The Smarmy Carny

Feeling young and sprightly? If you do and you're well out of college, you may want to review Beloit's annual College Mindset List. Recently released was the Class of 2011 mindset list. It puts into perspective how the world is different for young adults today.

I appreciate this list because it doesn't simply list what happened the year that this group of college freshmen were born. Anyone who has read a "year you were born" list knows that they are essentially useless because you don't remember anything that happened when you were 0 years old. This list shows you what kids may not be aware of and even how they might view things differently than older generations. For instance, what do you think of when you hear "Tiananmen Square"? Most college freshmen think of it only as an upcoming Olympic venue.

Here are 15 selections from this year's 2011 Mindset List. In all, there are 70 items, so check out Beloit's annual College Mindset List for the complete list.

Class of 2011:

• What Berlin wall?
• Humvees, minus the artillery, have always been available to the public.
• They have grown up with bottled water.
• Russia has always had a multi-party political system.
• No one has ever been able to sit down comfortably to a meal of “liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
• Wal-Mart has always been a larger retailer than Sears and has always employed more workers than GM.
• Al Gore has always been running for president or thinking about it.
• Stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names.
• High definition television has always been available.
• Tiananmen Square is a 2008 Olympics venue, not the scene of a massacre.
• MTV has never featured music videos.
• Jerry Springer has always been lowering the level of discourse on TV.
• They never saw Johnny Carson live on television.
• The World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
• Food packaging has always included nutritional labeling.

Here are 15 additional entries for the Class of 2010, in case you're wondering about the current sophomores:

Class of 2010:

• The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
• They have known only two presidents.
• There has always been only one Germany.
• A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents'.
• "Google" has always been a verb.
• Milli Vanilli has never had anything to say.
• There has never been a "skyhook" in the NBA.
• Carbon copies are oddities found in their grandparents' attics.
• Reality shows have always been on television.
• They have no idea why we needed to ask "…can we all get along?"
• They have always known that "In the criminal justice system the people have been represented by two separate yet equally important groups."
• They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television.
• They are not aware that "flock of seagulls hair" has nothing to do with birds flying into it.
• Disneyland has always been in Europe and Asia.
• Television stations have never concluded the broadcast day with the national anthem.

Craving more? Read about the Class of 2009 Mindset List and a summary of the Mindset Lists for the Classes of 2002 through 2008.

Will Albino, a senior at Wilmington's Catholic all-boy Salesianum School, asked female students at Wilmington's Catholic all-girl Padua Academy to sign a petition to end ::wikipedia("Women's suffrage", "women´s suffrage"):: . . . and all to a They Might Be Giants tune!

This prank was originally performed on The Man Show in 1999 and successfully repeated here in 2006 by Albino and Brian Giarrocco. They claim that they had not seen the sketch from The Man Show, but that a fellow student suggested the idea.

Of course, Albino and Giarrocco got into a small amount of trouble for their efforts — one day of detention. Also, as expected, Padua's principal estimated 95 percent of the school's students knew of suffrage before the video. According to Albino, only 4 out of 24 girls (16.7%) refused to sign the petition . . . and one of those girls signed, but she signed "Your mom."

You can read plenty more about the video on Ryan Cormier's Pulp Culture blog as well as Brothers Gentry.

Finally, something from the UN that I'll post positively about!

UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is backing a project they have dubbed the project of the 21st century. This project is titled KEO.

At the end of 2007 (or possibly in 2008), the satellite KEO will be launched into space for 50,000 years, when it will return to earth. KEO (named for the three most universal sounds in today's languages) will have a current-day map of the earth on its outer shell. Inside, there will be a diamond that includes an etching of human DNA and samples of current-day sea water, air, soil, and human blood; portraits of people including diverse nationalities; the astronomical clock, which future scientists will use to date the satellite; a "contemporary 'Library of Alexandria' offering a rational description of ourselves and our time"; and all our messages from individuals of today who wish to contribute.

What's this about our messages? That's right. Every person on the Earth is invited to write up to "four pages" (technically, you have 6,000 characters) of text to be included on the glass-tempered CD-ROMs to be included in KEO. All messages must be contributed by December 31, 2006. Other than length and time, there are no restrictions.

Interestingly, the KEO team says that on KEO's reentry, it will create an artificial Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) whose luminosity and glow will light up the sky, announcing its arrival.

Read plenty more on the English KEO website. As usual, Wikipedia's KEO page has plenty to add regarding KEO as well.

Hurry and get your message added — the deadline is December 31, 2006!

Not sure what type of message to write? Here are some messages that will be included:

… So I have a prayer for our future generations:
That you treat your children like the precious gifts that they are. Teach them to respect and love themselves, teach them to love, and to be tolerant of each other. We do that by example, because we have learned that children imitate the behaviors that are presented to them, educate them, give them hope, and keep them healthy. Yes, every child is worth the effort… Teresa, 46 years, USA

… Dear Future Beings,
I am writing to you with optimistic hope that you exist, that you have the science and technology to decipher this, and that you have the incentive and freedom to do so. One of my great interests is paleontology. It is ironic that if my physical remains exist at all now, they are probably in the form of fossils—similar to those fossils that have decorated my home… Chris, 45 years, USA

… Hello. Do you have special toys? Do you have a fireplace? Do you have a car? Do you have a closet? Do you have a blanket? I have three blankets. I can write my name: Kayla. What is your name? Do you have glasses? I like my mommy. I have a dog named Woo. Do you have a dog? I have a purple outfit. My favorite color is green.…. As dictated to her grandmother by Kayla, 4, USA

…Some time in the near future I will be strapped down on a gurney and poison will be run into my veins until I can no longer breath and my hearts stops beating…I hope that in your world politicians have to be against the death penalty in order to get elected. Or better yet, no politicians at all. They love to start wars but never do the actual fighting… Miguel, prisoner, USA

… I'll tell you how to make hamburgers. You need:

• 1 pound ground lean beef
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 4 tomato slices (if you like them)

… Joshua, 10 years, Canada

… To whom am I writing? An evolved human being or some other life form? Maybe a roach. I’ve always felt that roaches will inherit the earth. Or maybe tube worms, protected from wars or disease down there near those deep ocean vents. If you’re a roach or a tube worm, then you won’t understand anything I’m saying. My thoughts will be as foreign to you as a trilobite’s would be to me. But maybe—just maybe—you are a descendant of human beings. 50,000 years isn’t all that long, actually. Many humans are now living to be a hundred. If a hundred-year-old human touches the hand of a newborn who then, when he or she reaches a hundred, touches the hand of a newborn, etc., it takes only 500 humans to form a 50,000 chain… Madge, 68, USA

…My favorite things so that you might better understand my world.

• Sitting quietly and petting my purring cat
• Feeling a cool breeze on a hot day
• Listening to the wind rustle the tree branches from my balcony
• Watching the snow fall
• Sitting on the beach edge with my toes in the water…
• Listening to foreign voices in foreign places
• Walking the streets of an unknown town
• Walking the streets of my home town
• Enjoying a good meal with friends and family

… Wendy, 37, USA

Still feeling old? Just in case you weren't, the Class of 2009 Beloit College Mindset List has been released. In case you missed my previous Mindset List post, the List identifies some facts of life that distinguish this year's freshman class from the generations that preceded it.

Here are some selections from this year's 2009 Mindset List. As before, I am listing a small selection of this year's 75 items.

Class of 2009:

• They never saw Pat Sajak or Arsenio Hall host a late night television show.
• Jimmy Carter has always been an elder statesman.
• They don't remember when "cut and paste" involved scissors.
• They never had the fun of being thrown into the back of a station wagon with six others.
• Bill Gates has always been worth at least a billion dollars.
• For daily caffeine emergencies, Starbucks has always been around the corner.
• "Whatever" is not part of a question but an expression of sullen rebuke.

And there you have it. Youth is wasted on the young.

Arrrrrrrrr!

I missed this year's Talk Like a Pirate Day!

I have celebrated TLaPD several years previously, but I missed the (pirate) boat on this one. I'll have to make sure it ends up in next year's day planner.

Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket has been, or where it will go next? Thanks to Where's George, you can find out (to a degree).

Perhaps you have seen a bill (of any denomination) with a "Where's George?" stamp on it. If you do, write down that denomination (amount), series (year), and serial number before you spend it. Then, enter that bill at Where's George and see where it has been!

How it works: Someone enters a bill into Where's George and then spends the money. Someone else finds the bill with the stamp/writing on it and also enters it into Where's George. This is called a "hit." The end. And, hopefully, the cycle of finding and entering the bill continues so that you can get a good idea of where the bill has traveled. I always try to put comments as to where I got my bill, as it makes the story of the bill more interesting.

I signed up back in 2001, but I haven't been consistently active with the site. I have entered a measley 19 bills with a hit rate of 5.26%. The "best" bill I have been involved with had three hits. I have seen bills with many more hits, though. There is one bill with 15 hits. Some people get very involved in this game. They own their own stamps, enter thousands of bills, discuss the best methods, etc. It's quite scary.

FYI: Candians can play Where's Willy? with their currency.

Gloria's Nuts (Pun intended)

Melody Berger reported her (intentional) encounter with Gloria Steinem in an article in The F-Word Ezine. In it, she not only fawns over Steinem the entire time, but even after the interview, she admits that "The two hours we spent chatting over coffee comprised, quite easily, one of the most amazing highlights of my entire life. Basking in the aura of "Glo" was such an intensely inspirational experience." Yikes.

Here's one particularly confusing section of the interview:

Melody: When I saw the picture, the famous picture of him, with a bunch of other white guys, gleefully signing away our rights as women [with the Partial Birth Abortion Ban]… all I could think was, "ok, how is that not just pure evil?"
Gloria: Well, you know, there is certainly evil effect. There are certainly going to be millions of women and a lot of men who simply are not alive because he's in the White House. There are going to be whole species of animals, and living things, and plants that are not alive anymore, and will never come back, because: he killed them. So, that's an evil impact. I don't think it's inevitable. He wasn't born that way.

So, class, what have we learned today? There will be "millions of women and a lot of men who simply are not alive" because we can no longer kill as many of them before they are born? In order to avoid conflicting lessons, we will not be teaching Statistics, Formal Logic, or Ethics today.