Lacking a major subject of huge importance to write about, I did a poll of 10 semi- random people today. It was kind of a sanity check to see if, when I generalize about Americans being geographically challenged, I'm not giving us a bad rap. ( See yesterday's blog about Zeeland)
I asked each of these 10 people one of the following questions:
Have you ever heard of Zeeland - or
Where is Zeeland
7 replied: Don't you mean New Zealand
1 replied: I don't know but it's probably very far away
1 replied: Never heard of it
1 replied: I've heard of it, but only because I lived in Holland for 3 years.
So there it is.
I am not giving us a bum rap. It's a true statement, general or not. Whatever. That's why we have Atlases, National Geographic and travel agents. Oh, and Wikipedia, thank goodness.
With all of these resources available to us we can at least can say: Well, lemme just check on that and I'll get back to ya'll in a sec. Taking time to check a resource or call a smart friend would be a much better reply than "Don't you mean New Zealand?" Or stating that the capital of Australia is Perth which is another whole subject in and of itself.
So, America, lets pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and unite on this one item. When asked a geography question let's all just pretend we have some important thing we have to attend to and say: Well, lemme just check on that and I'll get back to ya'll in a sec.
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