Smells Like Teen Idiocy

Fosco doesn't know any teenagers. He does know a few tweens and can already foresee the day ahead those sweet little girls will stop licking the lead paint off their Bratz dolls to become brilliant young adults. And what's in store for these future teenagers?

From an article in the New York Times:

[Halpern] was surprised to uncover studies demonstrating that 31 percent of American teenagers had the honest expectation that they would one day be famous and that 80 percent thought of themselves as truly important. (The figure from the same study conducted in the 1950s was 12 percent.)

From an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle:

But most of all, [an Oakland public school teacher] simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens' decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple of recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words "agriculture," or even "democracy." Not a single student could do it.

Really.

Obviously, Paris Hilton is the model here: someone important and famous with less than a fifth-grade education. But can we allow this continue? Are there enough ultra lounges in our country to handle all of these future VIPs? And what of our nation's supply of precious, precious cocaine? I foresee shortages. And what of our teen boys? How will they become famous with no vagina to flash to the paparazzi?

In other news, all teenagers (including the poor and disadvantaged) of (supposedly) Third-World Venezuela are provided with free orchestral instruments and musical training. Where would you rather live?