US and World Geography

It was only by pure chance that I got to watch the Miss Teen USA pageant on tv the other night. I didn't even know the thing was going to be airing! I had paused the DVR 2 hours earlier and I was pleasantly surprised to see what I had missed while I was gone. I love junk like that on tv. I love it even more when it's recorded and I can fast forward through the stupid stuff and get to the real meat and potatoes. Since I missed the very beginning, I had to jump on the internet and google Miss Teen South Dakota. Normally we send some fairly, ummm, homely girls as compared to the rest of the nation, but this year ours wasn't bad! In fact, I think she's beautiful and I'd kill for her body.

http://www.missteenusa.com/delegates/2007/files/SD.html

When I first started watching I kept seeing a girl whose sash said "South" something, but the tv never panned below her chest. I was wild eyed at the thought that South Dakota may have actually made it into the top 10. I couldn't have been more wrong, and boy am I glad. BOY OH BOY am I glad.

South Carolina - that's who I was mistaking for a possible South Dakota. When it came to her money-winning question - I just wanted to die million deaths for her. I kept rewinding it to see if I could possibly make sense of what she was trying to say. I couldn't. I decided that if she were my daughter, I would have been under my chair by that point.

I won't keep you in suspense any more if you didn't see this.

She drew a question that was asked by judge Aimee Teegarden. Her question was this: "Recent polls have shown that 1/5th of Americans can't locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

Now, here's what she had to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

Play it two or three times if you need to. It's insane. (And take note of Mario Lopez on the verge of busting into fits of laughter.)

Now I've spent the past few days occassionally thinking about this girl...I feel mortified for her, I feel sorry for her, and I'm embarrassed that she's not making national headlines for being pretty or smart - she's making all the morning talk shows and headlines for being a moron.

I've tried my damndest to come up with what I would have said if I were her - in her situation. I come up empty every time. My inclination is to say that some people (and I would venture to guess that MORE than 1/5 of Americans) are just stupid. But I don't think that answer would win me a title.

If you listen carefully, it's not 1/5 of American students - because in that case you could go on and on about how American classrooms are failing today's kids, parents aren't doing their part at home - all of those things that are ultimately going to offend large groups of people on many levels. But it's 1/5 of Americans. Period.

Can you find the US on a map? As an AMERICAN - can you really truly see the US? I can. But then, I've always been pretty good about the US. I can also show you Canada and South America. If you ask really nicely, I'll even show you places like Panama - and when I point to Brazil, I can also tell you what their primary language is. I can locate almost all 50 states and tell you their capitals, but you have to be nice to me when I'm wading through that mess on the New England coast. It takes time and patience to figure those little buggers out. All this and I wasn't even a geography major - in fact I don't remember having ever had a class in it beyond 6th grade Social Studies. Does this make me a genius? I think not - but it must put me in the top 4/5 of Americans. :)

NOW - ask me to point to, let's see, Lebanon or Somalia - and I'll probably have you directed to some uncharted territory on the wrong continent. I could make it my mission to figure it out, but I know that it's information that I will have dumped by, oh, tomorrow when Slade is asking me to dig into the hard drive of my brain and tell him where he left his baseball cap. So, today, I'm not going to bother.