Scene: Chevy Chase, MD. A small suburban neighborhood. My sister is moving to California. It’s June. The movers are packing and as I eat lunch, I speak with one of the movers, a young woman in charge of packing the delicate items, who’s told me she’s earning money while in college.
Me: We lost power last night because of the storm. But it wasn’t for very long.
Mover: You’re lucky. We still don’t have power back in my neighborhood.
Me: It’s not luck, exactly. The neighbor next door here is the president’s adviser on the Mideast. So, they work pretty quick in neighborhoods like this.
Mover: What’s the Mideast?
Me: (Tries to hide fear of her question) Uh, you know, Iran, Iraq.
Mover: I don’t know what that is.
Me: They’re…we’re at war with Iraq?
Mover: [Shrugs].
Follow the link to today’s NY Times article, Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile To Knowledge?:
Koreanish 
“The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
This from Sunday’s Washington Post article by Susan Jacoby along the same scary lines as the NY Times article.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901_pf.html
JimT, equally appalled
Appalled, yes. Surprised? Sadly, no.