I have two stories. The first is directly related to this. The Constitutional ignorance of 99.9% of Americans was reported on our local news a couple days ago. They reported the statistics:

22% of Americans can name all five Simpson's characters. I can do that.
0.1% of Americans can name all five First Amendment freedoms. I can do that too. And, just for the record, I can name them in the correct order. I guess I'm pretty unusual.

The major problem I had with this news was not, however, the lack of normalcy on my part, nor was it the spectacularly disheartening statistic. My problem was that when the newscaster listed the five First Amendment freedoms, he only got four of them right. I emailed them, but no response was forthcoming, nor was any correction made. I can only assume they didn't believe me because, after all, only 0.1% of the population has proven knowledgeable on the subject.

So. Can you name them? I'll give you a hint. The fifth is definitely not "to have your day in court."



My second story is that my teaching license came yesterday from the Minnesota Department of Education. Now apparently there was a bit of a mix-up and they didn't get my Principles of Learning and Teaching test scores in time. So it's a restricted license. No big deal. It works just like a regular license. It wouldn't matter at all in fact, except that now it says right on my license that I need to submit my scores for the PrinciPALS of Learning and Teaching test.

God help the English language. I only hope this doesn't reflect poorly on me as I look for jobs.