First Things First

I suppose it's a reasonable to ask why I would write a diary about politics after spending a few hours researching cell phones and calling plans. The reason is that I have found notable omissions in discussions of each of these indispensible parts of our national identity.

In the case of cell phones, I found at least a dozen blog entries that discussed at great length the ringtones, camera, bluetooth capability and web browser of a phone without once mentioning the words "call quality." In other words, there were people who write pages about a telephone without evaluating its main purpose - to make telephone calls.

Now I understand why reading headlines, exchanging photos, texting and checking one's stocks can be extremely important. But when these worthy goals become more important than speaking with another person, there might be a legitimate query that goes like this: "Why are calling it a cell PHONE?"

Like cell phones, we have the same attitude toward people running for positions ranging from dog catcher to President. In the case of the latter, we spend hundreds of pages and gallons of ink dissecting a candidate's housing, his or her favorite hobbies, clothing, decorating ideas, favorite music, etc. without once mentioning the matter of intelligence.

Now I can see that Barack Obama's choice of a First Dog might be worth a paragraph or two, but I feel a far more important factor is the intellectual power he would bring into a White House that hasn't had a whole lot of it lately. This goes for the folks running for Congress, some of whom seem to be less than the sharpest chisel in the tool box. I've read a number of articles that claim Americans don't like smart people, but prefer the kind of candidate "you can go out and have a beer with." Or shoot a moose with.

If this is true, we'd better get over it. The world we're looking at doesn't put a high value on dummies, except as people to exploit. If the United States is to prevail, it has to have montal horsepower not only at the highest level, but all along the line. To help achieve this, I present the Bogus Economist plan, which begins with a requirement that every candidate for office pass a test of basic knowledge given to kids before high school graduation.

If someone, for instance, can't locate Afghanistan on a blank map, I would question his or her ability to serve in the State Department. People who don't know anything about the metric system might be unfit for any job dealing with international trade. Writers who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose" or "its" and "it's" shouldn't be thrust forward as representatives of a country who claims to value education.

If you don't think there is a problem, try reading a random sample of blog entries or the results of high school tests or presidential speeches.
As Robert Preston says in The Music Man, "We've got troubles, my friend, troubles right here in River City." When high schoolers don't know how many states there are in our country, how many feet in a mile, what the Electoral College is or who becomes president when both the President and the Vice-president die, we've got troubles. When (or if) people running our government - or wanting to - show this kind of non-thinking, we've got a potential disaster.

Giving a test of basic skills might weed out some legislative morons before they can do us real damage. This would give us time to go after the ethical morons, of whom we're hearing a lot of late. This, in turn, would allow us to focus on the executive morons. Above all, publicizing the results of these tests might raise our awareness of how important it is to have leaders who know how to think, to reason and - well - to lead.

Body
In politics, we spend hundreds of pages and gallons of ink dissecting a candidate's housing, his or her favorite hobbies, clothing, decorating ideas, favorite music, etc. without once mentioning the matter of intelligence.

Now I can see that Barack Obama's choice of a First Dog might be worth a paragraph or two, but I feel a far more important factor is the intellectual power he would bring into a White House that hasn't had a whole lot of it lately. This goes for the folks running for Congress, some of whom seem to be less than the sharpest chisel in the tool box. I've read a number of articles that claim Americans don't like smart people, but prefer the kind of candidate "you can go out and have a beer with." Or shoot a moose with.

If this is true, we'd better get over it. The world we're looking at doesn't put a high value on dummies, except as people to exploit. If the United States is to prevail, it has to have montal horsepower not only at the highest level, but all along the line. To help achieve this, I present the Bogus Economist plan, which begins with a requirement that every candidate for office pass a test of basic knowledge given to kids before high school graduation.

If someone, for instance, can't locate Afghanistan on a blank map, I would question his or her ability to serve in the State Department. People who don't know anything about the metric system might be unfit for any job dealing with international trade. Writers who don't know the difference between "lose" and "loose" or "its" and "it's" shouldn't be thrust forward as representatives of a country who claims to value education.

If you don't think there is a problem, try reading a random sample of blog entries or the results of high school tests or presidential speeches.
As Robert Preston says in The Music Man, "We've got troubles, my friend, troubles right here in River City." When high schoolers don't know how many states there are in our country, how many feet in a mile, what the Electoral College is or who becomes president when both the President and the Vice-president die, we've got troubles. When (or if) people running our government - or wanting to - show this kind of non-thinking, we've got a potential disaster.

Giving a test of basic skills might weed out some legislative morons before they can do us real damage. This would give us time to go after the ethical morons, of whom we're hearing a lot of late. This, in turn, would allow us to focus on the executive morons. Above all, publicizing the results of these tests might raise our awareness of how important it is to have leaders who know how to think, to reason and - well - to lead.