As the World Turns.

Apartheid may be gone officially, but South Africa still has a long ways to go to become a racially-blind society.
_____

So-called "gifted" kids will start school this fall in the highly-touted Davidson Academy.

The problem, of course, is that the vast majority of "gifted" kids will grow up to lead rather mediocre lives, like almost everybody else. There is an assumption made by the Davidsons that we live in a meritocracy, and the "best and the brightest" (based on tests, of course) should excel and have the best jobs and the best lives in society.

As we all know, or should, there is no such thing as a "meritocracy" in this country. "Ability" and "talent" have far less to do with "success" than knowing the right people and having pure luck.

By all means precocious kids should be encouraged to learn to the extent of their abilities. But parents should be aware of the simple fact that not everybody can be an Einstein or a Mozart, and given the fact our country is knocking the rungs of the American Dream ladder out from under almost everybody but the very rich, their kids aren't likely to amount to anything better than being doctors or lawyers.

Those who rise to the top of the economic heap are the ones with the social "smarts," the ones who can bullshit and backstab their way to the top. More often than not, "gifted" people lack the social skills to actually succeed in this environment. Far too many of the "intelligent" end up underachievers working at menial jobs, taking drugs or boozing it up, winding up homeless, or committing suicide. Actual "intelligence" is far more involved than scoring in the 99th percentile of an I.Q. or achievement test.

Parents are being fed false hopes about their kids. As one parent of a so-called "gifted" student I taught a few years ago said, her son has a "disability," just as the kids I now teach in special education have disabilities.

The plain truth is our society has little use for "gifted" people, just as it has little use for those who are otherwise "disabled." Being compliant, not making waves to the bosses, arriving to work on time, knowing basic math and being able to read at a fifth-grade level, that's really all that is required in this country to make a living. And any job, regardless of education level, can be sent overseas or can be insourced to illegals or H1Bs.
_____

Thanks to the disappearance of high-paying lumber mill jobs, the town of Oakridge, Oregon, near Eugene, is struggling with the increase of poverty.
___

Only in the upside down world of Nevada politics can politicians be both up and down in the polls at the same time.
_____