[MD] Drama

[david buchanan]

Marsha said:
THE TWILIGHT OF AMERICAN CULTURE seems like a frightening book.  I haven't 
read the book, but I don't think I agree that it's the American public that 
is stupider and meaner.  The American public
seems overly stressed and ill-informed as a result of meaner, stupider 
leadership.  I listen to the Washington Journal on C-SPAN which includes 
lots of public participation.  The last few months, it seems that both Dems 
and Reps are reviving from their 9/11 shock.  And they are getting really 
angry at such an incompetent and corrupt government.  The problem is that 
government failure can still pull us into an age of darkness.  I'm hoping 
for a period of great humiliation from the past few years of gross hubris.  
>From that maybe we can return to a path of being a good country.

dmb says:
That's pretty much the I saw it too. I'd hoped that we were just going 
through a temporary period of stupidity, fear-based stupidity. But if Berman 
is right, the collaspe of intelligence in America is "unambiguously bleak". 
He assures the reader that his statistics are were not invented even though 
they're hard to believe and even harder to accept. For example, 120 million 
Americans can read no better than a 5th with many of them unable to read at 
all. The number of people who are genuinely literate, people who regularly 
read serious books, may be as low as 3%. 60% have never read a book of any 
kind. 42% could not locate Japan on a map and 35% of Americans couldn't even 
find the USA on a map. Only 2% of American teens can name the Chief Justice 
and only 4% could read a bus schedule. The National Science Foundation did a 
survey to measure the scientific literacy of American adults. 56% thought an 
electron was bigger than an atom and 91% could not say what a molecule was. 
63% thought early humans lived with dinosaurs, but hey, they were only wrong 
by about 60 million years. 53% didn't even understand that it takes a year 
for earth to orbit the sun. And only 6% of American adults reads as much as 
one book per year, and that includes any crappy old book.

As much as I'd like to think the present leaders are to blame, I'm afraid 
its much bigger and deeper than that. If Berman is correct, we're presently 
watching our civilization collaspe, Thus, the monastic option. Sigh. Maybe 
you should paint a blue picture today. I did.

dmb

_________________________________________________________________
Call friends with PC-to-PC calling -- FREE   
http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline