Dungeon Master Forum

Is she also your sister?

No actually she's yours

Ah, she's alive then?

She was when I last saw her, but that was when I dropped her off at your place for the family reunion.

It all makes sense now. I took her for a walk this morning.

Please stay on topic.... there's plenty of other threads for general chit-chat.

I was just about to post how my banter about Yorkshire had derailed a perfectly good thread.


Was there something on Fahrenheit 9/11 where Michael Moore asked several Americans to point out Iraq on a map? He seemed to only show the ones that pointed to Thailand.

I read an article on the geographical knowledge of Americans. I think about 40% didn't know where the UK was, Iraq hardly anybody had a clue and curiously some of them didn't even know where the US were.

My question to you though PaulH is if I gave you a map of the world that was had no country names written on it, would you be able to find Iraq?
It's easy when the map has details, we know roughly the region and the word IRAQ screaming out at us makes it easier to find.
But on a blank outline only map, it becomes more difficult.
Although I must say I think I'd be able to find the US and the UK.

Yes. Though I admit I would not get every country correct throughout the world, I have taken the liberty to educate myself on the world and keep up to date with global events. And I am still learning.

However not knowing where your own country is located is pretty dire.

I agree that is very bad but I just wonder if that poor standard of education is exclusive only to Americans.
I am sure the majority of the teenagers who work at my place would struggle to find Scotland on a map of the UK.

Speaking of education, Charles has ordered Harry to visit Auschwitz to educate himself on the matters he seems to have landed himself in hot water over.

Education is one thing, but some people do not want to learn.

It's bad enough if plain ol' American citizens don't know some basic geography, but I saw something on a TV show which was rather dire - it's a satirical news panel game called "Have I Got News For You?" where the presenter of two teams of two are asked questions (and make fun of) recent news and famous people. One of the guests on it once was a girl called Charlotte Church. JFYI, she's from Wales and came to great fame at about age 13 because of her fabulous singing voice. She's met loads fo world leaders and stuff, and the Queen, blah blah.
Anyway, she said she met George Bush at some conference or something and he asked where she was from. She told him she was from Wales and he asked which state it was in. At that point she came up with some excuse to bog off and speak to/do something else .

What you guys say about the general stupidy/ignorance of Americans is painfully true. I don't know the statistics, but I've heard 1/3 of high school graduates can't read. I don't mean can't read Encyclopaedia Britannica. . . I mean can't read the newspaper. There used to be commercials proclaiming that the quality of American education was 16th in the world. Probably lower now.

It's hard to swallow these things, especially when you live here, and since we used to have the greatest ecnomic and military backbone on the planet until about two decades ago. Here's a quote I memorized because it exemplifies the American Condition:

"Mathematics are one of the fundamentaries of educationalizing our youths."

That's from the present administration. For real. There are four made-up words in that sentence, aside from the bad grammar. Dubya cut educational funding in his first term. I guess he wants everyone else to be as stupid as he is. Unfortunately, we've had this problem for a long time, long before the Bush imperium. I think it began sometime during the Vietnam "war."

Where I live is even worse. I'm smack in the middle of the industrial capitol of the U.S. Our city has factories and trainyards, and not much else. The employment opportunities here are substantial if you want a dead-end job. I don't really fit in. Nevertheless, it's home. It would be hard for me to move.

Regarding weather conditions in Texas, I can relate. I was only in San Antonio for five weeks, but I saw just about every type of weather you can imagine.

A lot of what you say is echoed in this excellent article comparing the USA with the EU...

http://www.utne.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.disp ... y.id=11349