[Big_Monkey]

"your life experience has been LIMITED ... please recognize it!)"

How in the wide world of sports do you have idea what my "life experiences" may or may not be?

"Somehow, regarding the importance you put on such manipulative meant-to-impress fripperies like involvement in clubs, organizations or groups targeting peopel for academic excellence, or cumulative GPA"

I'm not sure how we got to this point, but somehow there's a percentage of Americans that think it's a badge of honor to graduate from college "just barely" and while there to demonstrate ZERO intellectual, social or cultural curiosity. And, not only that it's a "good" thing, but it's what we need in a commander and chief.

[dsc]

“How in the wide world of sports do you have idea what my “life experiences” may or may not be?”

By reading what you write.

“there’s a percentage of Americans that think it’s a badge of honor to graduate from college “just barely” and while there to demonstrate ZERO intellectual, social or cultural curiosity.”

1. When you work your own way through college, as some of us did, “just barely” can be damned heroic. Not that you’d be able to see that.

2. You have no idea how much “intellectual, social or cultural curiosity” Sarah Palin demonstrated at any time.

Bearing false witness is not a good thing.

[Tenniel2]

"I'm not sure how we got to this point, but somehow there's a percentage of Americans that think" quite mistakenly thnat the President's military title is "commander and chief," instead of "Commander-in-Chief," of the U.S. Armed Forces.

-- Tenn, not in a good mood today, choosing fights that might actually stand a minuscule chance of being won.

[Finny]

Waahhhllll ... you invite me to expand and brag about the badly educated, ill-read, inarticulate hicks I've known who in gentlemanly qualities, values, skills and abilities, value to others, and ethics, smoke about the same percentage of the more higly educated intellectuals in my acquaintance, as the other way around. Losers on both sides, precious gems on both sides.

You also invite me to expand and brag on the ones who you would talk to and see for five minutes and come away thinking they were crippled hicks, only to learn later that they were pretty darned successful in their current blue-collar or manufacturing endeavor, and had been a former professional orchestra violinist, or college-degreed engineer, or former restaurateur with a science degree -- you'd assume they were hicks wrongly. There are a lot of pretty smart folks you'd never even recognize.

You are like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, thinking that a medal confers courage. No more do diplomas, awards, certificates, and honors confer intelligence or ethics.