Well, I’ll include one movie-related note. Grace, the late Mrs. Marshall, was amazing in her ability to spot continuity errors in films, and logical gaffes and plot holes annoyed her greatly, even more than they do me. (The “impact tremors” when the T-Rex is approaching in “Jurassic Park” was a particular target of her scorn: water would ripple in the glass, but at the climax of the film the dinosaur somehow creeps up on everybody to surprise the raptors and rescue the heroes. Grace mentioned it every time we saw the film, which was often.) The Times has a feature called “As Oscars approach, an honest look at beloved sports movies’ glaring plot holes.” The holes cited are the kind of things Grace would hate, but these are hardly “beloved sports movies.” In fact, almost all of them stink. Not one comes close to being on my list of the best sports movies (which are all ethics movies too.) You would have to staple my eyelids to my forehead to get me to watch “Happy Gilmore.”

1. Stop making me defend the public school system! On what must have been a slow outrage day, the Daily Caller took after this assignment, allegedly screen-shotted by a 16-year-old student:

Yeah, it looks like a dumb assignment, but absent context and the class work around it, there is no fair way to be sure. But what struck me about the Daily Caller’s critique was this: “If your child is incapable of writing more than 10 or so sentences on World War I, you have failed to educate them. Therefore, you have failed as a parent and you’re continuing to do so if you keep allowing schools to get away with not doing their job — a job you pay them for with your taxes every year.”

The failure of parents to do their duty of educating their kids as well as the deterioration of public education are important issues, but World War I illiteracy isn’t proof of either. I had a very good public school education, and my father was teaching my sister and me history all the time, but The Great War was largely ignored by both. It has always been a black hole of U.S. history along with the War of 1812, for a variety of reasons. There’s a lot more to American history than that remarkably pointless war, and the Revolution, the Civil War and World War II get most of the limited time the schools have to cover conflicts, as they should.

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No wonder the American public is confused. The mainstream media, in its opinions,news reporting and features, seems determine to either make Americans dumber or to drive them insane.

This struck me this morning when looking at the first set of headlines—“Top Items”— on Memeorandum, the useful and only slightly biased news aggregation site. I’ll discuss each of them briefly; remember: when I recorded them, the site regarded these as the top stories of the moment, what the public needed to know. Note that none of the “top headlines” included this one, from the Federalist: Exclusive: Liz Cheney, January 6 Committee Suppressed Exonerating Evidence Of Trump’s Push For National Guard…

1. Ross Douthat (New York Times): Why It’s Hard to Explain Joe Biden’s Unpopularity  This one is what initially drew my attention to the seemingly deliberate avoidance of reality in the headlines. It’s not hard at all, and i have to wonder about the acumen or honesty of anyone who would think it is hard. Douthat comes close to explaining how bias has made him stupid when he writes, “Some of this mystification reflects liberal media bias accentuated by contemporary conditions — an unwillingness to look closely at issues like immigration and the border, a hesitation to speak ill of a president who’s the only bulwark against Trumpism.” Some? Douthat works in the New York Times bubble: that must explain his weird puzzlement. Biden was never especially popular as a Senator or Vice-President. He has always had the reputation of being a gaffe-prone boob. His policies have triggered a national debt crisis and massive inflation, especially in consumer items like food. He’s a serial sexual harasser; he has enabled influence peddling by his black sheep son, and lied about it. He chose an incompetent for Vice President, Secretary of Transportation, Press Secretary and more; he is obviously in mental decline. His snap withdrawal from Afghanistan was a debacle; Russia attacked Ukraine on his watch; he’s trying to play both sides against the middle in Gaza. He promised to be a unifying President and gave a speech accusing at least a third of all Americans of being fascists. His Attorney General has used the power of his office to intimidate parents; he has allowed his party to pursue a strategy of using criminal law to eliminate political enemies. His administration’s DEI obsession is deservedly mocked; major cities are experiencing crime waves enhanced by the rhetoric of Biden’s allies. He is not eloquent, comforting or especially leader-like; he is not an orator or particularly likable. The only reason he is President is because he was the least offensive of a terrible group of alternatives to Donald Trump, and his election was still tainted by dubious voting procedures.

The headline is as insulting as one asking, “It’s hard to explain why people don’t like Donald Trump.”

2. Dan Rather / Steady: President Biden Upends the GOP Narrative  Oh, please. I assumed that Biden could struggle through an 80 minute speech using a teleprompter. That he did proved nothing and “upended” no narrative at all. And Biden slurred plenty of words, embarrassed himself when he went off script, lied as usual and seemed hopped up on something. Only a pathetic, partisan has-been like Rather would make such a statement.

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