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effenheimer

Smart is sexy as long as you have a great ass too

by effenheimer at 11:07 AM on May 27, 2003

13,000 Florida high school seniors won’t be graduating this year because they failed a standardized test meant to determine if the 13 years they spent receiving an education meant anything. One in 11 students taking the test failed it, in spite of having five chances over three years, but administrators are still jazzed by high success rates.

Statewide protests are planned by leaders of Florida’s black community who are calling for boycotts of the Florida Lottery, the state’s citrus industry and its major theme parks, among other measures. This seems short-sighted. If these kids couldn’t graduate from high school, winning the lottery, picking oranges or working at Disney World might be their next best option until they pass this test.

While speaking a foreign language should absolve one from passing a standardized test in English, the vast majority of these Florida kids are just losers. In England, it is accepted that college isn’t for everyone. In fact, it is accepted that HIGH SCHOOL isn’t for everyone. But in America, we believe in pushing our luck.

I’d like to see a day when everyone who graduates from high school deserves it. Hell, I’d like to see a day when people who get their driver’s licenses deserve that too. I guess I’ll just wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one gets fill up first.

When I went to ISU, there was a name for people who respected learning and used college as an opportunity to study instead of an opportunity to extend childhood another 5 or 6 years. They were called Chinese. Many of them found lucrative work in the United States upon graduation. Good thing for it, too. There are problems in this world that will need solved one day and we will need their brain power. I fear for a future where we rely more on our ability to buy foreign smart guys than our ability to produce them ourselves.

We need to get our love of learning on. There is a culture of “cool idiocy” out there at all levels of American society fostered by images of successful, sexy doofuses. On every channel, Dumb is sexy and it’s better to be good-looking than smart. I say, let's turn that around.

Yeah, that'll happen.

comments (6)

I kind of felt like the "dumb is sexy" thing faded as soon as I got into college. Even now, people still sometimes comment that they don't know what the fuck a word I just used means, but the thing is now, instead of me looking like a dork, they just look stupid. And not in a sexy way.

But Kelso? Or however you spell it, the guy on that 70's show? I'd do his dumb ass any day of the week, baby.

by Linz at May 27, 2003 11:34 AM


Smart IS sexy, unless you can't spell and then you might as well be a SARS carrier. UGH!

by MrBlank at May 27, 2003 2:23 PM


Well, there's always been the librarian-removes-glasses-and-lets-her-hair-down fantasy. But I do think there may be a solution to the dumbing-down problem. We need to get more picky about who can immigrate here. In other words, ask them what they bring to the table. Engineering degree? In. Ability to use a garotte? Out.

by anna at May 27, 2003 6:24 PM


The U.S. already encourages the immigration of skilled workers through the H-1 visa. Many engineers and computer programmers enter the country this way. But it's a work visa only-- if you lose your sponsorship, for example by being laid off, you have only a few weeks to find another or else leave the country.

by jean at May 28, 2003 12:13 AM


hell foreigners arent the problem by any means. and even if one or two stupid ones pass through the gate i wouldnt notice. no, for me its the americans all right. bunch of god damn idiots for the most part (present company excepted of course). I see people every day who might as well trade their damn heads in for watermelons as much good they are. short attention spans, little to no knowledge of the world, unsophisticated to the extreme, politically naive on all fronts, lazy minded, tv watching spuds. people born in a country with all the freedom they could want use it not for self-improvement but for watching Friends for 10 years. it's sad frankly. even if they didnt want to crack a book, the average person could learn oodles from PBS, Discovery, History, TLC, A&E, or even Telemundo.

by eff at May 28, 2003 10:12 AM


Excellent post. Unfortunately, a shit in one hand, is NOT worth two in the tree. I could care less about the dumbifying, what upsets me is how I'm now overqualified to get any job that's hiring, and instead, dumbfuck lazy Friends watchers somehow are better off. THUS, the tables have turned yet again, especially for the well educated. Trickle down economics? No. There was no height to trickle down from, it's just a puddle of laborers.

by LOCKHEED at May 28, 2003 8:14 PM