rocket launcher as we took off and shot at their trucks which exploded beneath us.
Then I went down to the cargo bay (I’m not sure if planes actually have these but if you’ve seen Air Force One, the following kind of plays just like that). Basically I interrogated him and found out why they were after us the whole time (I won’t tell you because I might make this into something, you see). I chained him up and let him dangle out of the plane as it flew over the Atlantic. Half way through I had our pilot slow the plane and fly real low. I unhooked the chain and he hit the water… I know in real life hitting the water at that speed would be like hitting concrete, except for some reason that didn’t happen and so the sharks got him.
Anyway, we ended up in Austrailia after having to figure out a way to refuel the plane in mid-air with the fuel barrells we had brought with us. Then we arrived in Austrailia and lived happily ever after (question mark???)
*****
You know what? I miss Lost. And I’m mad that, once it comes back on in January, it’ll only be on for 16 weeks. That’s not a lot. Then we’ll be waiting all over again. As much as I like this new trend in television, why can’t it be like the old days? It sucked at the time, but I’d almost rather have it be like it was in season two, where they’d show a new episode, then two repeats, then a few new ones, then some more repeats. Or, have it premiere in September for 2 months, go on hiatus, have Act 2 in January/February, go on hiatus for 2 months, then finish up in May.
Basically, I’m just going through withdrawals. Withdraws? I’m taking money I don’t have out of the ATM called “Lost.”
I have more to say but this is too long. Later, hoes. Thanks for reading.
