At least, that's the assessment from the brain trust behind Tina Brown's The Daily Beast, which has posted its list of America's Smartest Cities and put Dallas-Fort Worth at No. 48 ... out of 55. Commenters have taken issue with how the list was assembled (using such things as the percentage of residents with bachelor's and graduate degrees, the number of non-fiction titles sold in book stores and the percentage of eligible voters who actually, ya know, vote). But no one really has a problem with Houston (No. 46), San Antonio (No. 53) and DFW faring so poorly. (Austin comes in at No. 12.) The most popular reaction: Secede already! So, why the low ranking?

Folks in Dallas-Fort Worth, according to the data, are less interested than most in reading and voting and, like Houston, the number of higher academic institutions per capita is paltry. No excuses, given the metro area is the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.