Standing Athwart History Yelling Stop
Ladies and Gentleman: the Will.i.am remix, featuring John Boehner
If anyone asks, this is why I’m a yellow dog.
Indignant Desert Birds
Peaking under the Veil of Ignorance
Ladies and Gentleman: the Will.i.am remix, featuring John Boehner
If anyone asks, this is why I’m a yellow dog.
This quiz has been making the rounds. I found the test almost insultingly easy– then again, I majored in Poli-sci, and minored in History (and also Religion).
I found many of the questions poorly worded and in many cases a bit silly.
For instance “16) In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. :” The answer they want is so watered down from the truth that it’s almost a lie.
Or “29) A flood-control levee (or National Defense) is considered a public good because:”
Again, poorly worded question. The parenthetical aside seems to indicate that Levees are part of the National Defense, rather than indicating that they are both types of what economists call “public goods”.
A “public good” is one which it is impossible to prevent an individual from taking advantage of. You can’t have a flood which takes out _just_ one house. At least, not on purpose. Asking an opposing military to attack the one house on the block which failed to pay it’s military bill would be.. well, amusing.
“31) International trade and specialization most often lead to which of the following?” The concept they’re looking for is “comparative advantage”, and they’re asking in a _very_ clumsy way.
Does it really matter if we remember whether it was 1962 or 1963 that the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Berlin Wall went up?
Also: why is are key economic terms more important to civil society than, say, Labor history? Or science terms? I think that, in order to be a productive member of our Democracy, you need to have basic knowledge of geography. Why aren’t there any geography questions? The 21st century requires basic technical knowledge. Can we get some questions on automotive maintenance?
This test seems almost designed to fail most people. I wonder what this group is selling…
When confronted with a difficult question, I often ask myself “what would Orwell do?” The answer is usually “fight against tyranny and for the dignity of the human spirit”. Which isn’t a lot of help when you want to know what’s for dinner…
It turns out that Orwell kept a diary. And why not? Most everyone did in the pre-LJ era. Well, it seems that his Diary is being turned into a blog. Which I must say– that’s an awesome concept.
There are already projects to do online catalogs of famous people, so I hope that Orwell is but the first of many famous people who have their diaries turned into blogs. Can you imagine how cool it would be to read Jefferson or Franklin’s Diary updated daily? Modern technology being used to present history to modern lives: I love that.