It's a healthy country when no one knows the names of Supreme Court justices. It's heartening we only have 15.7% to go.

on the plus side, 90% knew the name of Coldplay's frontman, so we have that going for us.

John was only Prince, I thought?

pj: Tragically, who's more important (other than the President) in the current gov't setup than the 5th SC justice on a decision?

These surveys are set ups. Unmotivated questions asked to unmotivated subjects produce results that show how unmotivated everyone is.

From Friday's Best of the Web:

Bob Who?
One final "Throat" thought. We were struck when reading John O'Connor's Vanity Fair article by the lead anecdote, which began with a knock on the door of Joan Felt's house:

Upon answering it, she was met by a courteous, 50-ish man, who introduced himself as a journalist from The Washington Post. He asked if he could see her father, W. Mark Felt, who lived with her in her suburban Santa Rosa home. The man said his name was Bob Woodward.

Woodward's name did not register with Joan, and she assumed he was no different from a number of other reporters, who had called that week. ... Joan was suddenly curious. Unlike the others, this reporter had come by in person. What's more, he claimed to be a friend of her father's. Joan excused herself and spoke to her dad. He was 86 at the time, alert though clearly diminished by the years. Joan told him about the stranger at the door and was surprised when he readily agreed to see "Bob."

She ushered him in, excused herself, and the two men talked for half an hour, Joan recalls. Then she invited them to join her for a drive to the market nearby. "Bob sat in the backseat," she says. "I asked him about his life, his job. He said he'd been out here on the West Coast covering [Arizona senator] John McCain's [presidential] campaign and was in Sacramento or Fresno"--four hours away--"and thought he'd stop by. He looked about my age. I thought, Gee, [he's] attractive. Pleasant too. Too bad this guy isn't single."

Bob Woodward is probably America's best-known print journalist, and certainly the only one to have been portrayed by Robert Redford in a major motion picture. Yet Joan Felt, a contemporary of Woodward and the daughter of "Deep Throat" himself, didn't know who he was. It's a reminder of just how unusual are those of us who follow politics closely.

carl bernstein was played by jack nicholson, a much higher accolade, imo.

cjm:
Bernstein was played by Dustin Hoffman (www.imdb.com is your friend).

Bernstien's star dimmed after he treated Nora Ephron shabbily. And applying the Carly Simon song (can't remember the title) to the story only made it more powerful.

I always liked the line: "There's more room in a broken heart".

Different movies. Berstein was played by Hoffman in All the President's Men. Nicholson played him in Heartburn. IMHO, Hoffman was the right choice, Nicholson was not sufficently ethnic and drained the movie of a lot of humor.

55% of Dartmouth students don't know the five Great Lakes?

Ye gods.

Now, Botticelli is another matter, but that 55% is just sad. I'll bet 55% of Ohio State students know that one.

BTW, Matthias was not an apostle.

Ratbert-- He was chosen to replace Judas (Acts 1:26).

Meanwhile, I would have gotten the Judges question wrong. I keep forgetting Kennedy.

Thank you - my bad. For some reason, I always think Matthias got rejected and the other guy (Justus) was chosen.

Meanwhile, prior to Brad Pitt, would 83% of Dartmouthers (?) known that Helen 'caused' the Trojan War?