Is the United States really the land of geographic illiterates?

Kirk Caraway's column last Sunday got me thinking about the importance of knowing what you're talking about.

If you missed it, he agonized over the ignorance many people demonstrate toward world events, connecting it to a skit used by Jay Leno on the "Tonight Show" called Jaywalking. Leno interviews people on the street with simple questions and has little problem finding subjects who can't name the vice president or point out their own country on a map.

Kirk was writing about a recent CNN poll showed that 43 percent of Americans think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, something that has been proven wrong.

"It's hard to escape the conclusion that our war in Iraq is based on our ignorance of that region," he wrote.

In that sentence, I saw an opportunity, no ... a duty, to further my quest to expose hypocrisy in all its forms. Just how much ignorance could I expose in Kirk, I wondered.

My method was simple. I called up a Web site that shows an unlabeled map of 35 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Below it is a list of the names of those countries. The game requires a person to use the computer mouse to drag the names onto the correct country.

So the next time Kirk, who is our Internet editor, passed by my office door, I shouted, "Hey, Kirk, got a few minutes." And thus the prey entered the Web.

Or so I thought. Kirk showed no outward signs of stress when he realized he was on my own version of "Jaywalking." He sat down calmly and began labeling the map, breezing through the larger countries ... Iran, Iraq, Israel, Sudan, Niger, etc. He paused only briefly on countries like Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, and it became clear I wasn't going to be able to make a fool out of Kirk in this column. In all, he missed six of the countries, which gives him an 83 percent. Having humbled many other people with the test, however, I know on a curve he would have ended up with a solid A.

If you're interested in taking the test, or if you want to duplicate my futile attempt to entrap a co-worker, it can be found at www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html

And don't feel too bad if you miss a few. You'll have plenty of company. According to a press release that crossed my desk a while back, "geographic illiteracy is sweeping through America." It said, "11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn't even locate the United States on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent."

At a time when world affairs are so crucial to our future, that's not a good thing to hear. It doesn't send a good message to the world when most Americans can't even point out the countries where our troops are fighting.

"Many young adults today lack basic geographic knowledge that would be almost unthinkable a generation ago," said the news release, which was touting a children's book called "Meet Arzeen: Citizen of the World" ( www.arzanaworld.com).

There was no source cited for those numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were true. I suspect many people, children or adults, would be hard pressed to ace a similar game on naming the 50 states. Conveniently, you can find that game, too, on the Internet at www.pibmug.com/files/map_test.swf

But be cautious, this game taunts you. The opening screen asks, "Can you pass the third grade?" It then gives you about 3.5 minutes to identify all the states. Easy, right?

Well, most of it, sure. But in the interest of avoiding any hypocrisy, I must admit that some of those teeny, tiny states in the Northeast ruined my perfect score. Not enough to keep me from passing the third grade, mind you, but let's just say I was in no hurry to search for a fourth-grade test.

• Barry Ginter is the editor of the Appeal. Contact him at bginter@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1221.