Linda in Northfield, Mensagenda Editor
About Mensagenda
Minnesota Mensa published Vol. I, No. 1 of our newsletter, then called the Minnesota Mensa, in June of 1965. Approaching six decades later and winning awards along the way, we continue to provide a monthly publication, now called Mensagenda.
As expected in a newsletter, we inform our local membership with organizational updates and provide details about our events. The real benefit is that, just like our events, Mensagenda is for our members, by our members.
The love of learning in Mensa is not just about supporting our scholarship but in enriching your own mind and sharing your knowledge, skills, and interests. Read articles and regular columns ranging from scientific explanations to humor in everyday life. Check out our members’ photography, drawing, painting, knitting and quilting, and crafting skills.
What would you like to share? Do you have expertise in a particular field of study or hobby? Want to express your opinion? Have you traveled recently? Do you write poetry? Can you create word games, numerical puzzles, or trivia questions? What could you say about…well, you get the picture.
Mensagenda is another way that Minnesota Mensa provides “a stimulating intellectual and social environment for its members.” What could you contribute if you joined Mensa?
There’s More to Read
Mensa membership provides access to the publications from other chapters, American Mensa, and Mensa International. Click here to learn more.
Featured Cover Art
This fantastical creature is on display at the free exhibit Alebrijes: Keepers of the Island presented by the Minnesota Latino Museum on Raspberry Island in St. Paul. Photo by John in Roseville
The Minnesota Latino Museum exhibit Alebrijes: Keepers of the Island opened June 1 and will be on display until Oct. 26.
“Alebrijes are a Mexican folk art of colorful and fantastical creatures, often the combination of multiple animals (for example, the head of a fox with the body of a goose, fish fins, and horse legs),” the museum says. “The exhibit features 16 Alebrije sculpture creations— from 4 to 16 feet tall—in the breath-taking natural environment of Raspberry Island on the Mississippi.”
John Sokalski writes, “We got a chance to talk to one of the artists, who explained some of the symbolism of his designs and answered questions about the weight (metal framework) and construction (papier mâché with paint and varnish). He was one of several people working on a new ‘rabbit and other things’ sculpture.
“It might be good to mention that they are still adding sculptures.”
For more about the art and the artists, visit the museum site www.mnlatinomuseum.org/alebrijes.
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Vantage Point: Watching TV
by James in St. Paul
Although I haven’t owned a TV in more than a decade, I spent plenty of time watching television as a child. Even before I knew much about IQ, I paid close attention to the way TV shows addressed the subject. Mostly for nostalgia, I recently rewatched episodes of sitcoms from my formative years that discussed IQ. What did these old shows have to say?
One example aired during the final season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a CBS sitcom that centered on the fictional WJM-TV in Minneapolis. At the beginning of the 1976 episode “My Son, the Genius,” bumbling news anchor Ted Baxter grew concerned when his adopted son, David, was struggling in elementary school. Educators soon determined that David’s troubles resulted from boredom, as he had an IQ of 160. Ted’s wife, Georgette, made an offhand remark that David’s IQ was twice as high as Ted’s. For comparison, news writer Murray Slaughter disclosed that his own IQ score was 125, while producer Mary Richards said she had an IQ of 117.
To help their son, the Baxters enrolled David in a school for gifted students. All seemed well until David began making unfair demands of his parents, insulting them when he didn’t get his way. Ted came to realize that he still needed to set expectations and discipline his son no matter how impressive David’s IQ happened to be.
A related example from 1979 came from the NBC sitcom The Facts of Life. The episode in question was aptly titled “I.Q.” When the headmaster at the fictional Eastland School for Girls in Peekskill, New York, accidentally left out a list of all the students’ Stanford-Binet results in one of the dorms, it was only a matter of time before all of the students knew each other’s IQ. None of the girls stated their scores aloud during the episode, but debutante Blair was proud that her IQ was higher than her weight. Meanwhile, best friends Tootie and Natalie bonded when they saw they had the same IQ.
Not everyone was happy with the results, however. Studious Sue Ann was devastated to see her IQ at the bottom of the list. Classmate Nancy, on the other hand, was puzzled that her IQ was at the top. As other students started coming to Nancy for homework help, she resented the assumption that having a high IQ meant that everything would come easy for her. Nancy already felt enough pressure and didn’t have extra time to tutor her friends. With Sue Ann convinced she was fated for mediocrity and Nancy overwhelmed, both girls failed an important midterm exam and considered dropping out of school. In the end, housemother Edna Garrett consoled both students, encouraging them not to define themselves by IQ. (If you don’t remember Nancy and Sue Ann, it’s because both characters were cut after the show’s first season.)
In revisiting these episodes from five decades ago, I agree with the sentiment that we are more than one metric. Sometimes I wonder, though, if I would have been more intelligent—or at least better informed—had I spent less time watching TV growing up.