Dumb, Dumber, and Who Cares?

There's always the risk of sounding sanctimonious when talking about what people don't know (to avoid the word "ignorant"). This is especially true when taking a shot at "society" and its struggle with not knowing, for example, how to locate China on a map, the national language of the Arabs, the color of snow, or, slightly more important, Gitmo (waterboarding as a new Olympic sport?).

I'll try it anyway through the convenient filter and refuge of citing others. It's one thing being confronted with not knowing things, but when combined with apathy, something else is happening. Read this in NYT.

On the other side of the coin, listen to Pulitzer Prize winning journalism, Andrea Elliot, describe her Islam beat for the New York Times, particularly her story about "An Imam in America." It's pretty good, an interesting story-behind-the-story talk.