Friday, December 30, 2016

CHASING THE HORSES THAT GOT AWAY

So, Obama finally did a little something in regard to Russia's meddling in a presidential election. That's like slamming the barn door after the horses have escaped and are running free.  Who let them out in the first place?   Uh, that would be the dumbasses who left the door unlatched, and they're not good at chasing down escaped horses.  In this case, it's horses' asses.  Little time left in office, no real talent for chasing freed horses, not much will happen with this little slap on the wrist.  We expelled some people, issued a few sanctions, big deal.  And the results of this big time brain fart will take office in less than a month, and that is a big deal.

But the Russian affair is small potatoes compared to what has happened to this country's electorate. I've factored in frustration and anger, disappointment, and even the remote possibility that the dumbass voters that elected Trump has some justification for their errant votes.  I come up with the same conclusion:  They didn't get bamboozled; they're just ignorant as dirt.  As a college professor for many years, I saw this coming quite some time ago.  I watched a steady decline in academic standards, stood in front of students each passing year less prepared for college work.  The dumbing down of America has apparently bloomed into an epidemic of ignorance.  Ask any employer what they think of todays workforce, the applications they get for jobs.  I live in small town America where the school system is supposed to be good.  A local merchants recently told me that he'd had 55 applications for a sales job, and most of them flunked the drug test.  Some had criminal records, and others were just too stupid to hire.  He didn't fill the position.

I sometimes wonder if the gene pool for intelligence in this country has gone dry.  We're currently raising a crop (generation) of young people who seem to think they were born with the right to be taken care of.  Few people go searching for jobs anymore; they want a position, and with no credentials for a position.  They're wizards with electronic gizmos like cell phones and I-pads, but they can't fill out a job application form.  Do the statistical work yourself and just google illiteracy in America.  One in five people can't read past a fifth grade level, and about 40 percent of our population can't read well enough to understand much of what they've read,  unless it's the drivel that shows up in todays literary marketplace.

While watching the Olympics from London some time back, like over four years ago, I saw a blip where a Beefeater was being interview.  You know, those funny dressed guys who serve as tour guides at the Tower of London.  And the interviewer asked this Beefeater about the strangest question he'd been asked by a tourist.  He said a lady from Texas once asked him if the Tower of London was where they'd kept Snow White prisoner before they cut her head off.  He said no, that Snow White was a fictitious character.  And as the woman walked away with her husband she was heard saying, "He's wrong.  I know that's where they kept her."  The sad part is that I could perhaps walk downtown where I live here in Texas and tell that story to someone on the street, and I might well get a blank stare, and the question, "Well, was it?"  How much would you like to bet that the same person voted for Trump?

No comments: