dispatches from quilt city

Global Literacy

Last week's Newsweek was about global literacy, aka "What You Need to Know" about the world around you. They had a quiz you could (and still can) take to test your global literacy. I consider myself a pretty informed person but I was pretty shocked by my 55% on the quiz. Of course, if there wasn't a sports section I believe I would have done significantly better.

However, the following articles spelling out 181 Things You Need To Know contained several facts that shocked me even more.

Here's a sampling:
1. The largest Muslim nation in the world is Indonesia.
2. Brazil is the worlds leading producer of ethanol, which they make from sugar cane not corn.
3. More than half the 12.8 million Mormans in the world live outside the United States.
4. The United States is ranked 24th in internet broadband penetration (after Estonia).
5. The last time the No. 1 blockbuster of the year focused on a woman was 1964's Mary Poppins.