The Glass is 3/4ths Empty

You'd think that by now someone would have invented a cure for mass stupidity. But apparently the lowest common denominator still rules this country and as a result, this nation is quickly sliding backwards into an abyss where Mad Magazine is intellectual reading.

I kid you not.

Last night, on not one, not two, but three local news stations, I heard the following comments, "Tonight, there will be a full solar eclipse. You won't be able to see it..." Now, last I checked, it actually needs to be daylight to witness a solar eclipse - seeing as how the SUN is a participant in said eclipse. Being the middle of the night here in the United States, seeing a solar eclipse would be a problem. I'm curious, though, how many people went immediately to their windows to see if they could view the thing in the sky?

Now, I like to think - recent proclamations not withstanding - that people in Northern California are intelligent. We watch PBS more often than people in Idaho, for instance. We have opera and ballet and some wierd fantasy animal dress up festival every year. We created computers and martini's and the UN. We have been the home of countless great American authors and playwrights. So, when exactly did we devolve to the point where we need to be reminded that you can't see a solar eclipse at night?

It must be all the legal aliens that have moved into Northern California in the last couple of years - New Yorkers and Los Angelenos and other people of questionable mental standing. I'm all for building a wall to keep them out, even if it means that I have to act rudely to perfect strangers, drive crazily on the freeway, or call it Frisco myself. Personally, I think any non Northern Californian who moves to this area ought to be thrown in jail along with anyone who helps them move here. Our property values may be going through the roof, but our intellectual values are dropping like a stone.