Tag Archives: are you smarter than a 5th grader?

“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”

.

As an agnostic, I do acknowledge a higher unknown force. But I also know that the earth revolves around the sun and that the tides are created by the moon's gravitational pull. Incidentally, my second-grader knows that too.

.

.

Just so we are clear on this: Mars has TWO moons, discovered in 1877...

.

.

But, Wait, There is more!

Inspired by Vapid Blonde’s brilliant idea in her comment, that Papa Bear’s words when read out loud could sound almost like a children’s book, I present you with these…

.

.

.

Classical Chinese poem turns out to be a strip club ad on the cover of a scientific research journal…


Heard on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, which by the way is one of my favorite programs, and had to check it out… Hilarious.

Max Planck Institute, one of Germany’s top scientific institutions, wanted a picture of Classical Chinese poem in classical script on the cover of their special China-focused edition, so what did they do? They found apparently an advertisement for a strip club, promoting the special engagement of a pretty young thing, promising to deliver a scintillating performance with her voluptuous figure…

They cannot find Chinese in Germany? No Chinese restaurants in Germany? How about asking people on the Internet? You know, the thing that connects people all over the world?

What I learned from my 5th grader’s homework this weekend…

My 10-year-old came home with a 10-page homework packet last week, a research report on this presidential election. (Let me not start with the fact that the packet is from 1997 and asks for an example of a printed ad in newspaper or magazine. I don’t remember the last time I saw any candidate spending their money on a printed ad, at least, not in publications that we read at home, e.g. The Economist…)

Here is what I learned:

1. It is not easy to find out what exactly the Democratic party and the Republican party stand for.

We went to both parties’ websites and we ended up frustrated and confused. The “party platform” manifestos put out by both parties read so similar: they both use the same vague, generalized statements to show that they are THE party that will watch out for the little guys, the working American families. Both parties believe in education, better teachers, and the freedom for parents to choose the best education for their children.

I had to explain to my son that nobody will come right out to say, “Oh, yeah. We are going to raise your taxes, and we are not going to do anything about the education system nor the health care crisis.”  You just have to read between the lines.

Here is one great example from the “Republican Party Platform 2008” document:

“It is not enough to offer only increased access to a system that costs too much and does not work for millions of Americans. The Republican goal is more ambitious: Better health care for lower cost.

First Principle: Do No Harm

How do we ensure that all Americans have the peace of mind that comes from owning high-quality, comprehensive health coverage? The first rule of public policy is the same as with medicine: Do no harm.

We will not put government between patients and their health care providers.

We will not put the system on a path that empowers Washington bureaucrats at the expense of patients.”

(By the way, how many people actually read this document?  It is entirely fascinating the wordsmith effort that went into this…)

The GOP certainly did not state that they are against “health care for all” since that, on the surface, will certainly provide bad PR and negative sound bites.

2. The symbol for the Democratic Party has been a donkey since the 19th century:

nast_gop

The donkey has its origin in Andrew Jackson‘s campaign in 1828 when he was called a Jackass, and Jackson, true to his larger-than-life persona, adopted the image of the strong-willed donkey for his campaign. The symbols of elephant and donkey were later popularized by Thomas Nast’s political cartoons, (in which neither animal was portrayed in a positive light, therefore, it’s indeed curious that both parties readily adopted the images!)