Americans do poorly in civics, history quiz

I'm not real sure what it is they're teaching in public school these days, but a test/survey run by the Intercollegiate Study Institute (ISI) indicates the basics of citizenship are not really in the curriculum.

According to the ISI, the vast majority -- about 70 percent of those who took the test --flunked the 33-question, multiple-choice civic literacy quiz touching on American history and its institutions. The national average score stands at 49 percent, a good solid F. And considering the multiple choice questions carry five possible options, a chimpanzee could score 20 percent just by blindly selecting answers.

These questions are pretty basic, too. Things like which inalienable rights are mentioned in the Declaration Of Independence, or what the three branches of government are. Hey, it's not like it's a test on nuclear physics written in Russian.

What I find interesting is how broad-based the failure went. It doesn't seem to matter much where you went to school -- Harvard seniors scored 69.56 percent on the test, a D-plus. Doesn't even really matter whether you went to college; there was little difference in the percentages there, and as any teacher will tell you, an F is an F.

While only 21 percent could recognize an Abraham Lincoln phrase from the Gettysburg Address, 56 percent could tell you Paula Abdul is a judge on American Idol. This tells you a lot about our education system, but says even more about how people think (and this may become the basis for a future diatribe in this space).

Also interesting: Elected officials did even more poorly on the test than the general public. This bears out my suspicion that so few elected types know so little about our Constitution and laws. Maybe some of those aforementioned chimpanzees were elected to public office and we just didn't know it.

All of this is very interesting and makes good water-cooler debate, but so what? And why is it important to know this stuff anyway?

Even the best human govermnents are not all that trustworthy, or efficient. Even the best-hearted officials will forget the people who voted them in office and start following their own agendas. Human nature is just like that. And we, among the masses, have precious few weapons to shortstop this process, to hold our leaders accountable. The best weapon is information, and a good working knowledge of how our government operates is a real good start.

Those without the knowledge of how our country works are more likely to believe any ol' promise that comes down the pike, especially if it sounds good. Without this knowledge, folks are more likely to become mindless sheep instead of citizens, and at some point sheep will get what is usually expected at the hands of slick politicians -- sheared.

OK. That covers the civics. Now what about knowing our country's history?

Now, this is a funny thing. History was not among my strongest subjects in school (I did best at recess, lunch, and going home). And even the history as presented in school was so dry, detached, and meant nothing in my world. Who wants to read about a bunch of dead guys in powdered wigs anyway?

As I've gotten older, I've become more interested. In journalism, I began to realize how important the background issues are in researching and writing a story. And living in history-laden Charleston made much of the stuff I managed to learn in grade school come alive. It's one thing to read about, say, Fort Sumter in your third-grade textbook. It's another to set foot in the fort, climb those same walls, to get the lay of the land.

Now, much of my recreational reading comes from the historical and biographical stacks -- I'm currently reading two; "American Caesar" about Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and "Telsa, Man Out Of Time" about the scientist/inventor.

Write this down: The more you know about the past, the more you'll know about the future.

History does repeat itself. Although the stage props will change with each new era, there truly is nothing new under the sun. Humans are still humans after all, and even with new props they'll still face the same core issues over and over again, and even with the new props they'll still go to the tried-and-hopefully-true to solve those human problems. A year ago, I posted a blog based on 13 American arguments, and what's so interesting is that these arguments were, with few exceptions, just as volatile in colonial times as they are now. They're just as meaningful as when man came into being and started to get organized.

The names change, the props change, but the core stuff remains the same.

But as far as predicting the future?

Here's an example: A good handle on the history of the Great Depression of the 1930s will give you a good look at how our leaders will try to solve our current economic crisis. And another example: I'm able to tell the folks in my neck of the woods about our immigration problems here, because I've seen it 25 years ago in California.

Out there, it's called history. In the southeast, it's called current events.

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Personal footnote: I took the test a few minutes before posting this entry. Got 29 of the 33 correct, for a score of 87.88. The five I missed were more in the economic realm, something in which I've never claimed to be a rocket scientist.

The national average score for November was 77.9 percent.

Test yourself: Here is a link to the quiz. How did you do?

NFL bucks can't be real

I'm beginning to think the folks in professional sports are really using play money.

Seeing the price of your favorite baseball or football star, it can't be real money. No way.

Think of it. Last I looked, the President of the United States makes a salary of $400,000, not counting perks, pretty nice housing, office space, and a gigantic expense account. But that $400K is about what the third-string shortstop for the Seattle Mariners makes, and I don't see Barack Obama doing shoe commercials either.

It just can't be real money.

This came to my attention (again) a few days ago when I read that the National Football League fined Randy Moss $20,000. The fine was later rescinded, but it makes you wonder what he did. Step on a defensive back's face, perhaps? Assault a referee? Moon the fans?

Nope. Moss, an insanely gifted wide receiver for the New England Patriots, criticized the referees in a recent game. That's all. And it wasn't even strong criticism.

I'm not going to take the obvious free-speech angle or our society's aversion to the thought of offending anybody (although no one seems to be squawking about those issues; must be the money doing that), but the indident is worth exploration even for the non-NFL fan.

Moss said the refs made some "iffy" calls, which is certainly mild. No questions about their eyesight, ancestry, or whether their family trees forked. Mone of the usual juicy stuff. Just "iffy."

OK, he said it to a few sports reporters. But he was venting, and pretty mildly at that. The League recognized that fact. Now, if Moss said the referees were of the same caliber as those found in the National Basketball Association, that would be a different matter -- apparently likening the two leagues is considered fighting words according to the NFL.

Even if the fine stood, $20,000 is a drop in the bucket for Moss. An NFL player of his caliber can make upward of $1,000,000 per game. For Moss, 20K is pocket change.

No, this isn't even a diatribe about sports salaries, even though the wage rates are scandalous -- especially at times like today, where non-athletic people merely hope their job doesn't disappear next month and their next egg doesn't disappear next year.

Of course pro athletes are overpaid, but it's one of the things about a free market. Your favorite ballplayer makes $20 million a year because somebody decided he's actually worth that much and is willing to pay that much. Clear? If someone else decides he's worth $25 million next year, your ballplayer is perfectly within his rights to go for it.

In 1970, when I first started paying attention to such things, Willie Mays made the highest salary in baseball -- at about $135,000 per year, and many midlevel ballplayers sold insurance during the off-season. OK, $135K was big money back then, and older baseball fans are reminded that in the early 1930s Babe Ruth made more money than the President (which made sense to The Babe; he did have the better year).

Really, it's no different from the real world, even though the numbers are different. Way different. But if you're making $15 an hour and someone else offers you $18, of course you're going to at least consider it.

Not much difference except that Monopoly money is the coin of the realm in pro sports.

(Side note: Air Obama shoe commercials? Man, I'd better get my medication changed around, and fast!)

How widespread is the flu? Google it.

The flu is making its rounds here in coastal South Carolina, and it's not pretty. The good news, for me anyway, is that with the exception of an occasional sniffle, I've dodged that bullet so far. And this is while working in a place where I'm in contact with a lot of diseased people.

But I'm taking precautions. Lots of rest. Eating reasonably healthy. Loading up on the Vitamin C.

Every few years there's talk about how the annual flu outbreak will be the Next Big One, extinguishing millions of lives, all that dramatic stuff. It's old business, really. In my own lifetime we've had the Hong Kong Flu, Swine Flu, and a handful of others that have fallen pitifully short of the post-World War I outbreak that occurred long before there were halfway decent drugs.

But the merely curious -- and the totally paranoid -- may want to check Google's offering on flu trends. It's interesting, though certainly not the most scientific in the world. No numbers from the Center for Disease Control here; Google's stats are based on search engine inquiries.

Which makes some sense, actually. The rationale is that someone is more likely to do a Google search for influenza when his throat hurts, his body aches, he's carrying a pound of snot, and and it feels like the Minnesota Vikings are pounding on his skull -- from the inside.

Anyway, enjoy. And don't forget the Vitamin C.

Sanford tells how GOP mailed it in

Although he's likely to blurt out nearly anything when the cameras are whirring, I really like South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

Earlier in the year, Sanford gained a lot of mention as a possible vice-presidential candidate (and not just in the local press) before nominee John McCain opted for Sarah Palin. But Sanford, although listed as a Republican, is not a "pure" one. His thinking and politics are more libertarian than that, which makes him an interesting political species. But he's got a future.

Recently, Sanford wrote an essay for cnn.com giving his take on how the GOP let the whole thing get away in the Nov. 4. election. The Ted Stevens debacle is the Cliff's Notes version of why the Republican Party went off the rails, he suggests.

His article is definitely worth a look.

Seven post-election questions asked

In another posting I gave my input on what we're likely to see in the next few years, after Barack Obama's election as president and equally stunning victories for Democrats all over.
But I'm not alone in this guess-the-future game. Jennifer Rubin, a writer for pajamasmedia.com, posed seven interesting questions soon after Tuesday's groundbreaking election.

Here are Rubin's questions, along with my own comments:

= Will Obama be a moderate centrist or liberal extremist?

(My take: The latter, whether he wants to or not. But his voting record in the Senate was liberal enough without thhe help of the folks running the houses of Congress.)

= Who will get the blame for the Republican wipeout?

(My take: There are plenty of possibilities here, and already Sarah Palin is getting consideration as scapegoat of the year -- have you seen the news reports on her lately? But if I was to place blame, I'd have to lay it at George Bush's feet. Although he tried to stay out of the way during the campaign, that wasn't enough, and Obama got a lot of mileage in trying to portray McCain as another Bush.)

= What will the Republican minority do now?

(My take: Not much. The minority will try to choose its fights, but it'll be like trying to put a duck in a cockfight. Not pretty.)

= Will continuity or change be the watchword in our national security policy?

(My take: This will be interesting, and a lot will depend on who Obama chooses for Secretaries of State and of Defense. And there were several names mentioned by the Associated Press. Some scuttlebutt has Obama keeping Robert Gates in charge of Defense. And among those mentioned for State is Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana. Although Lugar clearly rode the short bus to charisma school, he's brilliant. He knows international affairs; in fact off the straight credentials he'd be the best choice. And Obama said he'd try to reach across party lines for some of his cabinet.)

= Who becomes the Republican frontrunner for 2012?

(My take: Several contenders here ... but none that will capture the imagination like Obama did the Democrats. Palin's a maybe, though she has a lot of baggage after the recent campaign. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is intriguing. Mitt Romney is the likeliest, though he probably shot his wad in the '04 primaries. Too bad my man, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- who feeds his jail inmates corn dogs and issues them pink underdrawers -- is probably not going to run for the White House. A tragedy, that.)

= Will there be a crack-up of the conservative punditocracy?

= What will happen with the mainstream media?

(My take: Excellent question. The mainstream media, truth be told, did not do its job during this campaign. In fact, it did the public a grave disservice. But I've seen that coming for years.)

After election: A fuzzy look at what to expect

The people have spoken, the votes are counted, President-elect Barack Obama is meeting with his brain trust, and campaign signs will disappear from the landscape this year or next.

And my magic fortune-telling 8-ball is on the fritz.

One of the fun things about political punditry is in reading all the signs of the times and trying to make predictions -- and naybe some sense -- out of all of it. Nothing unusual there; to some extent most voters try to look four years into the future before deciding who gets their consideration.

But, Obama's campaign pitch was about change. That's about the only information available right now, that change is coming. Whether this change is good or bad, that's a big question. Obama is a totally unknown quantity. We only have his words, his associations, and his senatorial track record to go with here. Everything else is a throw of the dice.

It's an easier call in both houses of Congress, which is, in reality, where the action is. The Republicans received a major butt-thumping all over the country -- in fact, presidential nominee John McCain fared much better than his party did Nov. 4. Congress had been decidedly to the left, but headed deeper into that territory after winning just about every race of consequence there. And with folks like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leading the way, you just know Congress will be playing in deep left field during the next two years, at least.

So, fueled in part by my own news-watching habits, plus that large pepperoni pizza I ate just before going to bed last night, here's what I see happening:

= Obama will be pulled several different directions at once. The House and Senate will try to pull him into their turf. The people who voted for him will holler for their entitlements, financial crisis or not. Obama will try to strike a balance between the centrist coalition builder a la Bill Clinton and FDR-style liberalism, and my guess is that he'll take the latter course.

= As I mentioned in an election-night mini-posting (via Twitter), the populace will scream for the head of Barack Obama very soon. Give this about 18 months to materialize.

= The financial crisis will remain a crisis, and it will probably get worse. Obama won't make a lick of difference here. But we have the same players in Congress -- Pelosi, Reid, Barney Frank -- so the inmates are still running that asylum. And the atmosphere that created the financial crisis will continue. About the only real action you'll see is more bailout money being thrown at the problem.

= Vice President-elect Joe Biden called this one, and I wrote about it at length, but it bears repeating. We'l be hearing from old enemies, new enemies, and fair-weather friends. Iran will try to borrow a nuclear bomb from somebody ("I'll pay you tomorrow for a warhead today") and maybe try to lob something at Israel. North Korea will continue fresh rounds of trash talk. Russia will try to see what Obama's made of. Obama will find out what it's like trying to negotiate with world leaders who are nuttier than squirrel scat. Things might get real interesting in Mexico -- that nation is probably a bigger supplier of oil than the Middle East, and one of our biggest suppliers of drugs and illegal aliens. Call me crazy, but I really expect some sort of fireworks along the Rio Grande.

= While you're calling me crazy, here's another: Expect a facelift among the Republican party. While this is a no-brainer -- the GOP just got its butt handed to it and is trying to become relevant again -- I'm gonna take this even further than most pundits. I really see the Party splitting in the next few years. Hey, it's happened before, even if for a short time (George Wallace in 1968, the Dixiecrats in 1948, the Bull Moose Party in 1912, the madness of the 1860 election) -- and I really see this happening. I expect the conservatives to part company with the more liberal Republicans in the next few years. The Democrats won't be unscathed here; its more conservative element may hook up with the liberal Republican branch, especially the element that does not identify with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid troika.

= For the next two years, the Republican party will be pretty impotent. Maybe not as bad as it could have been -- they did manage to avoid being on the wrong end of a 60-40 supermajority -- but in effect we'll have a one-party system right here in America. Maybe a one-and-a-half party system, but that's just splitting hairs at this point. And that kind of system is always scary, always chilling.

That's it. I really need to get that magic 8-ball fixed. It's scaring me.

Political godfathers gone bad: It's all in how you play them

Despite the media's love fest with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, much has been made of his association with Bill Ayres, founder of the old Weather Underground.

It's been tossed around in debates, and aired on (mostly conservative) talk shows. The most frequent version of the story says Obama basically started his political career in Ayres' living room, with his full backing. Folks who still have memory cells left from the 60s may remember the Weather Underground as a ragtag band of revolutionists who made halfway decent explosives and targeted several public buildings like the Pentagon. Although Obama says he was eight years old when Ayres was at his peak, this should leave a bad taste in the mouth of any voter.

Strangely enough, very little has been made of Republican candidate John McCain's personal skeleton in the closet, but it may be instructive of a fundamental difference between the two candidates.

If Ayres, as it seems, was Obama's polital godfather, McCain's own godfather was a rather nefarious character in his own right. When the Navy man was taking his first stabs at politics, he befriended one Danforth "Duke" Tully, publisher of the Arizona Republic.

Tully was, by all accounts, an outstanding newspaperman and a real character. He was known as a war hero, and had the medals to prove it. A fighter pilot. He sensed a kindred spirit in returning POW and Navy pilot MccCain. The two hung around together. Their families became close. Tully stood as godfather to at least one of McCain's children. And Tully, publisher of the most powerful newspaper in the state, threw his support behind McCain.

There was a major problem, though. Tully was not a war hero. Never served. He made up his whole background and milked it for all it was worth. When he was exposed, he was forced to leave the Arizona Republic. Disgraced, Tully drifted among several tiny newspapers in Arizona and California. McCain, though, landed on his feet.

I did not know Tully. I've never met him. But you can say I do know him, indirectly. With the Republic, his chief lieutenant was a salty old newsman named Verne Peyser, who followed Tully to such outposts as Cottonwood, Arizona, and Ojai, California.

The newspaper business can be a lonely one, but many news crews do stick together through the years. I can tell you about that. I have worked on three newspapers in two states with my old managing editor Greg Bucci. He's still writing in Arizona, and we've sent a few emails back and forth. I still keep in touch with Charlie Hand, although it's been 20 years since we've worked in the same newsroom. He's since tried to get me back on his staff, and I've conspired to do the same thing with him. If I should turn up in his newsroom ready to write one day, I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

Anyway, in 1990 Greg recommended me for a job in his newsroom, with the old Booster in Bullhead City, Arizona. It's now called the Mohave Valley Daily News. Our managing editor was this leathery old guy who chain-smoked those long brown More cigarettes, spoke with enough profanity to make sailors and truckers cover their ears, and brought out some of my best work ever. I loved Verne Peyser.

Verne was also a walking treasury of newsroom lore. He had a coffee cup he'd filched from Air Force One. He'd fielded calls from Lyndon Johnson when the president had his late-night bouts of telephonitis. He'd consumed cheap whiskey with retired President Harry Truman, and took the Nebraska bar exam as part of a news story (and passed it, despite a seventh-grade education). And he had many stories about his man, Duke Tully.

But Verne's stories about Tully didn't have much of a McCain hook. Understand, this was the early 1990s. Then, McCain was still a fairly minor player in the Senate. He was replacing a legend in Barry Goldwater. Outside of Arizona, McCain was unknown except for his standing as a former prisoner of war. He hadn't developed his power base yet, or his reputation as a maverick. Besides, McCain probably wasn't the only political star Tully had created or backed.

As far as the McCain connection to Tully, I had to go no further than McCain's own autobiography, "Worth The Fighting For," published a few years ago. In it McCain devotes several pages to his relationship with the publisher, including how he bought into Tully's tales and his own initial outrage at Tully's lies -- a real war hero doesn't take kindly to folks who claim that status without earning it. But in his autobiography, you can tell McCain held compassion for Tully -- it seemed the publisher's father was a decorated military man, Duke felt a lot of pressure to follow in his footsteps, and never could get around the fact he couldn't meet Dad's standards, real or imagined.

So the McCain-Tully connection is old news. It has been covered. Straight from the horse's mouth, in fact.

So that's a fundamental difference between the two candidates. McCain wrote freely of his asociation with a disgraced publisher who helped start him in politics. He's been straight-ahead about it. Obama, in discussing Ayres, is still trying to baffle you with ... well, you know.
Both candidates have skeletons stashed in their political closets. The real difference is in how they handled these skeletons. And you can bet that difference will also show in how McCain and Obama will handle day-to-day business in the White House.

Random thoughts: Will it be over soon?

Here's a favorite question these days: Is the media biased?

My answer: Of course it is. While the ideal media outlet is straight down the line in its reportage and has room for strong opinion on the editorial page, good luck finding any that can achieve this. Nearly all so-called "objective" newspapers, magazines, Web sites, TV, or radio stations will let their bias show, some more blatantly than others.

The good news is that you can choose your bias. If you're conservative, you've got Fox News to watch, any number of foaming-at-the-mouth talk show hosts to listen to, and conservative Web sites. If you're liberal, you've got the New York Times, Huffington's blog, the Daily Kos, and about a zillion others. Pick your poison.

In some regions -- such as the Midwest -- newspapers are aligned with a certain political party. This is standard operating procedure. My last newspaper job, in southwest Indiana, was with the Posey County News, a Republican paper. Our rival in the county was the Mount Vernon Democrat, which was ... well, the first two guesses don't count. Party affiliation is taken more seriously in that area, and voting a straight ticket (a practice I do not endorse) is a lot more common there.

Even with a Republican paper, I tried to keep my reporting as balanced as possible. On Page 4, though, that's a whole 'nother story. One of the things I've always pushed for in every newspaper I've ever worked for was a strong editorial page. That page is the guts of the newspaper.

Based on my years in the news business, you can pretty much write this down. Above all else, the news media loves an underdog. And there's nothing underdoggier, on the surface, than someone like an Obama. All the ingredients are there. A fresh new face. A studied Miles Davis cool. Lots of well-phrased rhetoric. Young. And black. Man, that's a story! From a pure news standpoint, that mix puts established senator/military man in the shade.

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After almost a month of waiting, my voter's registration card has arrived.

This is partly my own fault.

It was really close to deadline when I sent off all my paperwork, and you can bet the voter's registration offices are swamped. More so given the interest in this election -- I would be very surprised if this one does not set turnout records.

Early voting is catching on here, and folks are reporting hour-plus waits to get through the line to the polling booth. For early voting, not for Election Day itself.

Not only do I expect a record turnout, but I also expect unprecedented clusters in the voting/counting process this year. Methinks the Charleston County voting system is already overwhelmed, and we're still a few days away from Election Day.

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I'm not sure which I like more -- politics or debating said politics.

It's been kind of slow at work this week, so we had our share of discussions about the presidential race. One of our yard-truck operators was sounding off yesterday about how the economy went south and why he's going to vote as often as he can for Obama. Elaine, my supervisor, said she doesn't like to debate him 'cause his mind is so made up. Of course, I had to get my innings in with him. Made my points, presented my supporting arguments, and he kept steering the subject over to how Bush screwed up Iraq. When in doubt, change the subject.

It was fun, but not as much as it could have been.

Moral: Never debate with a Kool-Aid drinker. Like the saying goes, it's like trying to teach a hog to sing -- it wastes your time and annoys the hog.

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One of the fun memories of covering elections was hanging around the Mohave County elections office, shooting the breeze with then-department head Paul Post, waiting for the Colorado City/Arizona Strip vote to come in.

Colorado City is a Mormon stronghold, and was the headquarters of Warren Jeffs' sect back then. It's also physically cut off from the rest of Mohave county. Situated on the Utah line, there's no straight drive to the county seat in Kingman from there. The west end of the Grand Canyon is in the way. Ballots are driven to an airport in Utah (St. George, I think), then flown from there into Kingman. Election nights ran late out there.

Especially the 1994 election. This was a mid-term election, though Governor Fife Symington (who later did time) was running for reelection against Democrat Eddie Basha. Anyway, the ballots from Colorado City were taken to the Utah airport, flown down to Kingman, loaded into a car for counting ... and the car was crunched in an accident en route to the elections office.
Which made for a *very* long night.

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I've always liked Charles Barkley, even though there are times I think he's full of it. But he's definitely his own man, and he's not afraid to say what's on his mind.

Anyway, Sir Charles says 2014 is the year he'll run for governor of Alabama. This has been talked about for some time, even when he was still a force in pro basketball.

Anyway, from Barkley: "I am (serious). I can't screw up Alabama. We are Number 48 in everything, and Arkansas and Mississippi aren't going anywhere."

We need more candidates like that.