Its Not Just Miss So Carolina

[Linkster]

So TPM decides to go the San Diego on campus and ask what year 9/11 occured in:
http://www.tmz.com/2007/08/30/its-not-just-miss-south-carolina/

Totally amazing

[disrupter]

I have to raise a point of objection to the criticism of Miss South Carolina,
that question was bogus,
"Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map," begins the now-famous question posed during last weekend's Miss Teen USA pageant. "Why do you think this is?"http://www.fool.com/investing/international/2007/08/30/invest-like-miss-teen-south-carolina.aspx

They got the flipping question WRONG that she was even asked!
About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn't even locate the U.S. on a map.http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/11/1126_021120_TVGeoRoperSurvey.html

Now everyone is taking great exception to the response to a bogus/incorrect question that this poor young woman was asked off the cuff.

It is a bit like asking 'have you quit beating your wife?'
How the heck do you respond to this when you are blindsided by it?
How could you have thought through something that had no basis in reality?
Like discussing 'if Superman had been on the side of the NAZIs in WWII would they have won?'
why didn't you give this prior thought & consideration?

This is both cruel & inane, exposing some desire on our part to expose others as 'fools' while in fact we demonstrate that we are both cruel AND foolish.

Yeah, she's a prissy beauty pageant contestant, but give the poor girl a break.

This stems from incompetent journalism & a public that doesn't demand that it be competent. Now you have no one but yourselves to blame.

Getting fired up about a response to a mistaken question exposes your gullibility to become completely caught up in something that is nothing more than pure media spin.

I think we lack a centered core of intellectual integrity,

we love & lust after sensation instead.

If there were a caring god, i would be the member of an intelligent species & not some self-aggrandizing fractionally intelligent species. That is why rationally i have no alternative than to be an atheist/agnostic. QED

[Linkster]

disrupter - there are two different questions there - one is the percentage of young americans(11%) and the other is the percentage of the population (which includes adults - 20% - or one fifth) - it was a pretty straightforward question - doesnt have to match another polls percentages. Its not like they give them the questions to study up front and anyone with a 8th grade education should have been able to understand and answer it.

She was a complete dolt and shouldnt have been even in the running to be a "shining example" of our youth - of course - I guess that is a "shining example" of our education system

[disrupter]

It is all about priorities.

Don't forget the bigger implicit education system constructed by media & social attitudes.

IMO If this is your mis-placed priority,
led to it by the damn-fool media,

your mirrored reflection Linkster is not an attractive one.

I guess we live in 'the lord of the flies'
where there are no adults with well prioritized values to guide us.

[Linkster]

I just have to laugh when I see idiots paraded in front of the people as "examples" - whether it be by the media or by their own actions - speaks to a much higher priority that has been lost for 50 years and will only be turned around by those willing to stand up to it and call it what it is - pure idiocy. Obviously a large percentage of people (even as examples on this board) have been educated by this same system as it shows quite well

[disrupter]

I hope you don't mind me picking on you in particular, Linkster.

As long as we recognize that this is sort of prurient entertainment for the most part i don't object. It may point up a minor problem in our education system. We probably need an occasional laugh of release.

But if we use trivial things like this as a displacement for truly significant, longterm issues we are nothing more than media puppets & THAT would be very problematic.

Look at the stories the news media is spoon feeding you & try to figure out what stories you are quite certain are there, but you are NOT being told.

To be insightful we have to kind of second guess the things/stories the media is NOT showing us while pedaling this trivia.

How about picutures that reflect the true blood & gore & horror of the war WE are responsible for in Iraq?
How about the discussions of the economic prosperity WE are robbing this young woman & all unborn Americans of by over indulging in deficit spending, not on investment in infrastructure and EDUCATION, but pouring out 2 trillion dollars creating terrorists in Iraq?
How about stories about robber barron capitalism that is looting this nation at every turn, while we are being spun off with SUV & other glittering merchandise & drug ads.
How about coherent stories about the science of global warming & what technologies are needed to address it rather than a lot of hyperbole of a mythological scientific debate?
How about stories that tell how we are being manipulated & spun by bogus non-profit organizations, purely fabricated by corporations?
How about stories that genuinely try to sift which, if any politicians actually work in OUR best interests & NOT in corporate best interests.

There are things that deserve vitriol, but they will have to be earned & sorted for some kind of appropriate priorities of what is important & what is currently do-able.

If the public gets excited about this & schools banning tag it kind of puts the public as not only intellectual light weights, but down right self-destructively stupid.

Even though they have baited the hook with something that looks juicy, doesn't mean we have to bite down on it,
& calling others out for biting down on this crap could help steer the public dialogue in a better, more fruitful, more constructive direction.

it may change nothing, but it is worthy of a try.

[Linkster]

Actually I see this as an indicator of how the school system has failed to teach children to be "educated" enough to not only speak - but more importantly - to ask questions and use their minds (instead of texting something stupid on their cells) - which leads to the population of the US not being able to recognize that the news they are being shown is "entertainmentnews" instead of what is really happening in the world.

I blame this completely on the education system "dumbing down" their teachers by not allowing certain things to be taught, to requirements for graduation not meeting anywhere close to an educated individual.
Understand that most of the kids nowadays graduating from HS cannot balance a checkbook let alone speak in proper english and in a coherent sentence. This video just illustrates a symptom of a much larger problem.

Having been raised rather highly educated, I know where to look for real news - places like Al Jazeerah and some of the Asian news outlets are pretty good in their coverage - unfortunately, most people, even those with access to the internet, don't get past Yahoo or AOL news home pages unless they are part of the less than 1 % of US citizens that also read blogs - and even then you are treading very closely to entertainment instead of real news.

I happened to watch a movie last night that reminded me of the course of the US presently - I believe it was called Idiocracy - an experiment goes bad and a couple are frozen for 500 years - to be revived to a country in the future where the president is a WWE wrestler and corporations have taken over the country - kind of a mindless film, but unfortunately, I think we have accelerated the premise of the film
Where else can you have a know-nothing actor become the president, a wrestler become a governor, oh yeah, another actor become a governor - all because they appeal to a majority of voters with their on-screen persona. And now the republicans want to put another actor back in the white house?? Of course I guess the position has become that of stage acting instead of being a leader in the world - what a shame

Of course to answer the question you have about what to do about it - there is nothing that can be done as long as the dumbing down process is in place - as soon as you start taking away peoples comfort zone then they may start reacting - but that will take generations, as the current teen to college crowd has no spark of interest in the world with a few exceptions - as long as they have their MP3 players, game boxes and cells - they are happy.
This is why I am hoping that Bush is stupid enough to attack Iran, which will require a draft to be instituted immediately afterwards as Iran will retaliate, and there will be massive attacks in the US leading to martial law and the imprisonment of "agitators" - which throughout history has always led to the downfall of the sitting government, and allowed (in most cases) a fresh start with some common sense again.

[Jennifer]

I'd love it if the real pictures would come out of Iraq. Get those shots of Iraqi boys playing soccer in the streets while mothers clean their homes or gather together in the markets. Because that's what's REALLY happening there, not the photo shop stuff that's being released by certain members of the AP.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand:

Miss Teen S. Carolina is a product of the public school program. This is why we need to privatize schools. No one complains about the education at Yale, Harvard, Duke, even smaller schools like Va. Tech or Augustana College. Why? Because those are private schools, you don't like them, you go somewhere else.

If we privatized the schools in conjunction with free mass transport for children and vouchers so parents could afford the majority of schools out there, we'd be much better off. Maybe Miss Teen S. Carolina could find the United States on a map herself! :disbelief:

At the very least, a lot of the fluff our children are forced to deal with, and the focus on teaching for the "test" instead of to pass knowledge on to the next generation would go away.

[disrupter]

Why don't you go start a private school in Iraq or Afghanistan, Jennifer, Honey?

Things are so peachy there and all.

Oops am i pointing out what a bucket of lies your spout is?

So impolitic of me.

Oh wait a minute, you don't want to help them because they are dirty, heretical, arab muslims.
Good enough to bomb & shoot at & invade & destroy their nation, but not good enough to be worthy of good schools.

I think Jennifer has a lot in common with Miss South Carolina,
an inability to think in clear coherent ideas.
Rhetoric & Vitriol & not an ounce of rational logic.
Image over substance.

What a shame to Americans you are.

[Jennifer]

What a bunch of flames, libel, ad hominem attacks and strawman arguements.


Honestly, how anyone shows any respect for your posts or comments is beyond me.

[disrupter]

guess it is too tough for you to cut.

Guess those suburban, NeoCon notions don't hold up too well when they are exposed to actual reality.