Hardly the only grabber

Yesterday’s post showed how mustang grape vines (Vitis mustangensis) are great grabbers of other plants. So are Texas bindweeds, Convolvulus equitans, one of which you see here had twined its way around a fiewheel, Gaillardia pulchella, on the same roadside strip along FM 2222 as the mustang grape on May 10th. Curiously, most of the Texas bindweed flowers there had their petals bent back in an atypical way, as shown below.

  

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It would be funny, if it weren’t so sad, to see how many Americans of high school and college age know so little about so many basic things. Here’s a 4-minute video full of examples. And here’s a 5-minute one. Some of the questions that stumped people were: “What’s Obama’s last name?” “How much is 3 x 3 x 3?” “How many eggs are in a dozen?” “What’s the capital of the United States?” “What does Y-E-S spell?” Even worse than not knowing, some of the people gave crazy answers, like the United States gained its independence from Korea. Or take the question: “If you drive 60 miles an hour for one hour, how far do you travel?” One person said “I don’t know, I’m not good at math,” and her friend answered “Two hours” (presumably because the question contained the word “hour” two times).

© 2022 Steven Schwartzman