When did we stop learning?

I'm not one to brag, but I know a few things.  I know that math and music have more in common that the average person might think.  I know that a trip from my home to Milwaukee, WI will take 15 hours at 20 miles per hour.  I know what a dew point is and what effect it has on weather.  And, I know that June 6 is the anniversary of D-day.

It was on June 6 of this year that I found out that there are some people who don't know about D-day.  They don't know what it was, what it accomplished, or why we should remember it!  I know that it was more than 70 years ago, and that one might think it has little to do with the timeline on your Facebook page, but I just want to scream "Dammit all, didn't you learn ANYTHING in school?"

Veterans of the landings at Normandy, if they're still alive, are pushing 100 years old, and it won't be long before we read the article about the death of  the last survivor of that fateful day.

That's what makes this harder and harder to understand!  Imagine a world where the Normandy Invasion never happened.  It's not hard, if you've contemplated a Trump presidency.

As Americans, the words "Concord and Lexington" are firmly ingrained in our collective memories as important moments in our Revolutionary War.  The same is said for various Civil War battles, including The Siege of Atlanta and the Battle of Shiloh.  We may not remember the dates, but the battles and military actions are important to us as a nation.

While we require that a person who wants to become an American citizen pass a civics exam to be sure they know what our country is all about, we rarely require this from our own, native-born citizens.

We're all worried about how we stack up against other countries when it comes to math scores and science scores, but when it comes to history our educators have allowed our young students to coast through with little understanding of how things like World War II affect our daily lives RIGHT NOW!

Movies like Starship Troopers suggest that one way to become a citizen would be to serve a mandated minimum time in military service to their country.  I like that.  I would also suggest that people should be required to pass an exam, similar to the one that immigrants have to take, before being allowed to vote.

What really worries me, though, is the fact that the children of these oblivious people are looking up from their homework and saying: "Dad, can you help me with WWII history?"  To which Dad replies: "D-day?  What's that?"

Conspiracy Theories and static on your radio.

In the 1980's, I was a young and budding sceptic.  This applied to what I'd heard of conspiracy theories and urban legend.  I was first learning of The Freemasons and The Illuminati.  I was first hearing about fake moon landings, although I'd have thought that they'd have been more believable had "Capricorn One" not been released several years earlier.  And I'm hearing that there has been a resurgence of theorists who believe that one.  And I've always been sceptical.  

"Come on, guys.  You're trying to tell me that they faked all that work, all that time and all of those resources just to fool us into believing that a man walked on the moon?" I thought.  "Who would do that?  And, why?  Nah...I'm not buying that one."

And that brings us to the current dust-up. Just to show that rap music has just as many crazies as the rest of today's music (No, I didn't forget you, Volvique Louis Jean Jr.) here's the latest from rapper B.o.B.

B.o.B (Try typing THAT name quickly and you'll sprain something.) believes that the earth is flat.  He sees it every time he climbs the hills near Atlanta.  He nearly tries to use scientific evidence to back his claims without realizing he doesn't have the equipment and resources needed to make the measurements needed.  

But you know who does?  NASA.  That's right.  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  And according to every measurement ever taken by NASA, the earth is not flat.  Bummer, right?  Another rap hero bites the dust.  

Except, B.o.B won't buy that.  He's going to write a rap that calls out fucking Neil DeGrasse Tyson!!  COME ON!!  You're going to dis a national treasure like NDeGT?  This is the guy who brought us the new Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey!!  The guy has a PhD in Astrophysics from Columbia University!!  I think he knows a bit more about the subject that I do, or that B.o.o.B has.

Sometimes, the conspiracies that we think we see are smaller scale.  I have a friend who refuses to upgrade to Windows 10 because then Microsoft will own all of his information.  Okay, you know what?  I kinda believe that MS has more information about me than I'm comfortable with, but what is there for me to worry about?  I don't know any top-secret information.  I'm not hiding Jimmy Hoffa in my basement.  And, I don't believe that upgrading my computer is going to give them any more information than they'd get from Google, or any number of other online resources.  My opinion?  Have at it.  If I haven't already been arrested, then we'll just assume that I'm still in the good subset of people on the database.   

Who REALLY killed JFK?  Has HAARP really been a cause of some recent hurricanes?  Has E.T. been up to no good here on Earth?

Back to the 80's, where I was contemplating things.  You see, I thought, to accomplish something SO massive as a JFK assassination cover-up, or the "conspiracy" to cover up Barack Obama's birthplace, you need people.  Lots and lots of people.  Remember, any "conspiracy", by definition, is going to include more than one person.   And, I had to wonder why, after all this time, one, just one, person hasn't spilled the beans.  "I was the guy who burned Obama's actual Nigerian birth certificate, and watched while his new one was devised."  

Suzanne Jacobs, at Grist.org, wrote a great article that describes the math behind this.  She says the same thing I'd been thinking for thirty years.  The more people involved in a conspiracy, the quicker that conspiracy is exposed.