Where Would Ed, Edd and Eddy Bomb?: On the National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs Study
by Richard Oxman

-To really get your article, I think three things will be necessary, Ox. One, readers will have to know the Cartoon Network trio. Two, familiarity with Austrian filmmaker Hubert Sauper’s 2005 documentary on Lake Victoria is essential. And, three, they will have to embrace a sense of urgency which they are –for the most part– incapable of doing.- — Anonymous Member of Stanford University’s Center for African Studies

My six-year-old son, Marcel, can tell you that Turkmenistan and Tajikistan each have a literacy rate of 100%-and that those figures contrast with 97% for both Canada and the U.S.A. But the people who are bombing the hell out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other sovereign nations can’t find them on a map-for the most part. Any of them. Our cheerleaders for genocide and its -first cousins- don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to social studies. And they’re the basis for our plugging democracy, their unchanging profile the very foundation of our Foundation, the core of our participatory, Hoary Ideal.

U.S. citizens who insist upon financing holocausts worldwide are too ignorant to know who’s living next to the people they’re killing, what’s housed adjacent to the targets of our strategic smartass strikes, etc. And these are the same dumb asses who take stances against immigrants without being able to distinguish between this or that Hispanic’s homeland, let alone draw upon a knowledge of others’ history/our complicity in their current status quo-and so on. The vast majority.

A chosen few from Marcel’s generation will be able to cite chapter and verse from Darwin’s Nightmare (perhaps), but the great masses –led by the Great Asses– have put the final nail in the coffin-simply by their existence, who they are. It is too late to wait for Marcel’s socially-conscious cronies to grow up and have an impact.

Look at the status quo as per an announcement concerning a recent, significant survey:

-After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed.

The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.

The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study paints a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most recent graduates of the U.S. education system.

‘Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States … are unprepared for an increasingly global future,’ said the study’s final report.

‘Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events.’

The study, which surveyed 510 young Americans from December 17 to January 20, showed that 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia despite widespread coverage of the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the political rebirth of the country.

In the Middle East, 63 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map, and 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel. Forty-four percent couldn’t find any one of those four countries.

Inside the United States, ‘half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map [50 percent and 43 percent, respectively],’ the study said.

On the positive side, the study noted, seven in 10 young Americans correctly located China on a map, even though they had a number of misconceptions about that country. Forty-five percent said China’s population is only twice that of the United States. It’s actually four times larger than the U.S. population.-

When the poll was conducted in 2002, Americans scored second to last on overall geographic knowledge. The 2006 study coincides with a National Geographic campaign designed to -inspire parents and educators to give their kids the power of global knowledge.-

Nice sentiments. Truly noble goals. But the -My Wonderful World- campaign is a day late and ten billion dollars short. Neither The Leaders nor The Led will get the lead out of their pants in time. The scorecard’s in, if you get my thrust.

If you disagree, try to remember that these kids have parents.

And keep what you know about environmental abominations (like Lake Chad’s disappearance), our irreversible momentum, etc. in mind as you read additional points made by the survey:

Thirty-three percent of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map.
Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
Two-thirds didn’t know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
Forty-seven percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
Seventy-five percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world.
Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

Where would Ed, Edd and Eddy bomb? Nowhere, they’re too cool for that. And if they did, they’d be oblivious to anything going down.

Richard Oxman, info@parisgraves.com, welcomes feedback up the kazoo. His most updated versions of articles are at www.oxtogrind.org. His greatest number of heartbeats are directed toward www.marcelsgeo.blogspot.com, www.ctravelc.blogspot.com, http://sylviesays.blogspot.com/.