Hey, it
was just yesterday we posted about
the National Geographic Roper Survey where you
can test your geographic IQ. We would like, nay, we insist you go and take the test. We desperately want to find out
how informed gadling readers are about the world. Give it a try. It won’t hurt.
And then tell us your
score.
Ah, the great museums of the world: the Louvre, the Met,
the Hermitage, the Sulabh International Museum of
Toilets. What? You’ve never heard of the toilet museum? And you call yourself cultured. Pshaw.
OK, I’d never heard of it either. Nor several of the other rather odd museums mentioned in this piece by Jason
Volker. Volker covers a lot of territory, spanning the globe in search of the weirdest places that people have
collected weird things and put them on display for (let’s admit it) weird people.
Also making the
list is the Meguro Parasitological Museum in Japan, and the
British Lawnmower Museum in Lancashire, the kind of place that Monty Python
fans would most definitely feel at home. So next time you’re in India, drop in on the toilet museum. I’ve always
wondered where all the toilets in India went.
Learning that one of your favorite websites on the
entire planet Earth is no more than web dust or completely awash while surfing the world wide web can be a heart
wrenching experience and quite frankly it happens far too often. Just when you discover a Mecca of untapped brilliant
travel stories out of Papua New Guinea or on some lesser explored region in Algeria two days later the domain no longer
exists. I don’t know about you, but this sort of thing sends me to sleep in weeping fits some nights, but on the
brighter side there is one great place people across continents can type into their browsers and still find amazing
travel stories and related blurbs for days. The site is no stranger to the folks here at Gadling and shouldn’t be to
some of you out there, so if you would I’d like to give a quick round of sound to World Hum which celebrates five years online this entire month of May.
Happy Birthday World Hum!
Here is your chance dear Gadling readers to show that you are worldly aware, that you can put to shame the 60-plus percent of kids today who could not find Iraq on a map.
The National Geographic Roper survey of geographic literacy is online and awaiting your best effort. Me, I scored 17 out of 20. No kidding, I did. But, hey, that’s ’cause I read the damn paper every day … and I would have gotten more, too, if I watched more TV. And I guess I got lucky on a few of them. The fact is, it’s not all that hard, but give it a try yourself and feel free to post your score.
I’m
often a bit dubious about reports like this, those that claim American kids are so dumb. Not because I don’t think
American kids are dumb. They are. For the most part, they are a bunch of Playstation playin, Xtasy-droppin, random sex
havin’, IM’in,, emoticon sendin’, no good, slothful slackers.
But that’s beside the point.
Because when I read that three out of four
kids ages 18-24 can’t find Iraq on a map, I immediately considered my own school days as a rabble-rousing,
pre-Internet youngster, and when I do that, I picture some doughy, preachy adult asking me to find Iraq on the map, her
fists balled into her hips, glasses perched on her beak of a nose, and while I know that Iraq is right there, why
yes, right there next to Iran in the place called the Middle East, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. In
fact, I act stupid and point to Greenland, just to see her reaction. And when she rolls her eyes and shakes her head
and rues the decline of Western Civilization, I feel much more satisfaction than if I got the question right and she
pats me on the head in front of all my peers. Know what I’m talking about?
But is that what’s happening
here? Well, probably not. Most of these kids probably DID get it wrong. But does it really matter? I mean, the last
thing we want our children worrying about is all the nasty stuff happening in the world, right? Kids should be kept in
the dark about such things. Let’s keep them feted with greasy food and kept comfortably numb. Let’s give them pillows
and candy and stuffed animals and pretty, shiny things to stare at. Don’t you agree?