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BS: Americans are truly stupid
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: artbrooks Date: 03 Jan 11 - 01:51 PM It really doesn't surprise me that much that "kids", which I assume means people under 18, don't know much about a person who was a member of their great-grandfather's (or even great-great-grandfather's) generation. Hell, I'm a grandfather, and Charlie Parker died when I was 9! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 11 - 01:57 PM I know VERY little about Charlie Parker... but I know basically who& what he was. I LIKE knowing enough to have a context for comprehending what is being discussed, whether I can comment meaningfully about it or not.... that is called having **perspective**, and if I were in charge of education, it would be sneaked/snuck into classes beginning about the 4th grade. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ebbie Date: 03 Jan 11 - 01:59 PM Ah ha! This gives me a chance to post something that gave me a chuckle when I heard it a concert last night: A rock and roll performer uses about three chords and plays to 20,000 people. A jazz performer, on the other hand, uses about 20,000 chords and plays for three people. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: JohnInKansas Date: 03 Jan 11 - 02:25 PM Which rock and roll performer knows 3 chords? Or are you confusing "chords" with the observed prevalence of "songs" with only three words, repeated ad infinitum. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: John MacKenzie Date: 03 Jan 11 - 02:32 PM We won't even mention their lack of a sense of humour! [I'll get me coat, it's cold in that cellar.] |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Jan 11 - 02:34 PM Or does any folk' musician know more than three? Or am I thinking of rappers who know only one? Duh! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: gnu Date: 03 Jan 11 - 02:52 PM Ahhh... I have seen two posts (the same) disappear. Is a bad taste joke not allowed? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 03 Jan 11 - 03:07 PM gnu, wait till the current censor goes off duty, then try again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: GUEST,Alan Whittle Date: 03 Jan 11 - 03:10 PM Americans aren't stupid. But there's one thing I can never understand about Republicans. And that is their leaders. I mean you can understand how wise ass characters like Clinton, Obama, Blair, Cameron, even Gordon Brown get to climb the greasy pole in politics - but the younger Bush.....Reagan. Neither of them seemed able conduct a sensible conversation. Do you think they lost trust in education when an intelligent bloke like Nixon turned out to be not as good as he should have been? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: gnu Date: 03 Jan 11 - 03:40 PM Q... twere not my posts. I just happened to see them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Amos Date: 03 Jan 11 - 04:36 PM It's also obvious the OP was not interested in making a coherent proposition when he did his silly business; it would have been a LOT more true to say that some people in America can be truly stupid some of the time. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 04:48 PM No, it is LOT more ture to say ALL Americans are stupid some of the time. Some spend a lot more time at it than others. You can't live in this country without being stupid to some degree simply because everything has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. The difference is that some people fight against the stupidity that will take them over if they let it. The rest don't try. But if you think living in this excuse for a culture hasn't made you stupid in some way or other then you truly ARE stupid. And you'd better wake up and wise up, rube. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 11 - 04:57 PM ?? sounds like a self-fulfilling hypothesis, josepp |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Acorn4 Date: 03 Jan 11 - 05:06 PM And the diet of endless US and US influenced TV in the Uk has helped the rise to superstar status of the British Chav. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: gnu Date: 03 Jan 11 - 05:08 PM josepp... hehehehee... that is quite a post. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: GUEST,KP Date: 03 Jan 11 - 05:24 PM Going by the list of Nobel Prize Winners there would seem to be more truly clever people from America than any other nationality? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Smokey. Date: 03 Jan 11 - 05:49 PM We've turned into a country of know-it-alls who don't know shit. Josepp, that's probably your funniest line to date.. "Oh wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ed T Date: 03 Jan 11 - 05:56 PM "Going by the list of Nobel Prize Winners there would seem to be more truly clever people from America than any other nationality?" I always thought of the US of A as a peace loving lot (minus the few encounters outside its borders, that is, and the fact that they are armed to the teeth) Heck, Obama can even get one of those "coveted" peace prizes for being at war :) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Slag Date: 03 Jan 11 - 06:25 PM When handing out prizes for stupidity, let's be generous and include all peoples and all nations. You get a much clearer picture that way. In case you missed statistics 101 you would realize that standard distribution is at work here and, as per IQ, it all falls neatly into the great bell-shaped curved. Now, as for Mudcatters, whether I happen to agree with the opinions exprssed here or not, I find Mudcatters on the whole, to be quite intelligent folks. We all read, voraciously, it seems and most of us use correct grammar and know wide areas of many various topics, some expertly. But our numbers are small and when compared to the general population we statistically do not make a difference. However it is the little differences that make the difference. It is just fractions of a second that separate the winner from the also-rans. So, if you do fall into the upper per centile, make a difference. Let your lights shine forth. Josepp, I take it that the Mao quote is not from Mao's Little Red Book. I can't find it. What is your source? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 03 Jan 11 - 06:30 PM The stupidest person I knew personally was a fellow-Scot with a PhD from Cambridge. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ed T Date: 03 Jan 11 - 06:36 PM An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy. "The United Front in Cultural Work" (October 30, 1944), Selected Works, Vol. III, p. 235. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 06:43 PM ////It really doesn't surprise me that much that "kids", which I assume means people under 18, don't know much about a person who was a member of their great-grandfather's (or even great-great-grandfather's) generation. Hell, I'm a grandfather, and Charlie Parker died when I was 9!//// But what Marsalis is saying is that enough time has passed that Parker's musical legacy has been firmly established but what good is it if kids today don't know what that legacy is or even who Charlie Parker was? I think by about 5th grade, every American student should know what blues is,how it is structured, how it evolved, who the major players were and have some experience actually playing it. They should know if it's 12-bar, 8-bar or 16-bar. They should know what key it's in. They should know what I-IV-V means. They should know what AAB refers to. They should know the differences and similarities between blues and jazz. And why should they know this? Because blues is the basis of our musical traditions. I mean, there were other influences but blues is a huge part of it, the biggest part by far. How can we have this cultural identity and yet be so abysmally ignorant about it? We can't. What you don't use, you lose. In Japan, they teach children to develop perfect pitch. I read that the highest rate of perfect pitch in a population is in Japan. We should be teaching that here. Do you think Mozart or Beethoven or Bach could have achieved what they did with our present educational system? I don't. So how many Mozarts or Bachs or we likely to turn out? I would say none. I remember watching an old black man on TV once playing and singing blues for these black kids. He actually clawhammered a banjo and sang some old, old stuff. When he was finished, he asked, "How many of you would like to learn the banjo--the black man's heritage?" These kids just stood there and looked at him like he was a complete idiot. You could see the sneer in their eyes. Of course, I would have been like Arnold Horshack with my hand up going, "OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOOO OOOO!!!!" But I wasn't there. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: gnu Date: 03 Jan 11 - 06:45 PM Ed... so, the USO won the war? Yes, I know that is soooo bad on so many levels. It's a joke. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:04 PM "In Japan, they teach children to develop perfect pitch." That can be a bit of a disadvantage if you play with instruments that aren't in 440. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: akenaton Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:11 PM I wouldn't say that Americans in general, are stupid at all; a bit naive perhaps, but they seem to have many sterling qualities which cannot be aquired from "book learnin'". Many of your "stupid" Americans, have a very "educated" distrust of government and organisation, only the imbeciles still believe these have any virtue, they see the dark looming shape approaching, gathering up our freedoms, our joys, the lives of our children and devouring them, while they welcome it with open arms. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ed T Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:13 PM What war gnu, the "price war" at Walmart :) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Bill D Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:17 PM Not Japan... China. In Japan and several other Asian countries it is higher than here, but China has a tonal language, and people learn almost automatically to reproduce pitch.... it's not a matter of their educational system...except in so far as the Cultural Conservatory in Bejing emphasizes it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:17 PM ""Do you think Mozart or Beethoven or Bach could have achieved what they did with our present educational system?"" You're on a sticky wicket here, since general organised education for children didn't exist at the time those to whom you refer were learning from their parents and other role models paid for either by said parents or by patrons. Under the current systems in use around the world they might well have been more prolific creators. Don T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Richard Bridge Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:20 PM That, Dave, is why perfect pitch has to be a contradiction in terms. It can only be learned, not innate. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:27 PM And can be pain in the arse if eveybody's tuned to 443, then somebody with "perfect pitch" turns up, especially if you're all tuned to a squeezebox. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ed T Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:34 PM quiz |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: olddude Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:36 PM I don't understand the question :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Bobert Date: 03 Jan 11 - 07:51 PM I agree with josepp that by the 5th grade every child should know what the blues is all about but... ...then again, I'm a bluesman... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:05 PM ////Not Japan... China.///// I checked a couple of on-line sources shown below but I first read it in a book I have somewhere but I'd have to dig it out from wherever I put it. "It is said that - in Europe and USA - about 3% of the population are AP possessors. When one selects persons who are professional or semi-professional musicians (e.g., students at music conservatories), about 8% AP possessors are found in that group [57], [62]. Most remarkably, however, in Japan nearly 70% of students at music conservatories are AP possessors (Miyazaki, 1988a )." http://www.mmk.ei.tum.de/persons/ter/top/absolute.html Other research has shown that the prevalence of perfect pitch is higher in Japan [than China or Vietnam], where the language is not tonal, but where many young children receive Suzuki music training. http://www.perfectpitchpeople.com/language.htm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:09 PM ////That can be a bit of a disadvantage if you play with instruments that aren't in 440.//// Japanese children learn about pitch at a very young age. Research has shown that when kids start musical training at under age 4, about 40% will develop perfect pitch. It goes down as the age rises. I find it absurd that the brain naturally adjusts in a way that makes it harder to learn music than easier the younger you start learning. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Smokey. Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:10 PM Absolute and perfect pitch are two different things. Absolute is much rarer than perfect. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:12 PM ///since general organised education for children didn't exist at the time/// I'm not sure what you mean. Johannes Kepler taught geometry class for kids. They had schools then. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:14 PM ////Absolute and perfect pitch are two different things. Absolute is much rarer than perfect.//// I was just on several sites that all say it is pretty much the same thing. Scientists call it absolute pitch and musicians call it perfect pitch. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: josepp Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:17 PM ////Many of your "stupid" Americans, have a very "educated" distrust of government and organisation, only the imbeciles still believe these have any virtue, they see the dark looming shape approaching, gathering up our freedoms, our joys, the lives of our children and devouring them, while they welcome it with open arms.//// You're folling yourself. The people most vocal against the govt right now absolutely genuflected at its feet when Bush was in office. Those screaming that Obama's war will ruin us were ready to kill anyone who dared speak out against Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq. Those who have more benevolent view of the govt now under Obama utter distrusted and detested it under Bush. It's all relative. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Amos Date: 03 Jan 11 - 08:51 PM You're speaking in swooping generalities that are a lot more heat than light, Joseph. Why not throttle back and see if you can put some accurate propositions together that are not based on hysteria, which is, after all, not an intelligent way to communicate? Unless, of course, you LIKE screaming at your own reflection... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ed T Date: 03 Jan 11 - 09:00 PM On reflection, Amos spelled backwards is Soma. "I don't understand anything," she said with decision, determined to preserve her incomprehension intact. "Nothing. Least of all," she continued in another tone "why you don't take soma when you have these dreadful ideas of yours. You'd forget all about them. And instead of feeling miserable, you'd be jolly. So jolly," Soma, Oh, the Soma |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Smokey. Date: 03 Jan 11 - 09:06 PM On pitch: there is absolute pitch and there is relative pitch. Either can be perfect, but perfect absolute pitch is much rarer than perfect relative pitch. I'm not sure perfect absolute pitch can be taught, save where there is a natural ability to be nurtured. Most people have some sense of relative pitch, and that can usually be improved upon with training. 'Relative' is a more accurate term for what I was calling 'perfect'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Bobert Date: 03 Jan 11 - 09:51 PM I like the "heat", Amos... He's got US down... Not you and me, but US in general... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Don Firth Date: 03 Jan 11 - 10:04 PM I watched that particular 60 Minutes program, and although Wynton Marsalis lamented the recent neglect of the arts in public education, he didn't put it quite as harshly as josepp would have us believe. Morley Safer was the interviewer, and here is that part of the conversation (cut-and-pasted from the CBS website): "Does it sadden you that, for the most part, young people may not even know who you're talking about when you say Charlie Parker or Duke Ellington?" Safer asked.Josepp has rather a habit of overstating whatever case he is trying to make. By the way, not everyone can develop perfect (absolute) pitch. That's when someone taps a wine glass and can say, accurately, "That's an F#." Most people, if started early enough, can learn to do it, but some can't. I understand that it's a genetic thing. To be able to make any kind of practical use of having absolute pitch (precisely accurate tonal memory), one must learn that a particular note is called C#. Or G natural. One must learn what the notes are labeled. There are certain disadvantages to having perfect pitch, however. When I was going to the Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle, I met a fellow with perfect pitch who said that he was going to have to move to a new apartment. In the one he was in, the refrigerator buzzed in A and the busses went by in Bb, and it woke him up at night. It was driving him crazy! Most people CAN, however, develop relative pitch. That's when someone plays two notes together and although the person with relative pitch may not be able to tell you which notes they are, he or she can say, accurately, "That's minor 3rd." This is a matter of ear training, and almost anyone with normal hearing can learn to do it. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: mg Date: 03 Jan 11 - 10:05 PM I was hoping someone would tell me who Charles Parker was and thank heavens someone just did..I guess a jazz musician. I don't tend to be up on jazz musicians as it hurts my ears so I would never seek out information on them, but if it is information I should know, why has no one until now told me this? mg |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Amos Date: 03 Jan 11 - 10:12 PM Charlie Parker, a.k.a. "Yardbird" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ron Davies Date: 03 Jan 11 - 10:31 PM Well, let's see. In the sweepstakes of absurdly meaningless and questionable assertions, let's try this. In the US we now have turned our backs on 200-plus years of racism to enough of an extent that we have elected a black man to the highest office--and he is trying--against powerful forces-- to better the condition of most citizens, including those whose interests have not been taken into account for quite a while. In the UK the brilliant voters there have elected a coalition including a party which, unsurprisingly, now promises to cut about 25% across the board in the budget, and tells UK citizens that the "Big Society" can step in--i.e. you have to do progressively more for yourself that the government used to do for you--like it or not. So I wonder where the larger number of stupid people are. Seems fairly obvious--and it's not the US. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Ron Davies Date: 03 Jan 11 - 10:35 PM Of course I don't mean "larger number" but "higher percentage". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Smokey. Date: 03 Jan 11 - 10:41 PM Be fair, Ron, we didn't have a great deal of choice.. Though it should be noted that the statistics on which this thread is based are quite meaningless without similar statistics from elsewhere for comparison. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Americans are truly stupid From: Don Firth Date: 03 Jan 11 - 11:12 PM mg, (may I be so informal as to call you "m?"), having heard you sing on many occasions, and having heard some of the excellent songs you've written, I'd say that you could probably manage to struggle through life quite well without knowing who Charlie Parker is. By the way, Charlie Parker is a well-known (by jazz aficionados) jazz saxophone player. Rejoice! Now, your life is complete!! Charlie Parker bears the nickname "the Bird." There was another jazz musician named Charlie Byrd (d. 1999), with whom I am much more familiar. He played jazz on a nylon-string classical guitar, using classic technique. I'm forever getting saxophonist Charlie ("the Bird") Parker and guitarist Charlie Byrd mixed up. Forgive me, josepp, but I honestly don't think that makes me "stupid." After all, I'm familiar with most classical works, I know the plots of many operas, I can sing several hundred folk songs and ballads, both British Isles and America (including Canada), and although I'm not really a blues aficionado, I have heard in person, met, and talked with blues singers Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, and Mississippi John Hurt (at three different Berkeley Folk Festivals). m (being informal), I've always enjoyed your singing. I wish I were more mobile than I am presently and could get to such events as Sunny Camp and Rainy Camp so I could hear you again. Don Firth |
