Bummer!!!

This is a little bit of a bummer post for Primarily-Text Wednesday which no one should feel at all obligated to read.

One of the more cynical mantras that helped me through some frustrating times was: "People are idiots." This was expressed in response to various political, social, and professional occasions over the past years (LAUSD in particular can make this kind of assessment almost inevitable). But eventually, this seemed a little too negative and was amended to: "Some people are idiots."
Through some pretty dubious calculating, I estimated this to be about a third of the populace. I thought this seemed reasonably accurate without being too cynical. Well unfortunately this morning, I felt like I had to readjust this figure to about half.

The reason for this depressing reassessment was an A.P. poll this morning that said that a little more than half of the American adult population supports torturing people in order to get information about terrorist activities. You can see it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/03/poll-slight-majority-of-a_n_210700.html

Of course this issue could be, has been, and will be endlessly debated by all of the various pundits of the world. But I'm sticking by my number until further notice.

Now, no more depressing posts for the week.