I hope one of the questions is: Do you use the word "garner"?
Just kidding. I took Murray's test. According to the above-quoted Washington Post story ("The most out-of-touch places in America"):
Scores range from from 0–100, a full score meaning that someone is completely in tune with working-class culture. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Newshour audience is largely composed of fancy people. The median score was around 40 out of 100.I got a 20.
Take the test here.
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68
If you hadn't watched American Idol you would have got 0
38
"If you hadn't watched American Idol you would have got 0"
There was a list of TV shows, but AI wasn't on it. I had never seen any of them. Maybe hadn't even heard of them.
There were a bunch of movies from the past year, but I haven't seen ANY movies, so even if the classiest stuff was on the list, I wouldn't have scored.
There were a bunch of restaurants, but Culver's wasn't on it, so I didn't score, because I never go to Applebee's or whatever the choices were.
I got 61.
"I got a 20."
Prole! I got a 12.
56
After taking the test I suspect I may be considered a weird outlier in some ways though for a number of reasons. I've ridden in a private jet as well as worked on a factory floor.
72. But some of the questions ... I wore a Boy Scout leader uniform for years, so I counted that.
So, yeah, it was interesting.
And my wife would have scored MUCH lower.
-XC
The only thing I can remember scoring on was that question -- which was absurdly hard to answer -- about whether you'd ever lived within some radius of people only 50% of whom had gone to college. I had to guess! How do I know.
When I was a kid in the 1950s, we lived about a mile from the University of Delaware campus, but I had no feeling of being in such close range of a university. I don't remember people talking about their parents working there or anything. I knew the university was in our town, but it seemed a bit far away. Maybe it was farther away then and it's encroached. I look at my childhood address on Google maps and it seems really weird how nearly on campus it was.
"Murray himself has admitted that the quiz began as more of a rhetorical tool than a scientific instrument."
You don't say... The entire thing seems to be more a series of questions centered around stereotypes than anything truly illuminating. But that's pretty much a statement of the obvious, given where it's coming from...
I got a 78 when I took it this weekend.
I got 62. I suspect answering yes to Waffle House adds 20 points.
I had to laugh at someone's TV remark that Jordan Spieth had a "Tin Cup Moment" on Sunday; it made me hungry for a ham and cheese omelet.
53
Honestly, I would have thought I'd score more "fancy" than that, but I'm guessing my military service is responsible for the aberration.
A lot of people have said that they don't think the questions are actually representative of white working- and middle-class America.
And that really reinforces the point. The questions weren't just dreamed up by Murray. They were developed from surveys. If you think those questions aren't representative, you're not "typical". And one way you know that is that you are a) commenting on b) a law professor's c) blog.
There will certainly be people who will say, "I'm a coal miner, as was my father before me, but I don't eat at Chili's so I scored low and this test is bogus." That is exactly like saying "I'm shorter than all the women I know so it is bogus to say that women are shorter than men".
Wilbur = 47.
Much like Professor A, I scored zero on the TV shows and movies. Grew up lower middle class, son of a fireman, have attended a union meeting. It all adds up to big So What? to me.
I maintain my blue collar roots by always choosing the verb "dichotomize" while those hoity-toity types always use "bifurcate".
It's a real shibboleth kind of thang for the upper crust, you understand.
44. We'll never know what Madison Man would have gotten. Let's guess. I say 29.
Nonapod, I had about the same score and the same answers to those exact questions.
I thought it was fairly interesting, in that it accurately reflected that I had one blue collar parent, was in the first generation on both sides of my family to go to college, spent a lot of my childhood in a small, poor community, etc. But I don't know if all of that makes me fancy or not fancy; my husband and I share a lot of the same values and tastes in things (duh) and he scored much lower than I did - white collar parents, grew up next to a small university, things like that. Is one of us fancy and the other one not? Am I not fancy because I recognize 1970s country music when I hear it at a BBQ joint? Who knows.
I'm wearing my satin day-glo-coloured military-style Sgt. Pepper's uniform right now.
39. Does that mean I don't have to vote for Tromp?
67.
I'm not very fancy.
48.
34. I score well on the non-urban-living questions, but score 0 for all the television and food ones.
I got a 55 about a week ago when I took it. Neither parent went to college, military and bunch of other stuff.
31
But really, only that high because I grew up in pre-Silicon Valley Santa Clara County, back when the place was still paved with orchards, and the nearest industrial operations were still tomato processors. Now, of course...
29
Yep, that's way out of whack. My first score was 52. But their explanation of that score was, well... fairly off.
"48–99: A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood with average television and movie going habits."
I've hardly been a lifelong resident of a working class neighborhood.
Also, I go back and just for fun change 2 answers, the first about being "near" poverty level for at least a year. Given a parent's illness and the other parent's subsequent struggle to start up a career, yeah, I can actually argue that both ways, believe it or not. "Near" doesn't mean at or uncomfortable if it means burning through savings and leaning on a second mortgage for a few years. But anyway, changed that as well the one about hanging out with smokers (from "no" to "yes" because I recalled doing that twice with coworkers). That changed me to an 8.
From 52 to 8. And both answer changes were truthful and not highly impactful in real terms. Yeah, this quiz is full of it. Especially since my TV and movie answers didn't change, but the summary went to "television and movie going habits of the upper middle class". Yeah, uh-huh. Same answers both times, yet my viewing habits apparently changed. I didn't expect this quiz to be accurate, but man, it's so far off it's ridiculous.
I got 50. I think my northern Alabama upbringing & my deep love of all things Waffle House pulled me through.
Luckily, there were no questions like "Do you ever read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or listen to Dufay Masses for fun?" which would have screwed the pooch entirely.
32. Upper middle class son of middle class parents is exactly right. Rigorous sociology is such a bummer for those of us who like to imagine that we are unique.
I've heard of them both but got Jimmy Johnson mixed up with Jimmie Johnson.
75. BA in Mathematics. MA in Philosophy. PhD in blue collar life.
27 but there's no economic justification to call me upper-middle-class.
Jeff Foxworthy questions would have increased my score significantly.
My own score was 41.
Seeing quite a few people saying they scored low because they don't watch TV.
The average for Americans is 34 hours of TV a week.
How can you say you are "typical" except for not watching TV?
50 for me; having served in the Dan Quayle Brigade of the California National Guard keeping Riverside California safe from the dreaded ChiComm Menace (and successfully I might add--did you ever see a Chinese tank near the Mission Inn?), and having occasionally walked on a factory floor (which will occur if you are Manufacturing Counsel for a Fortune 50 company with some small subsidiaries) put me over the top. I walked on those floors and made danged sure that any paralegal sent out to gather records in a factory walked on the floor as well. Not everything in this world is made at a desk wearing a suit or high heels while handling paper. And of course going to grade school in a town of 20,000 or so didn't help the score. I"m just thankful that the test didn't ask whether you had ever raised cattle for beef and eaten them; or raised chickens for meat and slaughtered them. I would have pegged out the scale.
I think I now understand why I'm having difficulty getting on the same page with my Westside Los Angeles lawyer cohorts. I'm in touch with my inner redneck.
@Tommy Duncan:75. BA in Mathematics. MA in Philosophy. PhD in blue collar life.
There are women out there who are 6' 8" too.
37.
Early life experience is probably most important. Which is why the minimum wage hike and other crap make it hard for kids of all kinds to garner (see what I did there) important exposure: to other people from different strata, to what a dollar means, to the nitty-gritty of stocking shelves or mowing lawns.
52. But who knows what I would get if there had been questions about Lee Morgan, Alex Ferguson, or Schleiermacher.
If I were Charles Murray, I would have included a question about numbers of sleeping dogs on your front porch vs number of times you've hired a dog walker.
Odd. There was nothing about religion (save the single evangelical question), reading or computer habits. Or anything overtly political either. Yes...a big "so what?"
I took the quiz a few weeks ago when a friend sent me the link. It was the original quiz, which contained TV shows from 2009-2010 season and movies from the same time. I retook the quiz at the link and scored 65 and the only difference is the updated answers of more recent movies and TV shows.
How can you say you are "typical" except for not watching TV?
Speaking only for myself, I did not say that.
What, no Golf questions. They could have settled it right there. Bobby Jones was about a 10.
My score was 51, and probably that came from the 16 to 26 age range when wealthy parents made us go out and succeed on our own and start our own family. Life lived as a one on one wrestling match is quite exciting.
@Tibore:Yeah, this quiz is full of it. Especially since my TV and movie answers didn't change, but the summary went to "television and movie going habits of the upper middle class". Yeah, uh-huh. Same answers both times, yet my viewing habits apparently changed. I didn't expect this quiz to be accurate, but man, it's so far off it's ridiculous.
It's not intended to specifically identify your life history. It's a set of statistical correlations. That it is not true for you specifically says nothing about the population as a whole. That's why it gives overlapping ranges of answers.
I harp on this because it is very important that people understand what statistics are trying to say. "Women average shorter than men" does not mean that every woman is shorter than every man, and Sally being taller than Ted does not disprove it. "Poor people disproportionately commit crimes" does not mean that every poor person is a criminal and that no affluent people are. Our public discourse, however, can't figure this out.
Exhibit A: Larry Summers' remarks about women in STEM. He was frequently accused, by people who consider themselves smart, of saying that no women could as good at math or science as any man, and female scientists and mathematicians were held up as counterexamples--which did not contradict anything he said.
IMO, another poke at the masses by the elites. How can anyone who is so 'insulated' define or accurately represent the values of those outside the bubble? Trash.
I love TV and watch a lot of it; just nothing on the big 4 networks (except an occasional Simpsons on Fox). Sports, history, science cable shows comprise 98% of my viewing.
The restaurant choices were pretty regional
47 - which is supposed to mean that I am first generation upper middle class, or maybe second generation middle class. Which I think is a bit odd. My four grandparents had college degrees, and on my mother's side, were middle class probably back through the Revolutionary War (but probably Jacksonians on my father's side). And, my father was a professional, as were several of us (most of us were engineers, but a couple were also attorneys).
A couple of things probably increased my scores. First, I fumbled around for a couple years after graduation from college. And, that was where, among other things, I worked at a brick factory for a half a year, which was back breaking work, leaving you physically tired every night. And, did some other stuff, before finally starting grad school. And, I have moved further and further into the rural lifestyle thanks to my partner, who has been getting out of the summer heat in PHX for a quarter century, by spending half the year in rural MT. And, I find, more and more, that I like that rural lifestyle. We live in a small town, not that close to larger ones. Hang out on the weekends at the gas station/feed store, and talk to people I know in town (mostly the guys). And, that is where I got my latest pickup (a black Chevy Z71). I enjoy being able to jump into it, and pop up into the Nation Forest, which surrounds us, and in 10 minutes being somewhere I will rarely see anyone else, setting up targets, and shooting a couple boxes of ammo a couple times a week. Or, just exploring, seeing where the roads went. But, then, I can go back home, jump on the Internet, and be connected to the rest of the world, commenting here, and dealing with my patent clients. Sure, the closest Wal-Mart is a couple hours away (in 4 directions), but Amazon Prime mostly makes up for it. We do miss the great selection of intermediate level places to eat a couple miles away from where we currently winter in CO.
I find it interesting how different my life is than was my parents at my age. They were active in church, the art museum, went to the symphony, plays, opera, participated in a book group (which my father attends to this day, despite the attrition of the participants mostly being over 90). (We have gone precisely once a year, the last three years when in CO). They lived in progressively more affluent neighborhoods, with the last 30 years with probably better than half being successful professionals. I like it just fine, but really prefer the simplicity that we now have. And, that is probably a lot of the difference - the lack of a lot of fancy people where we spend half our years.
One of the interesting things is to me that most of the people in that sort of environment, including much of my family it seems, just detest Trump, who lives an even fancier life. It is hard to explain why his speaking truth to power somewhat attracts me (I also like Cruz, and wouldn't mind Kasich). They talk about voting for Hillary if Trump gets the nomination, something that completely appalls me. Got in a discussion recently about whether or not she would still be corrupt, now that she and her family have sold official favors and access for control of a half billion or so dollars. They thought that she would be satisfied. I didn't.
37.
I've worked in a factory and lived for years in the Tenderloin, but drew a blank at the TV shows and restaurant chains.
@Unknown: There was nothing about religion (save the single evangelical question), reading or computer habits. Or anything overtly political either. Yes...a big "so what?"
What percentage of people do you think are reading books?
What percentage of white, working and lower middle class people do you think go to non-evangelical churches?
What do you think "typical" computer usage would be?
Once again, people who are far from typical--the kind of people who get on the Internet to take a PBS quiz they saw on a law professor's blog--are complaining that these questions don't sound like "typical" life.
More and more people are proving the point.
@mockturtle:IMO, another poke at the masses by the elites. How can anyone who is so 'insulated' define or accurately represent the values of those outside the bubble? Trash.
Surveys of thousands of people.
@Wilbur:I love TV and watch a lot of it; just nothing on the big 4 networks (except an occasional Simpsons on Fox). Sports, history, science cable shows comprise 98% of my viewing.
That crap on the 4 networks that you flip past, just like I do and pretty much every one commenting here? That crap is what the majority of people are watching. That's why it's on.
That was a pretty unscientific poll. What if you never worked on a factory floor because you worked fast food all your life? What if you never went to those restaurants because your town doesn't have them, and you instead go to different chains or diners? And a lot of those TV shows appeal more to age demographics than class identifiers.
76
Jesus, I got a 40. A 40!
Son of a grey-collar steel-worker, lived in working-class neighborhoods or rural all my life, and in the South for 20+ years, wore a uniform delivering bread.
I got Jimmy and Jimmie Johnson confused, too, I ashamed to admit.
But because we don't have TV and rarely eat out anywhere in the past year, I'm relegated to a 40?
I call nonsense.
@Brando:What if you never worked on a factory floor because you worked fast food all your life? What if you never went to those restaurants because your town doesn't have them, and you instead go to different chains or diners? And a lot of those TV shows appeal more to age demographics than class identifiers.
Correlations and averages. He's not saying that everyone who is white working and lower middle class is all doing all those things and nobody else is. Why is this hard to understand?
Most people don't work fast food all their lives. Most towns have those big chain restaurants. The people who are watching TV are watching a hell of a lot of TV: the weekly average is 34 hours and it has to make up for the people not watching any. And who do you think within the 34 - 60 demographic was watching "Cops" or "Celebrity Apprentice"?
"Luckily, there were no questions like "Do you ever read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or listen to Dufay Masses for fun?" which would have screwed the pooch entirely."
Same for me.
They should have asked "do you take PBS internet quizes?" Which causes a loss of at least 15 points.
"I'm wearing my satin day-glo-coloured military-style Sgt. Pepper's uniform right now."
59
I'm wearing my Speedos and a filthy bathrobe.
57 Not bad for a pinko commie libertarian. I suspect that's why I completely understand and respect the support of Teh Dronald. It's also why I re-registered as a demoncrap to vote for Bernie in June.
I got 51 this time but I think I got in the mid 30's a few weeks ago. In the intervening time I purchased a case of Bud at Costco.
I am not sure if I am quite as prole as my score would imply. My grandparents on both sides had an elementary education, my parents were an Air Force pilot and an RN, neither with a college degree. My wife and I both hold masters degrees and have professional/technical jobs. My daughter scored 24 and is a freshman in college.
@Bill Peschel:But because we don't have TV and rarely eat out anywhere in the past year, I'm relegated to a 40?
Do you know how small a percentage of the population does not own a TV and rarely eats out--and how overrepresented that tiny population is among the people who comment on a law professor's blog?
Don't doubt that you are of salt-of-earth working class origins, but you are an unrepresentative example. Do you frequently talk with your neighbors about what you all read on Althouse this week?
@Bill Peschel
Yeah....It's bullshit!! I would have given you 40 points for the side-burns, fu-manchu facial hair!!
Factory jobs are a commitment to work and a lifestyle dedicated to a production schedule. And to a Union. They are now mostly found in Mexico and China.
Fast food jobs are just part time help gigs for teens who live at home. They can be found everywhere.
57....I thought the movies was a weird question. Just about all of the movies noted were pretty big hits that I would expect most to have seen.
TV shows presented.. yuck..
58.
I grew up in Fridley.
37
I would have scored better 30 years ago, even as a foreigner.
Maybe that's part of Murray's point.
55.
I suspect the truck I bought for my daughter's horse added at least 15 points.
Interesting to note the lack of inquiry as to the ethnic diversity of one's family or childhood community.
Everyone just needs to letter in a varsity sport, serve in the military, and go to Applebee's once in awhile.
35
I got a 20. I suspect my husband would score higher. Perhaps I should have counted the time when I was a first grader and my mom worked as a nurse at a GM factory. We visited once and I remember being scared of how noisy it was.
I wonder what the response was on the military insignia. With so much of our society no longer involved in protecting the country, I would expect that question to be way,way down.
I took this last week sometime and got a 20. (Same as the gal from the 12 mile circle.) I believe I scored that low since I unplugged my tv a year or two ago. I hardly think I live in a bubble, especially being a libertarian/conservative that lives in a relatively large city with total Democrat control.
"Correlations and averages. He's not saying that everyone who is white working and lower middle class is all doing all those things and nobody else is. Why is this hard to understand?"
Yes, but for a poll with so few questions it's easy to see how it can be thrown off. I don't consider myself working class at all, but got a 47 somehow.
"And who do you think within the 34 - 60 demographic was watching "Cops" or "Celebrity Apprentice"?"
I figure the older segment of that age group. I know a lot of the TV shows listed are the ones my parents watch regularly but younger people tend to watch a lot of the non-network shows.
Growing up in a small town (7,000 people when we moved there) where you get to throw candy from your bike in a parade and the school takes field trips to factories and Branson helps.
"Luckily, there were no questions like "Do you ever read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit or listen to Dufay Masses for fun?" which would have screwed the pooch entirely." No question tapping into my love of Messiaen either.
With one TGI Friday visit, nailing Jimmy J, and lettering, I still managed only 17. As other people's scores confirm, hanging out here at the Althouse blog is my way of getting out of my bubble. Thanks, y'all.
If I am hanging around with a bunch of 40s and I want to fit in, I wait until someone mentions "light", then I look into the mid-distance and quietly say "You know, Goethe died crying out for more light."
Also, summer jobs. I had some great summer and afterschool jobs.
Also, if your kid's orthodontist sends his patients' families to The Phantom Menace for free, that helps too.
@theranter:Interesting to note the lack of inquiry as to the ethnic diversity of one's family or childhood community.
I would imagine because it's not a good indicator. There is a lot of self-segregation going on at all levels of society, even among the elements that plume themselves on their celebration of ethnic diversity.
The most ethnically integrated workplace I ever personally witnessed was a Walmart near Charlotte, NC.
I'm surprised it didn't ask more food-related questions, as food is such a huge part of culture.
In the last year, have you been in the same room as a salad with marshmallows in it? Was this in a church fellowship hall?
In the last year, have you eaten sushi? Was it shrink wrapped?
In the last year, have you drunk an energy drink? Did you purchase it in a convenience store?
In the last year, have you paid more than $5 for a donut? Was it in a nontraditional flavor?
I keep thinking of so many examples. I live in a very working class South Texas city and also have a home in a cool part of Seattle. The cultural differences are very stark.
41
Explains why I feel sympatico with Meade.
@Terry:If I am hanging around with a bunch of 40s and I want to fit in, I wait until someone mentions "light", then I look into the mid-distance and quietly say "You know, Goethe died crying out for more light."
I wish that worked, but with education being the way it has been, you can't count even on academics (not in literature) knowing more than Goethe's name.
I was once in a group of professors and we had to sign up on a safety training list. Everyone got the same training so lots of students. One student's name was Jodl, and I commented on it, and no one recognized it. I explained the reference and they teased me for my head full of useless trivia. But in our grandfather's time Jodl was certainly a household name in America.
Bruce Hayden said...4/12/16, 10:55 AM
Got in a discussion recently about whether or not she would still be corrupt, now that she and her family have sold official favors and access for control of a half billion or so dollars. They thought that she would be satisfied. I didn't.
She probably would not think she has enough, because you never know how much you might need to pay lawyers, and if she really needs to pay lawyers, she wouldn't be able to get more money!! And much of the corruption isn't really about money, anyway.
I wish that worked, but with education being the way it has been, you can't count even on academics (not in literature) knowing more than Goethe's name.
Similarly, if less literarily, my husband was on a conference call yesterday with a lot of highly educated professionals and one of them stumbled over the pronunciation of 'Pangea' and most of them were utterly mystified by the reference.
Schools produce ignorant people these days. This is why I supplement my kids at home with the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. It's not a classical education by any means, but every little bit helps.
"I wish that worked, but with education being the way it has been, you can't count even on academics (not in literature) knowing more than Goethe's name."
Not even academics in lit. As per daughter in UCLA, the situation WRT to literature is dreadful.
@IHMMP: I live in a very working class South Texas city and also have a home in a cool part of Seattle. The cultural differences are very stark.
I live in an exurb of Seattle; most of my neighbors are blue-collar types who work in the metropolitan area. They'd score pretty high on Murray's survey, and might have more in common with South Texas than you think. I have some professional neighbors too, who probably have more in common with that cool part of Seattle.
My sister said something about no one going to church in the Seattle area. I said, we have lots of churches, they have rainbow flags and their signs say "Black Lives Matter" instead of cute puns. There's some like that right near the Bellevue Chick-Fil-A. ("Bellevue Chick-Fil-A" is such an unusual combination of concepts that I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.)
I guess it comes down to people wanting to feel good about themselves.
The Clintons also made sure that Chelsea got a lot of money in her own name - and "earned." That can be used to put up bail, and for lawyers, and won't be taken away as proceeds of crime or used for any kind of fine or restitution, or used for lawsuit settlements or judgements.
@Sammy Finkelman, Brude Hayden:She probably would not think she has enough, because you never know how much you might need to pay lawyers, and if she really needs to pay lawyers, she wouldn't be able to get more money!! And much of the corruption isn't really about money, anyway.
What was acquired through power must be kept by power. If she's not powerful, people won't need to have her friendly, and won't give her large sums of money for nominal services.
When I retook the test as a stand-in for 1. my parents 2. my siblings and 3. my kids, I got scores of: 68, 21, and 6.
72.
Y'all.
I scored a 49 even though I grew up in eastern North Carolina with parents from Appalachia.
Great WaPo article, though. You can tell it was written by a pissed off Fancy Person who probably scored less that Althouse.
"you can't count even on academics (not in literature) knowing more than Goethe's name."
I may not be all that fancy, but I'm fancy enough to know Goethe's name and how to pronounce it! I think that makes me an unfancy sophisticate.
" But in our grandfather's time Jodl was certainly a household name in America."
Jodl wasn't a household name AFAIK. The name would have been occasionally mentioned in WWII-era news, and whoever read a popular history of WWII (Churchill's, Liddell Hart's, Purnell's), but he was never a high profile fellow. German staff officers were not household names, no matter how senior.
He was no Rommel. Interestingly the given name Rommel became extremely popular in the Philippines post-war. I had several classmates with that name.
40. I didn't get the TV shows or movies. I probably blew the military insignias as well.
53 which seems about right.
@buwaya:Jodl wasn't a household name AFAIK.
I imagine he made some headlines when he signed the surrender on V-E day.
Granted not as famous as Rommel, but my colleagues might not have recognized that name either.
@Paddy O:I may not be all that fancy, but I'm fancy enough to know Goethe's name and how to pronounce it! I think that makes me an unfancy sophisticate.
I'm fancy. If that survey had asked the difference between velvet and velveteen (a gentleman knows the difference) I'd not have scored 40.
I took it a few weeks ago and got an 80. My circumstance are unusual for a denizen of this board (and similar other locations). My mother was the only child of 12 to finish high school. My father stopped at the 8th grade as did all his other 5 siblings. I am the only child of 4 to have any college hours, much less a J.D. My parents both worked in factories most of their work lives and they lived in the same 1200 square foot, 3bdm, 1 bath brick home from 1964 until 2010 when my mother sold it after Daddy died. I didn't go to law school until I was 48 because I got sober at 37 and had a lot of wreckage to somewhat clean up and it took awhile to get in shape for law school.
So, while I am moving into a low-scoring type of lifestyle now, maybe somewhat, the majority of my life I have been lower middle class with almost all of my family, including extended family, being "working people."
""you can't count even on academics (not in literature) knowing more than Goethe's name." I may not be all that fancy, but I'm fancy enough to know Goethe's name and how to pronounce it! I think that makes me an unfancy sophisticate."
Good to know. While busting my bubble, I come here for the Wahlverwandtschaften.
I suggest this question:
Have you ever watched a movie starring Vera-Ellen?
Murray's main point seems correct to me. I grew up in a neighborhood where there were factory owners and factory workers. The factory owners had nicer homes, on the water, but everyone's kids went to the same school and the parents interacted socially, at least to some degree. There was disparity in incomes, but it wasn't definitive. Now we have income apartheid, where simply knowing the the area code where someone lives gives you a good predictor of family income. In my humble opinion, life was better when there were not such large disparities in income.
I got 61.
Gabriel said...
If that survey had asked the difference between velvet and velveteen (a gentleman knows the difference) I'd not have scored 40.
Easy. One is for painting on, and the other is for pouring on your nachos.
44. Dead bang on second generation upper middle class who tries to get out a lot.
52
Not enough fishing questions. There's a big range between fishing for blue gills with a cane pole, bobber and worm and fishing for marlin off your yacht.
Got a 30. May have to turn in my cracker card. The pick-up truck question was a weird bit of urban self-parody, though.
The restaurant choice was also BS, as it was all chain-based. How do you score that you had a pizza in a dive bar last week? Or say a small town greasy spoon? The PBS test creators are so wrapped into the bubble that they created a poor test.
AReasonableMan said...
In my humble opinion, life was better when there were not such large disparities in income.
I agree. Now if only we could get those slackers to work hard enough to earn a decent living...
My 61 is with watching none of those tv shows and only 2 of the movies.
But I grew up in mixed-education neighborhood, was a waitress who wore a uniform, was a systems analyst who designed factory systems, and have lived in small towns as well as some of the largest cities in the world.
@A Reasonable Man:In my humble opinion, life was better when there were not such large disparities in income.
Back when people were materially much poorer than today, they at least had less cause for envy, because they never saw a Rockefeller. Now that most of us have access to things no Rockefeller of those days could have dreamed of, we feel more resentment for what today's Rockefellers have that we don't.
And they were poorer in this mythical, less "unequal" society that you imagine once existed. The wealth at the top was not stolen from the bottom. It was created new, and both top and bottom have much more than they did.
"The pick-up truck question was a weird bit of urban self-parody, though."
I know what you mean. Should've followed with "if yes, have you hauled, in recent year: 1. lumber 2. fertilizer 3. seed corn or livestock feed 4. brush 6. mulch 7. material to complete a contract or 8. mt. bikes or other recreational equipment?"
@Danno:The PBS test creators are so wrapped into the bubble that they created a poor test.
PBS didn't create it. There are very few towns that don't have any of those chains, and very few people who never patronize any of them.
Fishing. There is also a difference between fly-fishing and regular fishing.
"Ah'm gonna git me a pickup truck an' drive up 'n down the Main Street."
I got a 33. But I am, I assure you, in total solidarity with my dumb-ass redneck hillbilly hayseed ghetto-dwelling white ethnic blue collar proletarian cousins.
I got a 52. Seems about right. Blue collar small-town upbringing, but college and grad school in the big city and not much for (popular) TV.
Like Gabriel said, it may well be validated at the population level but not accurately describe everyone's life history exactly.
I thought the Jimmy/Jimmie question was weird though. I know who both are but never cared nor noticed how either spelled their names.
Does the pickup have a gun rack and if so, does the rack have a rifle, what kind, for target shooting or hunting, if hunting — for recreation or for food?
I suspect answering yes to Waffle House adds 20 points.
If loving Waffle House is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Oh, shoot. I really did forget my virtually impoverished childhood living in a tenement (family of 6, two bedrooms, 1 bathroom with cockroaches and mice and a coal-burning furnace) across the alley from a Tinker Toy factory, and above the apartment of an indicted weirdo-pedophile. It was the 1950s.
That's gotta raise my score.
53. Lot's to nit-pick on the questions but overall it's pretty good. I got Jimmie Johnson right, but had to stop and think about which one spelled his name with a 'Y'. Smoker friends question would have been answered differently if I hadn't just moved 1000 miles away from home and will change when I move back in a year or so. Agree that restaurant question should have included dive bars but that would be hard to properly define An awful lot of hipsters think the places they hang are dive bars but are just flattering themselves.
Damnit, I got a 12. Probably could have gotten a perfect 0 if my girlfriend hadn't made me take her to 'The Martian.'
Fritz said...
There's a big range between fishing for blue gills with a cane pole, bobber and worm and fishing for marlin off your yacht.
Yes, I also had this thought. I passed through Lake Montauk last year. It wasn't a hotbed of proletariat rage, despite all the fishing boats.
71
My father was a psychiatrist and my mother a nurse. I have colleges degrees from private and public universities. I have two advanced degrees and I've taught in higher education for 18 years.
I live in a socio-economically mixed neighborhood. I've owned a pickup truck. I go fishing. I've had jobs that required manual labor. I have friends who are Evangelical Christians. I buy Lite beer and Bud. Football isn't soccer!
I also own a manual pencil sharpener.
Why is everyone talking about the test scores, when the book does so much to explain the status quo in America?
Sanders and Trump are both insurgent campaigns, supported by average Americans against the dominance by, and for, the coastal elites.
40
The problem with these sorts of tests is that they really have no predictive power. What it means is it's not scientifically constructed and thus has very little value.
53. Nothing about guns or I could-a pushed 'er higher. The TV section probably dropped me down a bit, too--cancelled that cable more than a year ago and haven't looked back (although, you know, Netflix is a thing).
Meade said...
If I were Charles Murray, I would have included a question about numbers of sleeping dogs on your front porch vs number of times you've hired a dog walker.
Foxworthy: If your front porch collapses and more than 6 dogs are killed...you might be a redneck.
58.
The restaurant question was problematic since none of those restaurants exist within 100 miles of me. I would eat at some if they were available. But...they aren't.
Later they ask what zip code you live in now and what zip you lived in when you were 10. I put my now zip, but the other was a bit difficult since there were NO zip codes when I was 10 years old.....so I put 00000
:-D
[Hillary] probably would not think she has enough, because you never know how much you might need to pay lawyers, and if she really needs to pay lawyers, she wouldn't be able to get more money!! And much of the corruption isn't really about money, anyway.
To an extent, I agree. But even the email scandal can to some extent be tied to money as part of what she was probably trying to hide was the connection between the family foundation and foreign policy while she was Sec of State. White Water, the AR savings and loan, billing records, cattle futures, stealng from the White House on the way out the door, and even taking so much Wall Street money all seem to indicate to me an almost pathological need for more and more money. Even talking about being broke when they left the WH. Huh? Her husband's Presidential pension and her Senate salary together were more than $350k a year at that point. After 8 years of maybe $400k a year with no real expenses.
I used to think that Bill's scandals were mostly about sex, and hers about money. His probably still are (I am thinking about his trips with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein on his Lolita Express). But hers are probably more complex (as you suggest), with a real need for power thrown in. I am thinking about Watergate, FBI files, Travelgate, and maybe even much of her email shenanigans.
I should note that the really rich tend to really live in bubbles, much more than the rest of us. But not driving for 20 years (because she was chauffeured) and not being able to figure out the subway are, to me, extreme. And I have known people richer than the Clintons who still do these things on a daily bass, so it isn't just the money.
Anyway why are we doing something based on Charles Murray, his work has been "largely discredited," hasn't it? I mean, when a university President says someone's work has been discredited (whatever that actually means) that's all there is to it, I thought. The science is settled, and Murray's a joke!
Murray's dismantling of the VA Tech Pres. was really a nice read: An Open Letter to the VA Tech Community
67
75 -- time in the military, life in rural areas (Maryland and Texas) got me this score despite having a Master's degree in History and Political Science. Good to know.
Does fishing for blue marlin in St Lucia really raise your score? What about trout fishing in the Frying Pan River?
Now ask yourself the really interesting question. Given where you came on this quiz, how do you react to Donald Trump? Do you think he is a cad and anything he says is incoherent? Do you think he is speaking gospel and has a deep understanding of reality? Do you sympathize with the view he expresses even if you believe reality needs more nuance than he gives?
My take on the current issues is that Trump is the response(the symptom as it were) of the movement in the cultural wars of the last 8 years. All Presidents until Obama have, in some way, presented themselves as being a part of or understanding the blue collar culture of America. Bush was folksy and while having gone to prestigious schools still had failures in his life and overcame them. Clinton was as glad-handy as you could ask for. He clearly would be happy to join your BBQ. HW Bush was not but then he only lasted one term. Reagan was another man of the people. Obama is pure elite. Not a single bit of good old boy or girl in him. None on ounce. Nothing that the high scoring poeple on this quiz feel akin to. And in 8 years, the elites have made major advances on the culture front. While the economy was good and the culture wars could be ignored in flyover country, those folks gave a pass to the leaders. But I think they are fed up now. Even if Trump does not succeed, this issue will fester. It needs to be addressed or the early 70's will return(for those who remember the last time the elites had big wins.)
Gabriel said ".... There are very few towns that don't have any of those chains, and very few people who never patronize any of them."
You haven't been anywhere in Wisconsin north of Hwy. 29 have you?
A better title of the survey would have been
"Do you do stuff that SWPL people don't do."
66
54
Why wouldn't we know about madisonman? Has something happened? I haven't delved into the comments in a while.
I think if you're taking internet tests to see how connected you are to "working class/blue collar" people, you're not.
Gahrie said...
insurgent campaigns, supported by average Americans against the dominance by, and for, the coastal elites.
Althouse doesn't live on the coast and there are plenty of Trump supporters in NY. This seems to be an ugly example of geograhicophobia.
38.
BTW, I scored full on prole. Probably the deep sea fishing put me over.
I got a 28, which is probably about right. I don't listen to popular music, watch TV, or see movies. OTOH, I've worked on a factory floor, live in a starter neighborhood, and have lots of evangelical relatives. But I'm definitely in a bubble of sorts.
I once read a paperback that was maybe called Class that was one long questionnaire, e.g. do you live on tidal salt water? It too pegged me as a prole. I owned a bowling ball, for one thing. The smaller the ball, the higher class.
I garnered 62. I'm damn near a Mellencamp!
Agree about pickup trucks. Not the proper redneck here. I haul trash, pine needles, etc to the dump every other week, and that is about it. Most everyone else in town uses theirs for what they should be used for. What I love about it though is that I can drive fast down gravel roads, which can be fun if you know the roads. It seems to be a combination of the (Z71) suspension and its length. It is about the same size as, and shares parts with, my Tahoe, but there is a big difference on back roads.
I wonder if a gun rack is a regional thing. You really don't see them that much in that part of rural MT. And it isn't about hunting - most everyone hunts there to supplement their income - remember last fall a friend noting that removing the screen from the kitchen window was on his honey do list (his wife takes her deer and elk from that window every year). Could be that most of the pickups are extended or crew cabs. Still, there is probably a gun in every pickup - just often a handgun (bottom of the lid on the consel has a clip for something that works perfectly for my Glock).
And, yes, hunting is another good point. I don't hunt (or fish), but most everyone else there does, and do it for the food (not much sport in shooting game from the kitchen window). My father last hunted as a teenager on his grandparents' farm in the OK Panhandle. So, we didn't grow up with it. So, it is a bit different to live in an environment where you can't use the local range for handgun practice in the early fall for a month, as everyone and their uncle is using it to sight in their hunting rifles.
@Danno:You haven't been anywhere in Wisconsin north of Hwy. 29 have you?
I have, sir. And there are very few towns, in this nation, that don't have any of those chains. The whole point of a national dataset is to average over the whole nation, and not over Wisconsin north of 29.
And so we see yet another person complain that women can't be shorter than men because he knows a woman who is 6' 8".
I was also the first person in my family to graduate from college outside of prison.
@PB:The problem with these sorts of tests is that they really have no predictive power. What it means is it's not scientifically constructed and thus has very little value.
Are you over six feet tall?
Do you weigh more than 180 pounds?
Have you ever done a bench press?
If you answer yes to any of these questions I predict that you are most likely a man. If you answer yes to all three, I predict that you are extremely likely that you are a man. If you are a woman and do answer yes to any of these, them's the breaks, but you did not falsify any of my statements, which were about the POPULATION AVERAGE.
52
I just took it again and got 65. Without the TV and only one movie (The Martian.)
"Althouse doesn't live on the coast and there are plenty of Trump supporters in NY. This seems to be an ugly example of geograhicophobia. "
You missed a "p."
Wisconsin is on a coast, Lake Michigan which has many coastal elites. Detroit has recently dropped off the "elite" status and Chicago will be next,
I knew exactly one person with a college degree as a child, before my sister graduated. That's why I get such a kick out of the supercilious prigs on here who knows so much about what the poor really need and want.
Murray is hated by the left because of his Bell Curve book, which pointed out the inconvenient fact that Blacks score, on average, roughly one standard deviation below the mean on IQ tests, and Jews score one above. My memory is that Hispanics were also a little low, but not as low as Blacks. Blacks may do even worse, on average, on SAT, LSAT, etc tests, which is why they try so hard to eliminate any potential cultural bias (almost regardless of how predictive they are of success in college). This is one of those inconvenient truths, along with the high correlation between fatherless upbringing of children with negative outcomes in life, etc, that conflict with leftist narratives, and, so, the messenger must be destroyed.
Both my grandpas worked for the same railroad, one as a lawyer, the other as an accountant -- all the live-long day! No hobo.
Michael K said...
You missed a "p."
No spell check of neologisms. I should get extra credit on Murray's scale for poor spelling.
@Bruce Hayden:Murray is hated by the left because of his Bell Curve book, which pointed out the inconvenient fact that Blacks score, on average, roughly one standard deviation below the mean on IQ tests, and Jews score one above.
It's the only part of the book it seems anyone has read. But it was only half a chapter. That book was about who lives in the bubble and why their descendants were likely to stay there.
Depending on what he is peddling at the time, ARM either works at a university and reads fancy pants media, or is one of the boys playing checkers on the pickle barrel at the general store.
"Murray is hated by the left because of his Bell Curve book,"
I was at Dartmouth when it came out. Some colleagues there asked if they could read it when I finished. They did not want to be seen buying it in the Dartmouth Bookstore.
He also pointed out that Asians had higher mean IQ.
His subsequent books have continued in his theme of elites self segregating and losing track of normal behavior.
He believed that coeducation was partly responsible as men no longer married "the girl next door" and selective mating has gotten much more common. I have wondered for a while if the phenomenon of having the children of high IQ parents raised by low IWQ nannies would be an experiment. I haven't seen any studies but I expect that Stephen Pinker is correct that genetics rules, not culture. The left would rather think Stephen Jay Gould and his "blank slate" was correct but not with their kids.
Gabriel said "And so we see yet another person complain that women can't be shorter than men because he knows a woman who is 6' 8"."
The point was that many people in the states that are not Connecticut or Rhode Island can easily live 100 miles or more from one of these chain restaurants. So if they eat at the local greasy spoon or a Hardees, are they more refined/elite than the linked survey's prescribed list of chain restaurants? I think this shows the surveyors lack of understanding of the nation's geography and population distribution. Also,would you drive 100 miles to dine at an Applebee's or any of the other chains mentioned?
"Michael K said...
He also pointed out that Asians had higher mean IQ"
Not by much. Not a standard deviation.
I think that what puts Murray in the conservative camp rather than the libertarian camp (despite what he calls himself) is his acknowledgement that moving the bell curve to the right even a small amount gives a group an incredible advantage. If the average brain surgeon (say) has an IQ of 140, the field will not be just disproportionately Asian, it will be almost completely Asian. Murray thinks that this is problematic for society. A libertarian wouldn't care.
47
I was surprised at how low I scored. I'm an engineer/manager, high income. But I live in a working-class, rural "neighborhood". I guess I was sunk because I don't watch the right TV shows.
I hope one of the questions is: Do you use the word "garner"?
If I'm referrring to the actor James Garner, then yes.
"Murray thinks that this is problematic for society."
Does he? Or does he think it's problematic for society's current goal of perfect equality of representation across all disciplines?
He does think the total separation of culture is a problem, but that's something else.
@Michael K:He also pointed out that Asians had higher mean IQ.
Small relative differences in means translate into enormous relative disproportions at the extremes.
To take an uncontroversial example, use height difference between the sexes. If the average height for men were 5' 8" and the average for women were 5' 4" (it's not), and the standard deviation were 8" (I'm making that up too), then 3 times as many men as women would be taller than 6' 8". If the averages were the same, but the standard deviations were larger for men than for women, still the same effect. Run the height numbers again but use a standard deviation of 4" for women, and men above 6' 8" would outnumber women above 6' 8" by nearly 250 to 1.
Apply the same reasoning to SAT math scores, and now you have disparate impact and a potential Title IX violation if you evaluate people on SAT math scores. Journalists love to cite that SAT average scores are the same for men and women, but they are not numerate enough to ask about the difference in standard deviations. (And the SAT has been renormed several times since 1994 to reduce variances and cram all the top scorers together at the maximum score.)
39. I lose major points by not drinking beer (not a drinker) and cheap frozen pizza should be a culinary choice instead of them pricey restaurants. I live near a military base and love to browse the symbols worn by service folks out and about, but can't remember what is what to save my life. And I love fishing but can't get the significant other to get off his ass to do so as nothing less than chartered boat fishing will do for him.
@Danno:The point was that many people in the states that are not Connecticut or Rhode Island can easily live 100 miles or more from one of these chain restaurants.
Very few people, as a percentage, live this far away from one of those chains. Do not forget that the majority of Americans live near a major city. And so you say "I know a woman who is 6' 8" " in yet another way.
So if they eat at the local greasy spoon or a Hardees, are they more refined/elite than the linked survey's prescribed list of chain restaurants?
There are simply not enough people living in that situation to affect the national population average.
68: 42–100: A first-generation middle-class person with working-class parents and average television and movie going habits. Typical: 66.
Sounds about right.
I got 46, and it said I had average television and movie going habits, but I left all of them blank because I never watched the shows they listed.
If that's average, I feel bad for Hollywood :-)
38.
@Danno: I think this shows the surveyors lack of understanding of the nation's geography and population distribution.
80% of Americans live in urban areas. He understands it way better than you do. The Census defines "urban" as living in one of 453 designated areas.
80% of the freaking country. Nothing you know about rural areas has much weight AT ALL on what is average for the whole population.
49. He nailed my background pretty well, which is on the border of a couple of his categories, other than I don't have normal TV or movie habits.
I put down that I had been to a TGI Fridays in the last year. I realize now that it was a Friendly's. Which is kind of like a TGI friday's. I'm wondering then if I need to adjust the points. Also, I put down going to a Chili's in the last year. In restrospect that may not be true. I may have gone to a chili's in the past 5 years.
Small relative differences in means translate into enormous relative disproportions at the extremes.
To take an uncontroversial example, use height difference between the sexes. If the average height for men were 5' 8" and the average for women were 5' 4" (it's not), and the standard deviation were 8" (I'm making that up too), then 3 times as many men as women would be taller than 6' 8". If the averages were the same, but the standard deviations were larger for men than for women, still the same effect. Run the height numbers again but use a standard deviation of 4" for women, and men above 6' 8" would outnumber women above 6' 8" by over 2000 to 1.
Apply the same reasoning to SAT math scores, and now you have disparate impact and a potential Title IX violation if you evaluate people on SAT math scores. Journalists love to cite that SAT average scores are the same for men and women, but they are not numerate enough to ask about the difference in standard deviations. (And the SAT has been renormed several times since 1994 to reduce variances and cram all the top scorers together at the maximum score.)
Edited to correct calculation.
Freeman Hunt said...
"Murray thinks that this is problematic for society."
Does he? Or does he think it's problematic for society's current goal of perfect equality of representation across all disciplines?
To be honest, I haven't read The Bell Curve. I have read Murray discussing it and its themes in essays.
Would you feel comfortable living in a society where nearly every position of importance was held by an Asian or a white person (probably male)? Where nearly all the menial, low skill, low education tasks were done by Blacks or Hispanics? I wouldn't. I don't think it would be consistent with a free society, since the 'lower classes' would surely notice this, and make trouble.
I live in Hawaii. There are social divisions here that reflect Murray's concerns. If you look at the pro and con Thirty Meter Telescope groups you will notice that there is ethnic side-taking. If the TMT is not built here, it will be because the brown people (rightly or wrongly) see no advantage to themselves in having it built, they don't like it, and they can vote.
@Freeman Hunt:Does he? Or does he think it's problematic for society's current goal of perfect equality of representation across all disciplines?
I take him to mean that diversity + meritocracy based on cognitive skills is impossible. Equalizing the prestige between trades and professions, i. e. a culture that values all honest work about equally, would go far toward easing the problem. We should not consider it a waste if a very bright person chooses to learn to be a machinist at a vocational school or through apprenticeship.
Hoovering up all people at all levels of society cognitively capable of succeeding in symbol-manipulating careers, funneling them all into universities, and making them all into lawyers or scientists or whatever, is a problem. You can't get "diversity" as we use the word this way. It's a recipe for helotry.
@Terry:it will be because the brown people (rightly or wrongly) see no advantage to themselves in having it built, they don't like it, and they can vote.
For now. And probably always. But as the EU has shown us, the trend has been for technocrats to make these decisions irrelevant of what voters want. And voters can be bought off too.
73!!!! Suck it, bubble bitches!
73. It must explain my preference for the company of working folks.
Gabriel, aren't you curious enough to ask why a survey might label the 20% of the population that are not in an SMSA as having elite traits because they don't go to chain restaurants? I checked and saw that Applebee's had about 2,000 restaurants spread over the approximately 20,000 incorporated towns in the U.S. I didn't check on any of the others listed. As you say you live in a Seattle exurb, there are probably plenty of these chains on the I-5 corridor in suburban settings, but how many as you head toward Spokane or southeast Washington in all of the little towns. These people live in a more "real non-elite America" than you friggin sub/exurbanites.
51, but I think I should get more points because I don't drink. If I did, I wouldn't drink fancy beer, I can guarantee that.
If the average brain surgeon (say) has an IQ of 140, the field will not be just disproportionately Asian, it will be almost completely Asian. Murray thinks that this is problematic for society. A libertarian wouldn't care.
My memory is that the Asian advantage was almost de minimis. Slightly up in math, and slightly down in verbal abilities. The reality though is that the one standard deviation for Jews results in a lot of Jewish brain surgeons, esp. in view of the Jewish percentage of the general population. Seems also the case in spine surgery (interesting to see Michael K's take on this). Interestingly to me though, I haven't seen that in patent law, maybe because Jews are seemingly less likely to go to engineering school first. The Asian population seems to be rising decently quickly though - I think that part of the problem in the past was that while engineering and medicine were acceptable careers in some Asian cultures, law was much less so. That has been changing.
@Danno:Gabriel, aren't you curious enough to ask why a survey might label the 20% of the population that are not in an SMSA as having elite traits because they don't go to chain restaurants?
The survey does no such thing. That's like asking why I label 5% of women as "men" for being over six feet tall in the questions I posted.
The more questions you answer the more likely you are to be in the "elite" or "not". It's not a pregnancy test.
I checked and saw that Applebee's had about 2,000 restaurants spread over the approximately 20,000 incorporated towns in the U.S.
80% of American lives a few miles from one of those 2000 Applebees.
These people live in a more "real non-elite America" than you friggin sub/exurbanites.
How can such a tiny minority be the "real non elite" of all America? You're going to find the "real non-elite" where the people are, near the major cities. And I used to live in the little towns in southeast Washington and near Spokane, and they have Applebee's out there.
Microbrewery beer is the only beer fit to drink. The rest is swill, cat piss....or worse.
@Amanda:Microbrewery beer is the only beer fit to drink.
Nonsense. Guinness isn't a microbrewery, so you're already wrong: whether you like it or not, you can't make the case that it's swill or cat piss.
Furthermore, lots of microbrewers and craft brewers are owned by the big companies, who are not stupid.
I checked and saw that Applebee's had about 2,000 restaurants spread over the approximately 20,000 incorporated towns in the U.S.
Applebees is apparently a bit different in terms of chain restaurants of that level. Apparently, one of their strategies is to go into medium sized towns and small cities, and become a social gathering place. Something like that. Part of this is pushing to be the place where Kiwanis, Rotary, etc. meet.
Of course, you need to have a decent population to make this sort of restaurant work financially, which is why the nearest one is maybe two hours away from us in Montana. That is also why the only "fast food" in town is Subway, and there is one at the next town up river and down river, both about 20 miles away. McDonald's and Burger King are both about 2 hours away too.
tim in vermont said...
Depending on
Why so bitter, buddy. Part of living in a bubble is hating anyone who has different views than oneself. You seem to live in a tiny little bubble.
I lost points because I don't drink. But I don't drink because I have a drinking problem. Shouldn't I get points for that? It's got to be good for something.
Guinness isn't a microbrewery, so you're already wrong: whether you like it or not, you can't make the case that it's swill or cat piss.
A couple years ago, I got a text from my kid who was doing their Junior Year Abroad in Europe. It asked whether I wanted a hat or a T-shirt as a souvenir. I answered "hat", and got a Guinness hat. They had popped over to Ireland (much cheaper flights than to England), and was at the plant. So, yes, I love my Guinness. And, my partner's son has it for me whenever we visit.
30
Re. doubt about towns not having any of the named restaurants: Haven't been through all of these lately to check but Google up restaurants in Alice, George West, Three Rivers, Premont, Zapata, Rio Grande City, Roma, Crystal City, Carrizo Springs, Raymondville, Eagle Pass, Freer (all in Texas; many are County Seats).
"Microbrewery beer is the only beer fit to drink. The rest is swill, cat piss....or worse."
Not necessarily--there are a lot of great foreign beers that don't qualify as micro which are excellent. American macros generally aren't my taste but de gustibus and all that. (Is Sam Adams or Yeungling still considered micro?)
I noticed Waffle House and Steak and Shake weren't on the list. For shame!
Well.... like all internet surveys, while fun, they are very superficial and too generic.
Take the pickup question. Yes. We've bought a pick up. Several in fact. We own 5 pick up trucks and two SUV's One was 1968 Chevy step side pick up that had been hot rodded with a V8 crate motor, upgraded transmission, dropped and raked the stance (among other things). Hardly the same thing as buying a new standard pick up from a car dealership. Yet. The answer receives the same weight.
Not eating at a restaurant because it, the restaurant, isn't available is given the same weight as not eating at a restaurant because you do consider fast food declasse (or low rent). Yet the absence of such restaurants gives both an "elitist" score.
Gabriel cites the statistics of height as a comparison. This is misleading when comparing it to the restaurant statistics. One action you can choose to participate or not, eating at a restaurant (if one is available to you). This might tell you something if you disdain the Applebee's or choose the Applebee's. The other participation statistic (height), you cannot chose, unless you cut off your legs or something. You are the height that you are. No choices about it. Everyone participates.
Movies. We don't go to the movies because just like the restaurants....there are NO movie theaters within a very large distance and basically today's movies are not of much interest to me. Those were all newer movies on the list. If/when they come out on Netflix I might consider a few of them. Yet....the lack of movie going puts me in the elite class.
So fun to take the tests, but in reality they don't mean much of anything.
Microbrewery beer is the only beer fit to drink. The rest is swill, cat piss....or worse.
Clearly never tasted Old Tadcaster Oatmeal Stout.
@Bruce Hayden:Of course, you need to have a decent population to make this sort of restaurant work financially, which is why the nearest one is maybe two hours away from us in Montana.
That's not too surprising; Montana has just about the same population as San Jose, California. Which has 3 Applebee's within its 200 square miles. Montana has 8 Applebee's. On a per capita basis, it's not so startling since San Jose has all the Silicon Valley influence and they don't go there as much. But Montana, with all its isolated rural Marboro men, evidently supports 8. All in Bozeman, Helena, Great Falls and such places: but that is where most people in Montana live.
Ugh, warm beer...cat piss.
I got a 30-am I fab?
I don't do some of those things like buy a truck and fish and go to Applebee's on Veteran's Day for free meal but my family does-so I am around it.
I don't watch any tv so i don't know any of those shows.
I do hope Althouse remembers her 20 when she writes blog posts telling us the truth about how things "look" to people.
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