And you can't spell America without ignorance. Just ask any recent high school "graduate".

All graveyard kidding aside, you're right, it is ignorant. It has always been the willingly unlearneded who form the bulk of society. They don't know, they don't care, and the don't want to be forced to. They want to be told what to think, what to feel, and what to do. It's enough to make me wonder if intelligence is a fluke, a mutation.

The paranoid part of my brain is whispering, just a second.... It almost seems like that if you were really wacked in the head, a case could be argueed that the hyping and partial information are actually being purposefully spread by the media, so that if anything happens, they will have good hysteria to cover. Nothing like riots and panic in the streets to make good ratings.