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• Thursday, August 30, 2007 11:59 AM

  Yes, Healthyskeptic I Live in a Flyover State

  and I still maintain that it was a stupid question FOR A BEAUTY PAGEANT! It is not a stupid question in and of itself.

  One poster claimed that she was supposed to answer to the implications. No, don't think so. The questioner said, "why do you think this is?" The question seemed to be asking WHY 20% of Americans cannot identify their country on a map, to which I still say that not many people would have any real answer to this, only opinions based on nothing unless they knew a lot more about American education (and the retention of education) than the average teenager.

  By the way, the question said 1/5 of Americans, not just students. Does this 1/5 include the very elderly with memory problems? People who lived more than half their lives before Alaska and Hawaii became states? Or any person with memory problems due to injury or disease? (They don't exactly glow in the dark). Does it include functionally illiterate people? What was the age cap? Was the cutoff 18? 16? 14? 12? Did it include students who go to such crappy schools that they are mainly taught to the myriad of state tests they have to pass just to graduate?

  I still think the contestant's answer was more an indication of her lack of poise and an inability to think on her feet, than her intelligence. The former ARE important for a pageant contestant, and she flunked miserably. And, yeah, it was funny.

  —flyover52 Read flyover52's other letters
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