American IQ

If you ever suspect there are a lot of “dumb” Americans around, perhaps it’s because there are:

# The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (The New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
# The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
# One-third of our science teachers and one-half of our math teachers did not major in those subjects. (Quoted on “The West Wing,” but you can trust it — their researchers are legendary.)
# Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the Earth. Seventeen percent believe the Earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
# “The International Adult Literacy Survey … found that Americans with less than nine years of education ‘score worse than virtually all of the other countries'” (Jeremy Rifkin’s superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
# Our workers are so ignorant, and lack so many basic skills, that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth? Suddenly some of the opinion poll findings I see make more sense.
Read the whole piece to see why America may not “Number 1” anymore:

No. 1? In most important categories we’re not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.
The USA is “No. 1” in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

Indeed.

Pinging Freedom

Joshua Livestro offers an entertaining piece in which he contends that (1) the “Western media” was a catalyst to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, therefore (2) it should now be playing a similar role in the Middle East, but (3) since the mainstream media is in bed with the dictators, it’s (4) now up to bloggers to help spread liberty and democracy abroad.
Uh, no. Last time I checked, journalists have the responsibility of simply reporting events. It’s not their job to promote political movements.
Moreover, there’s no small irony in Livestro’s criticism of how the mainstream media cavorts with the tyrants:

But we all know the MSM: they’ve never come across a dictator they didn’t like or at least want to be friendly with in return for “access” (access to what, by the way? The truth?).

Sounds a little like Washington D.C., doesn’t it?
As far as bloggers grabbing their notepads and heading to Beirut, it’s a nice idea. But for the most part, the only people with that degree of commitment who can afford to jaunt around the globe are already doing so, courtesy of the mainstream media.

February News Ratings

This doesn’t speak well regarding the direction of TV news channel viewership. It beats me why most of those shows gaining viewers are doing so. And it’s quite disappointing to see Countdown’s numbers getting worse.
How many people can be left to watch CNBC primetime?

Don’t Try This At Home

Every quarter or so the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility (for attorneys) puts out a newsletter. One of its interesting features is the section listing disciplinary actions against bad lawyers. Typically, misconduct involves an attorney (1) stealing a client’s money; (2) neglecting cases; (3) failing to respond to something; (4) conflict of interest; or (5) committing a crime (e.g., drunk driving).
Here’s a winning entry from the Winter 2005 edition:
“John Smith” (Shelby County):

In one case, [John Smith] prepared a fictitious court order purporting to award $170,000 to his client when there was no such order. In a second matter, [Mr. Smith] falsely informed his client that he had prepared a motion to set aside the dismissal of that matter when no such motion had been prepared. He further mailed to his client a fictitious motion with a false certificate of service to all parties.

Hmmm. I wonder how long Mr. Smith thought he could get away with those documents (especially the $170,000 order) until someone figured out something was amiss.