MY HYPOTHESIS--

Today’s standard of excellence is mediocrity.

A recent Associated Press story posed the following question about an Allegan, MI grade schooler: “Is fifth-grader Kenton Stufflebeam smarter than the Smithsonian?

Here is what happened. Student Stufflebeam was visiting the fabled national museum with his family when he noticed a bold sign in the museum which mistakenly identified the Precambrian as an era.

The word “era” according to Dictionary.com means; “...Geology. A major division of geologic time composed of a number of periods.”

It has a beginning and often an ending.

The word “Precambrian” is a dimensionless unit of time, which embraces all the time between the origin of Earth and the beginning of the Cambrian Period, explains AP.

In short, the highly esteemed museum was wrong--and has been since that sign was erected 27 years ago.

This was not really a very big deal until I read further: The AP concluded--excited as he was to receive a letter from museum officials acknowledging the student was correct the youngster had to point out his letter was addressed to Kenton “Slufflebeam”.

In “Allegany” Michigan.

This kind of pathetic sloppiness does not even rise to the level of mediocrity when the perpetrator is a grand institution--of now somewhat tarnished--national pride.

Cheers to young Stufflebeam. Jeers to the Smithsonian.