Guardian Unlimited: News blog

And your point Richard?

If you want a barometer of American marbles you had better choose someone other than a beauty contestant, or you might seem like someone who is just sticking the boot in for the sake of it.

It's boring and in this case far from chivalrous.

Richard Adams writes:

"A survey by National Geographic in 2002 found that just 11% of young people couldn't spot the US on a globe."

No, here's what the survey said: "About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn't even locate the U.S. on a map."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/11/1120_021120_GeoRoperSurvey.ht

Of course, we don't know what maps these young children were shown for the National Geographic study. They may have been maps showing only the US, Canada and Mexico for all we know.

So, Mr. Adams, please conduct your own survey using globes, and then get back to us. Such as.

What was that all about again. Sorry, I was reading about George Hotz, another 17 year old.

Having travelled extensively around the US (including the mid-western states), I have found that it doesn't really matter.

I invite any of you to engage in a 'world affairs' conversation with your average American student.

The young people I encountered were so educated/ingrained/indoctrinated with the fact that the US is THE global superpower and the master of all things superior that it was - in their minds at least - felt that the rest of the world should know who, where and what the US is and 'stands for' and that the rest of the world should pay heed and respect for all the good [?] that it's brought to [upon] us all.

I AM generalising here. All countries - including the UK - have a 'thick' demographic, but the article itself deigns to be generalist. I can only respond with my personal experiences.

Whilst in New York, Boston, Delaware et al I met some very clued-up people that were very worldy-wise, I'm afraid that that the general masses are so engrossed in the American Dream served-up to them by the American mass media that the real world - sans ad breaks - doesn't share the same view fuelled by American consumerism.

I'm not anti-American.

Go figure.

We Brits used to have it easier. Instead of having to analyse intricate shapes, we could just point to anything pink on the map. Would anyone happen to know why the colour pink was chosen?

Give the girl a break - she was obviously very nervous and hadn't expected that question. And there isn't really a diplomatic reply to it (can you think of one?).

Interesting to observe that the comments section at YouTube has plunged to new lows of mean-spiritedness and illiteracy.

As an American living in Florida, I see the decline of public education as one of the main causes. Under the No Child Left Behind law, a creation of our Prez, teachers teach to the standardized tests. Called the FCAT in Florida (Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test), this test not only grades students, but also schools. FCAT results rank schools and teachers. Low-performing schools are punished, and low-performing teachers are tagged as dead-enders. Teachers teach to test. If it isn't tested on the FCAT, it's not taught with anything more than a superficial effort. Geography isn't tested on the FCAT, ergo it isn't taught more than superficially. Teachers hate this, but the Republicans are gung ho for it. The Republican attitude stems from their dislike of public schools per se, but that's another issue.

Ymmyinyertummy makes a good point. Americans have a great sense of exceptionalism. We are the greatest nation on Earth. We are the pinnacle of human freedom and liberty. You've seen and heard this before. I believe this attitude carries with it a belief that we don't need know much about the rest of the world. We are so great that the rest of the world needs to know about us. This chauvinistic and simplistic attitude is unrealistic and dangerous. In a democracy, the people ultimately decide, so the people need to know enough to decide. In the past, we could get away with this. Now, I wonder if those who worry about having their job outsourced to China know where to locate China on a map of the world. Ask them to decide whether a candidate's position on free trade with China is worth voting for? If you don't even know where is China, how can you know enough to decide. I'm not saying knowledge of geography alone suffices, but if lack this, you probably lack an understanding of economics. Dangerous. This is part of the reason why we Americans are so susceptible to soundbite politics. A snappy phrase appeals more to ignorance than a nuanced argument. John Kerry found this out in 2004. Illegal immigration? "What part of illegal don't you understand?" Vietraq? "They hate us for our freedoms." Fiscal policy? "Tax and spend liberals." Etc.

Our schools simply don't prepare our students to think critically.

[This post has been edited by a moderator]

Quite simply..... in the US, educators and the population at large believe that the study of geography is the study of place names so the study of geography as an examination of the physical and human interaction of peoples, climate, trade etc , is barely taught. (Look at the number of US students taking AP Human Geography and compare UK Advanced Level Geography per head of population.)

As Brits we really shouldn't take the piss. We've got such bad teeth.

I'd like to know which schools in the midwest yummyinyertummy went to and got such a low opinion of American students. At my midwestern school I can't walk across campus without seeing students demonstrate about Iraq, Palestine, Darfur, or Tibet. The student newspaper focuses more on international issues than on domestic ones. And I really wish that I could go one day without hearing someone praise Chavez. This is not atypical of American college campuses at all.

Probably best not to put your trust in the people who come up with questions for beauty pageant contestants, but perhaps their day job is administering the No Child Left Behind regulations.

Note that in 2006, the survey report kept to the "one in ten" soundbite by excluding everyone with education past the high school level. One would think the results were dismal enough on their own, no spin needed.

From the 2006 survey:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/roper2006/pdf/FINALReport2006GeogLitsurvey.pdf
p. 26 of 89
"Pinpointing North America on a Map Is a Breeze
Nearly all (94%) young Americans can find the United States on the world map, and Canada (92%) and Mexico (88%) are nearly as familiar. Wide majorities can find bordering bodies of water including the Pacific Ocean (79%) and the Gulf of Mexico (75%). Trends from 2002 suggest that more young adults can pick out Canada and Mexico (with few signs of change for other countries). However, it is concerning that one in ten of those with up to a high school
education cannot identify the U.S., and one in five cannot find the Pacific Ocean."

As for the Special Relationship...(same page):
"However, majorities cannot find the U.S.'s closest ally, the United Kingdom (36% correct, 65% incorrect)...."

As for the general trend, this from 2002:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey2002/download/RoperSurvey.pdf
"Nine in ten young Americans (89%) could correctly locate the United States on a map of the world; this is up seven points from the 1988 study."

And so the young people went from 82% (1988) to 89% (2002) to 94% (2006). At least the trend's in the right direction. Now how about publishing the results for everyone on Team Bush? And every Senator and Representative?

For all those with a sense of moral superiority, need i remind people of a miss jade goody.

"I thought Cambridge was in London. Where is it then? Is it in Kent? I knew it was in England but I thought it was in London."

When told it was in East Anglia, she replies

"East Anglia - that's abroad!"

Stupid is as stupid does; having or not having a map is really only half the struggle

Openg: "And your point Richard?"

My point is that it was a tough question, one that may have been inaccurate, and to which she gave a not-bad answer, and so doesn't deserve the national ridicule. The cable news channels are playing the clip here in the US, to general hilarity.

wikipedia - thanks, so America's youths are actually getting smarter. Excellent news.

anthod - indeed. And I believe Jade Goody actually referred to it as "East Angular".

Its not bad considering she is young and is being asked to respond to an awkward question in front of a live audience and millions of people on TV. Give her the benefit of the doubt and put it down to nerves.

And as others have rightly ponted out, we in the UK have absolutely nothing to laugh about. My friend is a manager in a call centre. She told me the other night that one of her staff thought France was in the UK. I just find it depressing.

I get a sense that young people have too much going on these days to worry about where countries are on he map or whats going on in the world generally. Its also reflected in low voting figures by 18-25 year olds. So what can you do about it?

Answers on a postcard.

Give her a break? She was nervous? She's only 17? What other excuses should we trot out - she's too pretty to know anything? She's going to have a career modelling or doing porn, so she doesn't need to know anything? She sold her atlas to save up for implants?

These girls train for these contests. They do local pageants, town pageants, county pageants and state pageants. It was nothing new or unexpected. If she was unprepared, it wasn't because she was nervous or the question was unexpected, it was because she is unintelligent. So she's 17 - that means she's been in school for the past twelve years solid. What has she been doing? Not learning.

The problem is with the way Americans tend to treat education (and this is from firsthand experience). To them it's a place where you get trained to get a job, and learn how to be socially competitive. There's a distinct lack of teaching anyone to think analytically. There's a distinct lack of passing on a thirst for knowledged. School sporting events are given much more weight than scholastic achievement. Communities get together to watch pointless high school football games on Friday Nights, but there is no similar celebration of educated minds. School is not about education. And education in America is not about improving the intellect.

This comes from a broader cultural attitude. Intellectuals are typically described and derided as "elites" in the media. Al Gore, the intelligent candidate in 2000, was considered too intelligent and serious, and therefore boring. The media preferred the party-boy lacking in intellectual curiosity - so much so Bush nearly won that election. Look at American television. Look at Hollywood films. Bookstores only became popular once they started serving food and pro wrestlers started writing autobiographies. Look at how the education system is grossly underfunded so the graduates have nice new tanks to drive when they get out. Is it any wonder? This girl is a product of her society.

And yes, when people like this girl, or any of the other brainless, talentless (but oh so pretty) Paris Hiltons, make complete fools out of themselves, we should laugh at them. Maybe some of them will take it to heart and look to remedy their lack of intelligence. We have brains, let's encourage their use once in a while. We don't need more George Bushes, even if some of them are female and slap on a coat of makeup...

@Garak, et. al.

Clearly there is a problem with the US education system and other cultural aspects that lead the American people to behave the way they do, etc. However, the main problem with it is the way it's exported to the rest of the world. That applies to things such as its media, software products, but worst of all its government.

The solution, I think, is simple. Since the rest of the world is so deeply affected by US policy (in turn created by the supposed denocratic will of the American people), the answer is simply to allow all people of the world a chance to vote in the US presidential elections. :-t

Richard Adams writes:

"My point is that it was a tough question, one that may have been inaccurate, and to which she gave a not-bad answer, and so doesn't deserve the national ridicule."

Sadly, I suspect the contestant hasn't seen many maps herself, since geography long since ceased to be a school subject here in the US. She most likely hasn't seen many grammar texts either.

Still, with some initiative she might have picked up an atlas at some point while she was training to be a teen beauty queen, if it had ever been important enough for her to do so.

The poor girl obviously had pat answers to pat questions and this non-pat question threw her for a loop.

As for 11 per cent of young Americans not know where the US is on a map of the globe - this is not surprising. In a survey done a couple of years ago, it transpired that one adult American in five thinks that the Sun revolves around the Earth. But perhaps is it harder to know where one is in the solar system because it's soooooooo big.

As the US government turned down food aid from the UK for Hurriance Katrina survivors, perhaps we can sent maps, globes and orreries next time as these seem to be in desperately short supply.

None of this is particularly new. In a 1985 survey, a higher proportion of Japanese high school students knew the name of the US president than their US counterparts.

When asked to rate admirable figures from Japanese history, the US students ranked Bruce Lee top, followed by Mao Zedong, 'shogun', 'samurai', Confucius and Godzilla.

So much for the future Defenders of the Free World.

Isn't this about insecure men, and insecure women, being afraid of the social power that sexual attractiveness brings, thus relishing a pretty girl's public humiliation.

Isn't there a class issue here? Isn't it terribly middle class to vaunt brains over the body, and to ridicule those who value body over brains?

I am not sure I much like consumer populism either, but it is not like our own intellectual culture, even as middle -class Guardian readers, is so fantastic.

This reminds me of all the Jokes at the expense of working class English people you see on shows like little Britain.

I have had clued up friends from (self-indentifyingly) working class backgrounds shred my middle class assumptions, and I can only sympathise with how much this kind of smugness p's them off.

We're dealing here with a nation that in general does not believe in evolution.

Not so hard to figure out why, when we see how evolved its public figures are.

While it's important to use sweeping generalization to condemn the hated Americans, it would be useful to look at the 2002 survey of 18-24 year old Brits.

The Pacific Ocean is one of the largest geographic features in the world. Almost half of presumably educated Brits can't find it on a world map. Same for finding Mexico and Japan. 79 pct can find the US, 72 pct Canada. Despite so many Brits' burning hatred of Israel and its people, only 25 percent can find their nemesis on the globe.

Total scores - correct out of 16. SE 12.7 D 12.3 FR 11.3 CAN 8.9 I 12.0 UK 8.7 (Lowest score in Europe)

It's simple, geography is not a topic taught in US schools - it gets a couple of hours of the curriculum as part of "Social Studies" (or something like that). On the other hand, science teaching is at least 1 year ahead of the UK and they do calculus at 13. Now you may argue that the incompetence in geography bodes ill for global relations, but they make up for it elsewhere.

As Homer said "I'm not going to English class, why bother?, I'm never gonna go to England."

let's not forget that something like 80% of US Americans believe in god. How whacky is that!

Listen you Poindexters...no-one cares whether she knows the answer to some stupid question. She is a babe and that's all that matters. It's not knowledge of geography (or lack of) that I would want to discuss with her.

AC Slater - still living the dream.

I'm always concerned when surveys come out saying X% of people couldn't point to Y on a map because it seems like one of those questions you only ask in order to try and prove how thick people are so I wonder how fair the test conditions are?

I work for a company in Chippenham (and how many Londoners could find THAT on a map?) that employs people in its Customer Relations department who have entered addresses in Dublin, Northern Ireland, and Belfast, Eire.

Clearly they didn't benefit from a proper education like we did, and didn't get hit on the head when they gave the wrong answer...

Surely this sort of basic world-geography--the continents and oceans, where your own country is, and so on--is something that should be taught to younger children. It shouldn't make a difference that it's not taught or tested at the secondary level, such as a US High School.

Not everyone at that age can grasp the connections between maps and reality; I was following roadmaps, and saying "turn left here" to my father, several years before I realised some of the between-the-roads geography where I lived. But I saw the movies set in Africa, and wanted to know where that was--is it so hard to teach something the kids are curious about?

My company in Eastern Europe employs only graduates of the fantastic Soviet Education system

In recent presentations I have asked the population figures for their neighbours - Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan etc

Nobody out of a 100 people knew the answers. Remember these countries were once part of the CCCP (much missed according to V V Putin) And knowing their population is part of our job

One lady even answered half a million for Kazakhstan a country of 16 million people.

Ignorance isn't limited to one Superpower

I agree with Skinz, I'm always dubious of 'X% of people didn't know what/where/who Y was' surveys. Ok not being able to find your own country is pretty bad, especially when it's as gigantic as America, but what I find is that people equate knowing facts with intelligence. It's like that awful 'Test the Nation' thing they do on the BBC every year, which is largely a general knowledge quiz rather than an IQ test - not that IQ tests are even particularly valid anyway.

To be honest, my geography is terrible. I've always been a high-scorer at school and I have a first class honours degree from a redbrick university, but I will admit that I, like Jade Goody, used to think that Oxford and Cambridge were both in, or at least next to London. I had just never been required to know where they were.

Gazpatcho Soup.

I have studied in three different countries. 2 Europeans and got my BA in the US.
I had the impression that professors and the Universities in the US were much more professional than here in Europe. Maybe because over there the students pay a lot and the "educators" are under a huge pressure from its "costumers" to perform. Professors in Europe just don't give a "...." . Too good to be distracted with students when doing research is so much more interesting. but I agree with someone who posted a comment here stating that in the US one gets an education in order to get a job and in Europe its a bit more about personal growth. In general off course.
One other thing that I found to be very different is the fact that people who are ignorant in Europe are usually ridiculed. It isn't cool not to have a basic knowledge of the world and what's happening in it. In the US I was under the impression that it can actually be cool to be ignorant and people sometimes play the part of the ignorant even exaggerating how ignorant they are and how little they care about it. Like saying: "I'm too good to be concerned about something as insignificant as knowledge". Yes ...just laugh a lot and repeat the words "like...whatever"
ever"

RogerIn...Is that questionnaire to be found on the web somewhere? Want to see how thick I am. Not that I'm between 18 and 24 sadly. Nor particularly British either.

Sorry to be so absolutely blunt, but winners in beauty competitions are chosen for what men imagine is between their legs, not for what's between their ears. Appearing to have nowt between their ears just emphasises their reason for winning.

According to American news sources she just graduated high school with a GPA of 3.5 (i.e. B+).

303Squadron said: "One lady even answered half a million for Kazakhstan a country of 16 million people."

Don't worry, it's everywhere. I once met a very intelligent, university educated young american woman who told me in all seriousness that, "Cuba is such a threat because it's so much bigger than the United States".

She seemed to believe that 'Cuba' was "surely that long bit that's down below Panama...where all the jungles are." (She seemed to be getting Cuba mixed up with South America).

Not important, except that people cast votes based on such misinformation.

She did a good catch on the TODAY program - http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=8c4ff841-eaf6-49bb-8186-92a07e09ee06&f=05&fg=rss

She is going to Appalachian State University apparently!

I would like to add 2 points. First, America has always held intellectuals in low regard, and this has filtered down to the public schools. Of course, the Founding Fathers were all intellectuals, but many seem to forget this. In our schools, the athletes are the stars. Nerds and geeks need not apply. As I understand it, the US is the only nation that weds athletics to schooling. Academics may suffer budget cuts, but football will always have all the funding it needs. This is especially true in the South, where football is commonly thought of as the real religion. The head coach of the U. of Alabama is being paid $4 million per year. The head coach of Auburn U. is paid. $2.2 million per year. Neither school is known for its academics. To me, this reflects the priorties of the public.

Second, the anti-intellectual prejudice has gotten so strong in the black community that black students are being shunned by their peers if they excel academically. Academic success is a white thing, not for blacks. Hip hop (i.e., rap) reinforces this self-destructive prejudice. I doubt Dr. King would approve.

Also, sorry about the excessively-long prior post, Mr. Moderator.

"In a survey done a couple of years ago, it transpired that one adult American in five thinks that the Sun revolves around the Earth."

The other four think that the Earth revolves around the USA.

Garak may wish to examine Oxford and Cambridge, with regards to boat-racing skills, although it is perfectly true that these are not given quite the same emphasis as basketball and football do in American colleges. Nonetheless, one must not forget that despite what your geography teachers may claim, the Battle of Waterloo was unquestionably won on the playing fields of Eton.

There are good ways to teach, there are good ways to examine retention and ability, but these are not practiced the world over. I know of no country that works to educate optimally, most seek simply to educate adequately and cheaply.

As for the poor girl, yes, she will likely be haunted by this for many years. Until the next scandal involving such pageants anyway. However, it is something maybe such girls need to consider: is it better to sound off and say what you really think, knowing you'll be skewered by either the left or the right, or to try and second-guess what is socially acceptable and get skewered by both? Perhaps there's more to learn from Lordi than Bucks Fizz.

The young lady appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning, where she was offered the opportunity to answer the question again. Her response:

"Personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on our map. I don't know anyone else who doesn't. And if the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography in our education so people will learn how to read maps better."

OK, better. But still.. "our map?"

Miss Teen Beauty Contestant & Maps

Aphrodite actually became a map! Anthropomorphic maps were generated by configuring the body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that body became the name of the area or feature under that part. This produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper on which the name of a place automatically indicated its approximate location and direction with respect to all other places on the same map whose name was derived in this manner. The linguist Dan Moonhawk Alford (deceased) and the anthropologist Stan Knowlton described the maps of Napi (aka The Old Man, creator of the Blackfoot Indians) and his wife (The Old Woman) in Alberta, Canada. I have described similar maps in Asia minor (Hermes) and north Africa (Aphrodite). Each toponym - body part correlation on these maps is a record in the databases on the BPMaps discussion group website at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/ You are cordially invited to join this very quiet group (about 2 emails / month). Read message #7 entitled "Attributes of body part maps". Examine the Aphrodite database to fully understand this limerick. Aphrodite as an Anthropomorphic Map
The goddess we call Aphrodite Is not just an old Grecian deity. The Phoenicians did make Her a map. It's not fake. Her body is cartograffiti.
The Punic war destroyed her face, The Romans left nary a trace. But her hair is still there, In Sahara, that's where. And her chin's a Tunisian place.
Mt. Atlas is her first verTebra. Her backbone is now Gulf of Sidra. Her heart is in Libya, Her left leg, Somalia. Her breast is in Chad wearing no bra.
The Greeks called her liver Egypt, an' Her kidney was Biblical Goshen. She's bent at her waist, Now Misr-ably placed. The Red Sea was her menstruation.
As a kid I did think the Red Sea Was an English map typo: lost E, From Reed Sea in Hebrew. But that could not be true, Mare Rubrum 'twas Latin, B.C.
Aphrodite with Hermes did sin, We know this is true 'cause within Her "snatch" we call Sinai His "zaiyin" does still lie. It's known as the desert of Zin.

Best regards, Israel "izzy" Cohen, BPMaps moderator

As an American, who spent my youth growing up in the UK (London) and traveled extensively around the world, this issue is cause for great embarrassment and concern. I freely admit most Americans believe the United States is the center of the world, but that's because their frame of reference is based on limited exposure.

Nationalism is something that all countries share in common, but it's encumbent on us to learn as much about other countries, cultures, religions, forms of governments as humanly possible.

So Americans are now said to be generally ignorant because 11% or 20% of kids do not have a clue what a map is, let alone reading the country names on it. Think for five seconds about what else they might not know about...

Isn't that a relief? Or is that danger for the world (including the US)?

Nationalism and xenophobia have nothing to do with ignorance, they have everything to do with cultural chauvanism. I think over time, the large influx of Hispanics will do the most to rehabilitate the Americans in this respect. Worrying about the low level of geographic knowledge and lingual facilities is really immaterial. As the culture changes, these things will naturally remedy themselves.

Detractors aside, there are ONLY American footprints on the moon; it is universally recognized that American universities and colleges are second to none in quality and scholarship; Americans lead in Nobel prizes; and our athletes earn the most Olympic medals.
American science, technology and industrial might is unsurpassed. We fought thru to military victory on TWO disparate fronts during WW2 unlike any other country; and we beat into submission the Soviet Union with its world-wide socialist/communist movement. We are the lone superpower and the Pax America we provide the world is a product of our genius, resolve and intelligent leadership of the world. We didn't achieve this by being stupid. This is what our school system produced!!! Look at what European intelligence brought the world in the twentieth century: wars, desolation, destruction, hate doctrines, racism, holocaust, gulags, concentration camps, quislings, Vichyite collaborators, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Milosevic, Marx, Lenin, ad nauseam. Some European school system!!!!!

Geography and languages are not emphasized in American high school because we are a continental sized country where most live, work, and die within our own bailiwick. We never have to find ourselves on a map because we are here already. It's like forgetting your own phone number because you don't call yourself.

Most Americans perform their economic, social, political, and industrial miracles here at home and only have to go abroad to sell our surpluses and clean up the messes left by European tyrants. For that we take short courses on geography.

And a measure of how wise Americans are they never embraced fascism, Nazism, Communism, or socialism like the sophisticates of Europe. And you won't find graduates from leading American universities appearing in public wearing a Nazi brown shirt with swastika like Prince Harry. I think what you are noticing about the American teenager is she isn't like you, doesn't admire you, doesn't care about you, and doesn't want to be like you. Americans are very not you. In fact they even fly the flag and go to church.

"Look at what European intelligence brought the world in the twentieth century: wars, desolation, destruction, hate doctrines, racism, holocaust, gulags, concentration camps, quislings, Vichyite collaborators, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Milosevic, Marx, Lenin, ad nauseam. Some European school system!!!!!"

Don't be so smug--America's historical record isn't that shining bright. America maintained the institution of slavery longer than Europe. How about the systematic subjugation of Native Americans, when we took their land, forced them into reservations, gave them smallpox infected blankets and tried to destroy their culture through the enforced boarding school system? Then there's lynching, segregation, Jim Crow laws. The murder of civil rights activists. Race riots that destroyed entire towns, like Rosewood in Florida. There were many notable admirers of Hitler, like Henry Ford. Anti-semitism (which still exists, let me tell you) The internment, for years, of legal American citizens who just happened to be of Japanese ancestry. Eugenics, forced adoptions and the forced sterilization of "undesirables" in the 1920s. Deep meddling in South America. Supporting puppet regimes against the will of the people. Destruction of the environment. Plenty of hate groups.

America is not spotless.

On a personal note, I am an American who spent four years living in the UK as a kid. I can personally attest that the level of education I received at my run of the mill schools in the UK were significantly better that the well-regarded public school and even the private school I attended upon my return to the States. But that's just my personal experience and not a generalization. That was also 20 years ago, so much might have changed.

Oh, and Bob?

Not everyone in America is Christian and goes to church. There are other religions here, you know. Or maybe you don't.

Just an history lesson aside but America abolished slavery in less than 100 years once we whipped the British and kicked them out of our country. It was an institution the Europeans created and we abolished.

The American school system must be doing something right. American Muslims are being incorporated into our melting pot and are not alienated and bombing subways as in the UK. We may be lacking in learning geography, but we are second to none in creating a patriotic citizenry who have sense enough to keep their powder dry and don't let their red, white, and blue colors run--if you get my drift.

Have American critics noticed that American tourists always return home after visiting Europe on vacation because better schools or not, Americans immediately see there is no there, there. Question: why would the British be immigrating in droves if their school system produced superior anything? Americans aren't the ones voting with their feet a disapproval of their circumstances. Nor do Americans allow themselves to become a boot licking poodle. Our self-respect is too great to permit us to other than stand tall for our values and principles. Republishing Danish cartoons doesn't send Americans hiding under their beds frozen by fear like the products of UK's educational establishment did. And for all our ignorance of geography, Americans don't play "kings and queens" in this the 21st century. We like to be known as a society based on merit and achievement rather than birth and privilege--like Britain. Under-educated American teenagers play at royalty, but you'll never find them worshiping it as is done in the UK.

With America, it all gets down to an intelligent people and the educational system that made it possible. As evidence more than 60 million Americans voted for Bush, which is more than reside in the entire UK. And we did it without the advice of Europe whose idea of philosopher-kings are leaders like Hitler, Mussolini, Milosevich, Stalin, Lenin, Marx, Quisling, Laval, Petain, Napoleon and all those wonderful products of European culture and education whose innocent victims run into the hundred of millions. Some culture, some educational system!!!!

'merit and achievement...'

so how the f### did you manage to vote that slack-jawed wanker Bush in - not once, but twice !

Sorry BobUSA but I disagree with...

"And for all our ignorance of geography, Americans don't play "kings and queens" in this the 21st century. We like to be known as a society based on merit and achievement rather than birth and privilege--like Britain. Under-educated American teenagers play at royalty, but you'll never find them worshiping it as is done in the UK."

As GomezAdams pointed out, George Bush the son is a classic example of birth and privilege in action. Also, what is the Hollywaood star system but the American version of worshipping royalty. Unfortunately, the US seems to be on the road to class stratification and is culturally turning its back on the ideals that made the country a place that nurtured individualism, and merit.