“Poll: 37% of Americans Unable to Locate America on a map of America,” reads the headline of a recent Huffington Post article. Outrage followed on the article’s comment board with reactions that the statistic was, “simply unbelievable” and, “as big a problem to our national security as Iraq.” While the Editor’s Note at the top clearly states that the article was a satire (proving that … Continue reading Huffington Post Geography Satire All Too Real
The New York Times online provoked a spirited debate yesterday with the question: Are American’s hostile to knowledge? Nearly 1000 weighed in on the comment board, which accompanied an article describing Susan Jacoby’s new book: The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby decries what she describes as an American culture of widespread ignorance and anti-intellectualism, citing the alarming results of the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of … Continue reading Tell Us: Are Americans hostile to global knowledge?
Some of you have wondered why National Geographic asked a question about the television show CSI on the Roper survey. This question reads “Which of these cities is the setting for the original television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation?” The four possible answers are San Francisco, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Los Angeles. (The correct answer is Las Vegas.) On this blog, and in e-mails, several … Continue reading What Does “CSI” Have to Do With Geography?
