Super Bowl Viewership: 111 Million, Voters: 90 Million

Last Sunday, I met friends in an extremely popular restaurant for dinner but it was only half full.  After a little discussion, we realized that it must be due to the Super Bowl match.

According to New York Times, The Super Bowl on Fox set a record Sunday by attracting an average of 111 million viewers, eclipsing by 4.5 million the previous high for a United States TV program, last year’s Super Bowl on CBS.

The enthusiasm was quite impressive and I only wish that people would be as enthusiastic about exercising our citizens' duties.

Associate Press reported that the 2010 election's overall turnout in the was projected at 42 percent of registered voters, about 1.2 percentage points higher than in 2006.

The total popular vote nationwide was expected to reach about 90 million people, 6.2 million more than voted in 2006. About 131.1 million people voted in 2008. Turnout is higher for a presidential election than for midterm contests.

The 91 million turn our rate was confirmed by United States Election Project.

Granted, not all those 111 million people who tuned in for Super Bowl were voting-aged citizens.  However, only 42% of registered voters who cast ballots was plainly pathetic.  In some ways, the legitimacy of such election could be questioned, considering many more eligible people didn't even bother to register as voters.

Our country sure knows our priorities.



The Super Bowl match in Dallas, led me to think about Texas, a state used to ridicule others for their budgetary miseries.  It turned out that their pride was misplaced.

According to San Francisco Chronicle report, Texas in a budget mess similar to rival California:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry delights in telling tales of his California "hunting trips" - hunting for businesses ready to flee the Golden State.

But the latest budget projections out of Texas have sharply changed the discussion: The Lone Star State is facing a budget gap of about $27 billion, putting it in the same league as California among states facing financial meltdowns. The gap amounts to roughly one-third of the state's budget.

Well, game is over!

Texas Board of Education Continues Culture War

According to San Francisco Chronicle, "Texas schoolchildren will be required to learn that the words "separation of church and state" aren't in the Constitution and evaluate whether the United Nations undermines U.S. sovereignty under new social studies curriculum.

In final votes late Friday, conservatives on the State Board of Education strengthened requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers and required that the U.S. government be referred to as a 'constitutional republic' rather than 'democratic.'

"During the monthslong process of creating the guidelines, conservatives successfully strengthened the requirements on teaching the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation's Founding Fathers and attempted to water down the rationale for the separation of church and state."

Though I do agree that the US is not a democracy, rather than a constitutional republic, I disagree with almost everything else their revision of history.

Texas is determined to rage culture war. It might spread to other states as well due to the influence of its large population. If so, the future of education in the US is rather bleak.