Video of CNNN’s Julian Morrow interviewing several Americans on the streets and asking them general knowledge/trivia questions à la Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking”. Questions and answers include (but are not limited to):
• Countries that begin with a “U” (some name Utah and Utopia; none get “United States”);
• Identify the religion of Israel (most name “Muslim”);
• Identify the religion of Buddhist monks;
• How many sides a triangle has (answers include “one” and “four”);
• Identify the UK currency (“Queen Elizabeth’s money” and “possibly American money”);
• Which country should next be invaded in War on Terror (answers range from Indonesia to Canada; one suggests bombing the entire Middle-East);
• Locating Iran and North Korea (which several people identify as Australia);
• Whether Kofi Annan is a drink (most say true and name various beverages);
• Asked who first walked on the Moon, one man says some “believe that it was reincarnated in Arizona somewhere”;
• What is a mosque (“an animal”);
• How many World Wars there’ve been (“three”);
• Which state KFC comes from (can’t identify it when with “Kentucky Fried Chicken” spelled out);
• What is al-Qaeda (a “suicide group” from Israel and headed by Yasser Arafat, or else “a wing of the Masonic order”)
Now, to be fair, it would appear that Germans, Brits and even we Canadians are unfit to graduate from the fifth grade. Perhaps the reasonable lesson is that stupid people are everywhere and are not representative of any entire populace.
I’m still weeping that folks like this are allowed to vote and drive, though.
I’m a liberal skeptic, rationalist & third-wave atheist stuck in a rut in Québec, Canada and who spends his time composing, writing, drawing, harboring a layman’s passion for science and technology, getting angry at social injustices, and most of all, jabbing cretins and trolls with sharp pointy sticks. (Oh, and blogging.) Proud owner of a Nize Hat!, an indomitable SIWOTI syndrome and an itchy snark finger.
You can find all my musical, literary and artistic works at my art blog, Creativitas.
“If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” — John Stuart Mill