Monday, August 27, 2007

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE IN :30

A friend sent me a YouTube clip this morning - perhaps you've already seen it. It's Miss Teen South Carolina answering a question by answering a question. Amazing, really.

I would post the link here, but I think the written transcript is more meaningful.

Question: "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is?"

[A sad fact, indeed. The answer to the question, of course, is that education in America is embarrassingly underfunded compared to things like nation-building and gratuitous hand-outs to Israel. Calling attention to our nation's obsession with celebrity and pop culture might have even earned a few points. Hell - anything remotely coherent might have registered as a "good try." The answer provided answers the question in itself. Wow. Heaven help us all if this is the future of our nation.]


Miss Teen South Carolina:

"I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh...people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and...I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our..."

If nothing else she could become a speechwriter for G_Dubs when he starts making the post-presidential circuit.

3 comments:

JessieE said...

"Gratuitous handouts to Israel"???

And no mention of F-ING RIDICULOUS WAR FUNDING?

Mr. Monkey...let's get our priorities in order. I read you regularly and agree 99.9% of the time, but sheesh. What an obvious and unnecessary slam.

Contact me! said...

Perhaps you missed the no-so-obvious reference to "ridiculous war funding," which was cleverly disguised as "nation-building." I also posted a handy graph for visual reference.

Not sure exactly what you mean by "unnecessary slam," but I can assure you the billions of dollars we send to Israel every year would be better spent at home fixing our fucking bridges, schools, health care, and social security. We can't secure our OWN fucking borders and we're sending money to help secure Israel's? What an obvious and unnecessary line item in our national budget. Where's my red pen?

JessieE said...

Oy, yeah. I guess you did. Sorry about that. Seems I have a set of those eyes that focus in and then have a bit of difficult DE-focusing...

hmmm...how to extricate myself...hmmm... how about mentioning ALL the gratuitous handouts, and not focusing on Israel? maybe that would calm me. Of course, then again, it IS your blog....

;-)

--Jessiee (ducking and covering)

I SEE YOU!