Letters to the Editor
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Downward spiral
I've been troubled for years by the fact that we in this country alienate people with intelligence. The smart kids are: dorks, geeks, losers, wimps & not someone you want to be seen sitting with at lunch or take to the prom. We idealize the tough and somewhat Neandertal-like image of the "jock". I'm not saying a child can be both smart & athletic but the stereotypes are there and are both culturally and actively enforced. We stereotype our attractive women as vacuous too. Surely this has something to do with the Paris Hilton phenomenon (you can fill in any "hot" & "dumb" celebrity here). Even in our cartoons, the smart character is portrayed with thick glasses and an awkward appearance. Smart - Bad/Ugly ::: Dumb - Good/Attractive
And as if that were not all bad enough, we now are building museums to our glorious worship of stupidity. Man running around with dinosaurs. When I was a child the church just avoided talking about dinosaurs in hopes we'd be scared enough of hell to forget about that little inconsistency. Now however they've envisioned this new and fanciful world where reality and science are thrown to the wind and replaced with faith and devotion. All I know is that if you're making it up as you go along then the odds are pretty good that it's...well, all just made up.