State of mind: purple

There’s an interesting quiz on Slate that, though called “Red or Blue,” seems to measure one’s politico-cultural awareness, rather than pure political ideology.

[T]he background noise where you live plays a big role–the local news, what your neighbors talk about, how you get from one place to another, the kinds of culinary and artistic options available, what I like to think of as the “cultural soundtrack” that you can hum automatically because it’s always on. If you’re a blue-stater, you might happen to have learned how often Rush Limbaugh is on the air, but if you’re a red-stater, chances are you know it off the top of your head. That instinctual knowledge is what this quiz intends to judge, not how smart you are about the other side. And there are many people who are purple–neither red nor blue, or both red and blue.

For example, I was able to identify who Dr. Laura is and how often Rush Limbaugh is on the air, just as I knew who Jon Stewart is and could answer yes to whether I would purchase Angels in America for my home video collection. So I came up in the “middle,” which I don’t know, indicates I have a moderate “cultural soundtrack”? I didn’t fare so well on questions having to do with the Bible or Midwest geography, though I did know what “the UP” is. On another question I totally took a guess as to which team was not part of the Big 12, and got it right. Miraculous. Anyway, before I give the whole quiz away, check it out for yourself.