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Honolulu Lite
SIXTY percent of everyone in the United States who has never been polled find turtles amusing, while half of the country would rather slide down a milelong razor blade into a vat of mayonnaise than watch a Pauly Shore movie. Lite poll takes
pulse of nationThose are just two of the stunning findings from the Almost Completely Meaningless Honolulu Lite Poll of People Who Have Never Been Polled.
The idea was to give people who have never been polled a chance to be heard on some of the most important issues of the day. The poll went out on the newspaper's web site (starbulletin.com) to an audience of millions, making it one of the most widely distributed questionnaires in the history of polling. We received many, many responses (seven, actually) from as far away as Kalihi, giving the poll a margin of error of roughly 97 percent. Based on the results, we feel we can safely state how the entire country feels about certain issues.
For instance, three out of five people in the United States think rabbits are primarily food, not pets. Ten percent thinks rabbits are primarily pets until they are eaten.
The country can't agree on exactly what kind of tree Vice President Al Gore most resembles. Respondents were evenly mixed between pine, banyan, Colorado Blue Spruce, "the kind that are in a petrified forest" and telephone pole.
Likewise, the country can't agree on the question: If the United States were an animal, what kind would it be? Twenty percent of Americans think of the country as a lion. Ten percent thinks it's a platypus. And the rest are split among pit viper, "Babe the Blue Ox," groundhog and cow.
The country's favorite color is blue. A minority of people like red. And one guy said his favorite color was mauve, but I think he was just trying to be difficult.
Seventy percent of all Americans, according to the poll, do NOT believe that Diamond Head crater should be renamed Arthur. An alarming 25 percent thinks it should be renamed Wendell.
Most Americans, sadly, do not know the capital of Rhode Island. One out of eight people thinks it is Dover. Ten percent thinks it is Peking. A few respondents believe the capital of Rhode Island is Arthur, although they might have gotten the questions mixed up.
According to the poll, the next president of the United States will be 'N Sync, although you probably have to consider the poll's margin of error.
Most Americans surprisingly don't know who actually sits on the Honolulu City Council. Asked which Council member has the weirdest hair, most Americans answered Dan Inouye. Others named Calvin Say, Ben Cayetano, Jesse Ventura and Jon Yoshimura. The message here is that the American people, as a whole, were not really paying attention to the question and if they keep that up we aren't going to do another one of these polls.
So, those are the main findings of our massive poll of people who have never been polled. The results clearly show there's a good reason why only a small number of Americans ever actually get polled -- because most of the rest of us are nitwits. Lawyers suggested we call it the "Almost Completely Meaningless" poll but I think next time we can safely drop the word "almost."
Finally, according to the poll, the country is evenly split over the best movie of all time. It's a tie between "Gone With The Wind" and "Caged Women Unchained From Outer Space."
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, 96802
or send E-mail to charley@nomayo.com or
71224.113@compuserve.com.
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