Exactly - if you give me a blank map and some time, I’d figure it out. I know them all, in my head, because of actual knowledge about them. But if you gave me a blank map and said, “Okay, which one is Iowa? Right now. No process of elimination.” Shit, I don’t know. It’s not one of the square ones but I think I get it confused on the map with Wisconsin. I can name several cities in Iowa, though. God forbid you say “Okay, draw Iowa”. I could draw the South, and I could draw the west coast and probably could go from the Pacific to, say, where Arizona and Nevada end.
For what it’s worth, I knew the Bhutto family was big in Pakistan and I read about Benazir when somebody tried to blow her up a little while ago, so I was ahead of the game when she got assassinated. All world events should be so considerate as to give you a trial run to catch up. I can fill in a blank world map pretty well, by the way, although I may mix up some of the little countries in western Africa. I did have real geography in school, unlike many Americans.
A friend passed on the news while we were out at breakfast and I didn’t know who it was either. I had heard the name before but didn’t know the details. I did feel bad about it, not that that makes it any better.
I’m a smart girl, but I don’t get every reference that people make. I’ve learned how to pretend like I do, though, just so that I don’t end up a subject on a thread like this.
That said, I actually have more respect for the person who admits they don’t know something (however important) rather than one who pretends they’re experts on a subject just because they watched a five-minute segment on CNN that morning. But if it’s a pattern with them, then yeah, they’re probably stupid.
No one asked me, but nursing is a profession that (college degree notwithstanding) is historically workingclass, female, and subservient. And historically, subservient workingclass females tend to get in trouble when their superiors catch them reading or discussing anything with too much content to it.
Even as if (in Shoshana’s case with the psychology case study) it deals directly with their job, it’s considered unprofessional - their profession, historically, being to carry out orders.
Because it looks almost exactly like New Hampshire, except flipped around?
I’m 99% certain I’d be able to place all the states on a map, but, then again, I’ve been to 43 of them. It’s not completely crazy to think somebody might mix up Nebraska and Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire, Delaware and Maryland, Mississippi and Alabama, etc… I don’t think in and of itself the fact that you don’t know where all 50 states are means anything.
I understand that not everyone remembers who Bhutto was, its was more that I was argued with later that a woman could never be a leader in Pakistan. Right. I made it up.
Me, and CBC Newsworld, CTV, CNN, the local papers…
That was just an example of the rampant anti intellectual sentiment. Many others exist. Even taking courses related to nursing causes people to make judging comments.
Im tired of this attitude, and thought I’d vent. Im also changing the way I do things at work, once again Im going to keep my mouth shut, and not contribute anything about my interests. Its just not worth it.
Julie, I hope my take on the historical position of nursing didn’t strike you as condescending; it wasn’t meant that way, more as a criticism of people’s attitudes toward nurses (doctors included).
Okay, most of these I understand and share, but Delaware and Maryland? Yes, they’re in the same area, but they’re completely different sizes and shapes.
(By the way, Nebraska is to the west, and has a little square cut out of the southwest corner which Colorado owns, while Iowa is roughly square, with a curvy eastern border.)
One of the docs in my group is an excellent internist who blows me out of the water in terms of raw medical knowledge even though he only finished med school a year before I did.
We elected a new Governor here in Kentucky in November. It was a big deal because we were ousting an extremely unpopular incumbent, and an even bigger deal for us because one of our local physician colleagues was running for Lieutenant Governor (and won).
Late on Election Day, he was lamenting the fact that he hadn’t made it out to the polls, because he really wanted to vote for Fred Thompson. Yes, he honestly thought the election that day was the Presidential primary. I think he knew that we were also electing a Governor that day, but I can’t be sure.
I have a friend who thinks that my inability to recognize celebrities and my tendency to get confused in a movie when there are two people with similar builds, complexions and hair colors, stems from some secret racial bias of mine. That somehow, I am incapable of telling various people apart, particularly when these people aren’t the same race as me, never mind that I’m about as mixed-breed as a person can get.
Now that I think about it, he’s not so much a friend as an asswipe.
Pullet Fairly certain this is germane to the subject…somehow
I grew up in a college town. Trust me, nursing isn’t the only profession like that. You learn pretty damn quick that colleges aren’t filled with the brightest and best and there are some really, really stupid people there, who just happen to be able to do well in course work.
By the same token, I think Iowa and Wisconsin are pretty obviously different (I could sorta understand mixing up Michigan and Wisconsin), but people do mix those up (as evidenced by this thread). Although now I know which one is which, when I was a kid I could never remember whether Maryland is the big one, or Delaware is the big one near D.C.
Tennessee looks like an elongated piece of ziti. It “points” at North Carolina.
If you can get Tennessee and Missouri and the states surrounding them filled in, you have covered a lot of territory. Tennessee and Missouri border each other and then they each border seven other states.
Wolf_Meister, I sure that the questions and answers on Leno are for real, but I wonder how many correct or reasonable answers they have to leave out.
Your profile says you go to Viriginia Tech. You’re in a state that borders Maryland, so of course you’re going to know where it is. I’m in a state that borders Maryland and Delaware, so I will, too. Someone from Oklahoma might not do so well with the region.
I think it also has something to do with the fact that both states are close together and hardly ever in the news. The same thing can be said for just about all of the mixed-up pairings listed in this thread.
Well, yes, but let me repeat: Why is it that recognizing the geographic outline if a state is the most important thing about it? Why is knowing that “Iowa is roughly square, with a curvy eastern border” more important than knowing anything else about the state?
I can ID all 50 states on a map, but so what? Here, let’s try an experiment: Quick, what’s the latitude and longitude of Des Moines? Don’t know? Explain why that’s less important than knowing the shape of the state. Better yet: Is the climate of Iowa more similar to that of eastern Oregon or Massechusetts?
I know why geography is important, and why people look at maps every day. It just puzzles me that “finding all 50 states on a map” is such a bright-line indicator of non-ignorance.
