One Ant Shy of a Picnic

How many expressions are there to describe stupid people?  One French fry short of a happy meal.  The wheel is spinning but the hamster is dead.  All foam, no beer.  One peanut short of a Snickers.  The elevator doesn’t go to the top floor.  Too much yardage between the goal posts.  One gorilla short of a jungle.

I’m back in college, as a senior citizen this time around.  Even with the internet and other technology, it still isn’t easy.   I’ve never been on the dean’s list – at least not the list of the hundreds of students who maintain a 4.0 average.  We can’t all be smart.  But do IQs, or at least test scores, really matter?  Even if you took this test in 5^th grade on a day when you had the flu and didn’t eat your Wheaties, this number follows you around for the rest of your life.

My research on the internet was inconclusive about President Obama’s IQ; reports claimed everything from 116 to 145, depending on whether you are Republican or Democrat.  Sarah Palin’s IQ was apparently not made public, but one internet site reported it was 19 points higher than Paris Hilton, which would make it 20.

Currently, the smartest man, Kim Ung Yong, has a score of 210.  The smartest woman, Marilyn vos Savant, allegedly has a 228 IQ.  I will withhold editorial comment here, for even this is not empirical evidence that women are smarter than men.  It’s subjective.

A person’s character should not be measured using IQ scores or one stupid quote, or in former President George Bush’s case, numerous stupid quotes.  He has an above average IQ (128) and by most bipartisan accounts was a genuinely good person.

Bill Clinton’s IQ is 137.  Hillary Clinton’s IQ is 140, but Madonna and Shakira are also 140s.  IQ scores of 160 include Stephen Hawking, Reggie Jackson, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates and Quentin Tarantino.

So what if my IQ is not in triple digits?  I’m in good company.  Artist Andy Warhol’s IQ was only 86.  Vice president Al Gore didn’t really invent the internet. 

Joe Theisman said “The word ‘genius’ isn’t applicable in football.  A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

We need to quit stereotyping women and athletes and people from certain geographic areas as dumb (except for Kansas, which is famous for dumb drivers).  People with average IQs are not dumb and in many cases, dumb blondes are neither dumb nor naturally blonde.  (That bit of wisdom is attributed to Dolly Parton, who is no dummy.)

In one of President Obama’s speeches to American students, he said “Every single one of you has something that you’re good at.  Every single one of you has something to offer.  And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is.  That’s the opportunity an education can provide.”

If there were no average students, the dean’s list would just be a school roster.  Kudos to all those who have been on the dean’s list.   Look for my name on there sometime soon, when global warming has made hell freeze over.
### annie