So I'm looking over some of the Facebook entries I missed during Dragon*Con, and I came across this item posted by a guy with whom I went to school:
These "friends" of mine have never traveled outside of the USA, not even to visit Canada or Mexico. Back in school they were not interested in the events of the world ("Bangladesh? Oh, you mean the company that makes my shirts. What about it?") or in learning world history or culture. Our high school offered only one foreign language (Spanish) and only state/USA history. "Honors" English was about as close to "culture" or "world history" as it got. I really thought that would change once we became adults and could spread our wings.
Or, maybe it's me.
Maybe I really am a socialist-nazi-communist, as suggested by the person who wrote the last comment quoted above. Maybe I'm naive and think that the 'truthers' and 'birthers' out there are completely insane. Or maybe I've become the one who doesn't know what's going on, although I do try to stay informed.
Growing up, it was vital that we watch the NBC evening news every night as a family. I think this was mostly because my dad was a controller, rather than that he wanted us to be smart. After all, girls don't need to be smart, just pretty.
As an adult, I could not function without my daily dose of CNN, and later, FoxNews (although I did quit that completely after I realized that the hosts of "Fox and Friends" were total morons and that Sean Hannity was a rabid lunatic). I also watched the local news morning and night.
I stopped watching all "world" news after Eric left for Iraq because I didn't want the kids to worry. Since then, I watch the local morning news, periodically check BBC Online for world events, or I watch the BBC World News on TV, but not regularly. This may have caused a problem.
For one, I don't understand all the hatin' vs Obama. I fail to understand how a person can attend a Christian church for all of his life and be considered Muslim. I also don't understand how people think Obama is destroying our nation. Supposedly he's a socialist and ruining the Constitution. I would argue that Bush was a communist who did in fact ruin the Constitution with the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
Second, I sometimes worry that I'm raising children so completely unaware of the world at large, they are almost idiots.
After school, I asked the kids if they watched a special show at school. I got blank stares. I added, "...a speech by the President..?" and got several oh-yeahs in return. The older two did not see it, the younger one did, in social studies class.
I asked what she thought of it:
Oy.
"I bet anybody from Germany who remembers how Hitlers Rise To POWER happened is laughing at the USA right now. Hitler plead to the children with speeches sounding soooooooo good. Just like Obama now wants to SPEAK to the children. He changed his speech when people who how to think challenged him. HE IS EVIL!!!!!!!!!!! WAKE UP AMERICA"This guy and his regular followers are so "anti-Obama" I feel like maybe I never really knew some of my classmates at all. Mr. Obama's election to the presidency has encouraged them to loudly proclaim their opinions as facts, and that's fine because I'm an admirer of the Bill of Rights, but they sound more like parrots repeating the words of prominent pundits, capital letters and all.
Comments:
*Even though he changed his speech, I called the school and told them my kids wouldn't be watching it there. They will watch it AT HOME with me!
*i signed the permission form for paige to watch at school(6th grader)...i will watch today at home and compare notes when she gets home. she is pretty opinionated--wonder what she will think?
*I didn't get a permission slip or anything stating if they were going to watch it. Ryan is sooooo anti-Obama though and he doesn't care who knows it!!! LMAO
These "friends" of mine have never traveled outside of the USA, not even to visit Canada or Mexico. Back in school they were not interested in the events of the world ("Bangladesh? Oh, you mean the company that makes my shirts. What about it?") or in learning world history or culture. Our high school offered only one foreign language (Spanish) and only state/USA history. "Honors" English was about as close to "culture" or "world history" as it got. I really thought that would change once we became adults and could spread our wings.
Or, maybe it's me.
Maybe I really am a socialist-nazi-communist, as suggested by the person who wrote the last comment quoted above. Maybe I'm naive and think that the 'truthers' and 'birthers' out there are completely insane. Or maybe I've become the one who doesn't know what's going on, although I do try to stay informed.
Growing up, it was vital that we watch the NBC evening news every night as a family. I think this was mostly because my dad was a controller, rather than that he wanted us to be smart. After all, girls don't need to be smart, just pretty.
As an adult, I could not function without my daily dose of CNN, and later, FoxNews (although I did quit that completely after I realized that the hosts of "Fox and Friends" were total morons and that Sean Hannity was a rabid lunatic). I also watched the local news morning and night.
I stopped watching all "world" news after Eric left for Iraq because I didn't want the kids to worry. Since then, I watch the local morning news, periodically check BBC Online for world events, or I watch the BBC World News on TV, but not regularly. This may have caused a problem.
For one, I don't understand all the hatin' vs Obama. I fail to understand how a person can attend a Christian church for all of his life and be considered Muslim. I also don't understand how people think Obama is destroying our nation. Supposedly he's a socialist and ruining the Constitution. I would argue that Bush was a communist who did in fact ruin the Constitution with the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
Second, I sometimes worry that I'm raising children so completely unaware of the world at large, they are almost idiots.
After school, I asked the kids if they watched a special show at school. I got blank stares. I added, "...a speech by the President..?" and got several oh-yeahs in return. The older two did not see it, the younger one did, in social studies class.
I asked what she thought of it:
Her: Thought of what?
Me: The President's speech.
H: Oh.
M: Well?
H: Well, what?
M: GAH! What did you think of the President's speech?
H: I guess it was okay.
M: You "guess"?
H: Well, I didn't really watch it.
M: What else were you doing while it was on?
H: Uh, I don't know. I think I drew a picture. Or maybe I was thinking about origami. I don't know.
M: So, you don't know what he was talking about?
H: Who was talking?
M: ...
Oy.
3 comments:
I think the problem is that most people have learned to not think for themselves. Some may have never learned to think for themselves in the first place.
Once you've determined who you think is an authority, it's startlingly easy to just take their statements as gospel. Having placed my faith in Stephen Hawking as an astrophysicist, if he comes out and definitively states that black holes don't bend light like we thought, but refract it in some way, I'm liable to accept that. Granted, I personally put much thought and deliberation into whom I accept as an authority, and I still check on things if they sound iffy or even just "juicy." If I have accepted Wolf Blitzer as an authority, and he says that Colin Powell was a spy for the Russians all along, I will investigate that further because it just feels funny. Feels like there may be some reason other than truth to reveal that.
Most people don't do that checking - particularly the sort of demographic that fills the "anti-Obama" crowd.
Sorry...that rambled on and circled back on itself. Just say I'm as mystified and annoyed as you are about the whole thing.
BTW, I'll lay money that your old schoolmate has never read a Hitler speech.
I have, and I'm not worried about serving under this President.
Well, since we were only required to take US History from "first landing" to Reconstruction, I'm going to say you are probably correct. Only the uber-smarts took more history than required. He wasn't in my group of ubers, and there weren't many of us. We were all in class together.
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