How can a long tube of metal, carrying 250 or more people, get 2000+ miles in fewer than four hours? That can't be done, can it? I still marvel at it. Imagine how some of the most forward-thinking people of past ages--such as DaVinci and Franklin--would react if we could bring them "back to the future" in some sort of time machine. I wonder if they'd just nod and figure, "We thought so...." Hey, I remain fascinated that I can send e-mails to friends and son, instantaneously, in California, Massachusetts, Nevada, and even Australia. (But, I don't know why the same fascination doesn't hold for telephones. Hmmm......)
I read an amazing, yet sobering thing yesterday. A recent poll of college students (I don't know which college or colleges) indicated they thought JFK and Clinton were better Presidents than George Washington. Other recent polls showed students can't tell what war is associated with US Grant, think Martin Luther King was instrumental in bringing an end to slavery, and more/worse (if it can be any worse). Likely that is a result of things like this: NJ state guidelines for teaching US History make no mention of George Washington. Perhaps they've been revised since, but the US Dept of Education national standards back in the early '90s didn't include anything about the Constitutional Convention, but did have the National Organization of Women in their guidelines and/or benchmarks (oh, that term "benchmarks" is grating). Who writes these standards? My guess is some hateful zealots, with very skewed views of history, who have committees composed of teachers who sign up to get out of teaching classes for a few days/weeks. (OK, let's give some of them some credit; maybe they, too, have skewed views....)
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