Words fail me. As they failed her.
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Wow
26 Aug 2007 03:01 pm
Comments (27)
the only way she could have sounded more stupid is to have claimed that more home-schooling or more vouchers would solve the problem.
In her defense, it seems her incomprehensibility is due to stage fright at least as much as to stupidity.
She's a beauty pageant contestant. My question is why did they ask her about national educational policy? Why not wave theory? I guess she should have said we should all make a greater effort to know geography, but basically I feel badly for her - she's a kid who froze in a competition.
As I'm sure she failed in school too...
If I were in her place, I don't think I would have been quite that incoherent, but it is hard to come with a good answer on the spot to a platitudinous and completely open-ended question like that one. And as John says, she is a beauty pageant contestant, not a candidate for public office. Holding her up to ridicule seems a little pointlessly cruel.
Bah, you people are too nice. Yeah, she's just a beauty pagent contestant, but coming up with sufficiently slick, vapid answers for ridiculous questions on the fly is part of the gig. Her spectacular flameout is a thing of beauty, and you do it a disservice by not yukking it up with all haste.
I really wish it were acceptable in our culture to just have a plain old beauty pageant. The person who looks the prettiest wins... less mind numbing platitudes and false philanthropic effusions.
David, how was this video an appropriate segue to your opposition to home-schooling and vouchers? It's time to take a break from public policy posting boards when you've become incapable of recognizing the apolitical.
I thought "words fail me" was you conceding that you hardly ever seem to update your blog.
Zing!
Is there a point to this post besides random cruelty?
Is there a point to this post besides random cruelty?
Oh, PLEASE. Life isn't about being nice. It's about being mean toward the right people/things. The American "beauty pageant" is one of the most egregious affronts to good taste in existence. They deserve to be ridiculed at every turn. Think of all the wasted time and effort and money that gets funneled into these farcical displays. If "Miss South Carolina" is a mental midget, surprise surprise, it's damn worth pointing out on national t.v.
This is reason for eliminating any sort of "higher-calling" pretensions beauty pageants have. It's all a joke. Can they please just let me watch 50 hot women in bikinis?
Is it true she's on Bush's short list for AG?
a graduate of Pat Robertson's School of Law, no doubt.
apolitical? really?
you mean her apparent complete lack of understanding of geography and the study that the question cites don't obviously point to policy failures that are political in nature? that's what you think, gyrd?
maybe you ought to spend more time on education policy - you seem to care about avoiding platitudes. maybe we can make this meme a teachable moment - where we realize that we ignore geography, foreign languages, and other cultures to our own detriment. and home schooling + the voucher plans that transfer money from public to private schools are parts of the problem.
Bill: That may have been true true fifty or even twenty years ago, but these days so few people care about beauty pageants, why bother making fun of them?
Don't be hating on vouchers plans. Vouchers are for the marginal increase in value to the education of poor children. Whose to say that prior to their induction into some private school, they were learning adequate geography, or geography at all? Which is not to say that the federal and state governments don't mandate a geography curriculum. This has nothing to do with curricula and everything to do with teaching quality. Why would inner-city teachers in failing schools even have the motivation, or the innate ability, to teach these kinds of subjects when they and their unsackable bosses aren't even competent enough to teach reading and arithmetic? Perhaps subsidized private education will be lacking in the geography department as well, but the point here is that they provide a marked improvement in their overall education, which include much better teaching in the fundamentals.
As for home-schooled kids, I've only met a bunch who schooled us in Mock Trial and took every AP exam known to Man.
Yes David, the apolitical. If you saw a fat lady slip on a banana peel in an Adam Sandler film, while others were laughing you'd be outraged by the government's failure to get tough on littering.
This clip is a dumb-blond joke. It shows one poor public speaker, and alludes to many Americans who are scandalously poor at geography, but contains no lessons as to whether the solutions lie in private education, public education, or competition between the two. You're supposed to laugh.
Irrelevantly, I'm a former public High School Latin teacher, who loves, and taught by rote memorization, geography.
The thing is, your comments and derision are totally pointless. She's hot. She'll achieve material success. People flock to her and she needn't seek community among snarky smarmy snipers.
Anyone have her phone number?
She's really not that hot.
My wife just pointed out to me that she really didn't do that badly. We're all focused on her syntax and incomprehensibility, while she pointed out to me that the contestant retained her poise through the whole thing. Never grimaced or slapped her forehead mouthing 'i'm so stupid!...' She had a great smile after the answer. It's one thing to make a mistake, but many speakers will stammer and fuss and apologize and make things worse by calling attention to the mistakes.
The contestant is totally ignorant of substance, but she is an impressively well trained public speaker, and has total control over her own demeanor.
Well, here I go, just getting into trouble!
The little lady was apparently very flustered (onstage, 18 yrs. old). When she said US Americans, she was correct. If she had said Americans, then the folks in Central and South America would have reason to be upset. The word “Americans” does not mean US Americans.
And maybe if we had more maps, and fewer computers and sessions on political correctness, then maybe US Americans might know a bit of their local geography.
When she was distracted and spoke about Iraq, she was wrong. But then, she is 18 and onstage, she might be entitled to being flustered.
And if you want a “bad” school system, we only need to look at MPS (Milwaukee Public Schools) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Bob (the contrarian)
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Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream
Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class
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Posted by razib | August 26, 2007 3:43 PM