Perhaps the following news item, which has been fairly widely reported, caught your eye. It certainly caught mine, eliciting both a grin and chagrin. I offer an excerpt from the Chicago Tribune article:

A survey released Wednesday showcases a bit of data that should surprise nobody: Americans know more about “The Simpsons” than they do about the 1st Amendment.

The study, conducted by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, focuses on the 1st Amendment and found that less than one percent of the respondents could identify the five protected rights: freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly and to petition the government.

On the other hand, about 20 percent of respondents could name Bart and Homer and the other three members of the animated Simpson family….

The constitutional confusion extended beyond what is written in the 1st Amendment. Many respondents also had interesting ideas about items the framers did not include.

The right to own pets, for example, which 21 percent of respondents said was listed someplace between “Congress shall make no law” and “redress of grievances.” Seventeen percent said that the amendment contained the right to drive a car. And 38 percent thought that “taking the 5th Amendment” was part of the 1st.

Wow…and President Bush proposes cutting some $3.5 billion from the Department of Education budget in the coming year. Of course, none of this should come as a surprise to anyone. Bush and his cronies have long relied on an uninformed or misinformed populace to attain their power and push through their agenda. And the mainstream media, which has largely become toothless, has enabled such. Politics aside, though, this survey speaks to how complacent and un-civic-minded Americans have become. Sitting on our collective sofa, we have become fat and lazy, knowing (and presumably caring) more about pop culture than actual culture, more about the stars in the entertainment world than the stars in the sky, more about the Honda Civic than American Civics. We have made ourselves easy prey for those jackals who would gladly rob us of our liberties and fatten themselves off our ignorance. If knowledge is truly power, then we have grown powerless. D’oh!