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It was a great day yesterday. Calories don't count on your birthday and I had McDonald's for breakfast, doughnuts for lunch, deep dish pizza from The Art of Pizza, and then Ann surprised me with an awesome Dairy Queen ice cream cake. It was not a good situation.
1. New polls in Arkansas suggest that only 45% of people from that state think Obama is an American citizen. A quarter think he is not, and a quarter are "unsure". What a joke! I have always said I would want to live in a state with warmth. I could never live in the South because the people there are backwards idiots. Give me a break!
2. I highly recommend all of you read the last page of Time magazine this week. It has an article called Cheating Rocks! by Joel Stein. Basically, he points out the hypocrisy of sports fans, in particular baseball fans, when it involves steroids. His point is we are appaled if athletes use steroids or swimmers "cheat" by using full-body poolyurethane suits but if an athlete pays $5000 for LASIK eye surgery making his vision 20/15, that's fine. We as Americans are obsessed with articial enhancement. We artificially enhance our face with botox. We are prozaked, diet pills, tooth whitening, hypocrits. Who uses a dictionary when we have a spell-checker. Who works out when we have liposuction. His point is if steroids allow athletes to prolong their career, not get hurt as often, and perform their jobs more efficiently, than why shouldn't they be allowed to do it. Athletes know the risks. I am not saying I agree with his point... but I do find it interesting.
posted by cyclonejohn @ 1:57 PM
6 Comments:
There is a fine line between someone who is naive/gullible and and idiot. I think the difference is that when you are gullible, you believe everything you are told without questioning it, and when you are an idiot you can believe anything, though you might have thought it through and arrived at the wrong conclusion.
I think too many people in this nation refuse to think for themselves and question what they hear. OR they believe what they want to believe if enough (popular) people are spreading non-truths. If we had a thinking society, these lie spreaders would be boycotted. But we do not.
I completely agree with you Andrew... and I don't know what to do with it. In terms of my interaction with people, ignorance and apathy are things I have wrestled with for years. I remember after the 2004 election, I read in the ISU Daily that something like only 30% of Cyclones voted. I just don't know what else Obama has to do to prove he is a citizen. He has an official Hawaii birth certificate. Plus, there are official hospital records saying he was born. Not too mention official birth announcements in two Hawaii newspapers. It just amazes me.
Silly John. You know they either don't know the records/birth certificate exist or they are convinced they are fakes. Simply because they don't want them to be real.
Obama doesn't have to do anything. There are still people who think Elvis is alive, and they can go one being crazies as far as I'm concerned.
I understand what you're saying but that is not good enough for me. We are talking about the majority of people living in Arkansas do not think Obama is an American citizen... not just a bunch of crazies... millions of people. Nationally, it's around 25% are "unsure" if Obama is an American citizen or not. There is so much misinformation about there.
Then unfortunately, I think the problem you are grappling with is the ignorance and general low intelligence of America. I too have a huge problem with it. And I have no idea how to truly fix it. Funding education is a start, but it wont solve everything. I'm not sure the government CAN solve it without pissing off half the nation (either Dems or Repubs).
Our educational system needs to alter its focus as well. Individuals are not challenged to think critically until college (if then). We spend the first 18 years of our lives learning how to answer questions correctly on a test, not to form and defend informed, rational opinions, which of course are the real skills one needs to be a successful and healthy member of a democracy. We need to be taught as children to respect and honor the unique experiences of each individual, that each story holds truth that we can use to broaden and inform our own understanding of the world and our nation, and of being human. And as far as the whole "birther" movement goes, not being racist would help a lot.
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