We have become so “dumbed down” that we don’t even realize what has happened to us. But once in a while something comes along that reminds us of how far we have fallen. In Kentucky, an eighth grade exam from 1912 was recently donated to the Bullitt County History Museum. When I read this exam over, I was shocked at how difficult it was. Could most eighth grade students pass such an exam today? Of course not. In fact, I don’t even think that I could pass it. Sadly, this is even more evidence of “the deliberate dumbing down of America” that former Department of Education official Charlotte Iserbyt is constantly warning us about. The American people are not nearly as mentally sharp as they once were, and with each passing generation it gets even worse. Just check out some of the questions from the eighth grade exam that was discovered.

John Cleese has launched an attack on the media, branding many British newspapers “amoral creatures”. ■ The Fawlty Towers star was discussing how Twitter and social media had lessened his dependence on newspapers to publicise his work – despite the actor having refrained from tweeting for the last 10 days. Specifically excluding The Independent, The Guardian and The Daily Mirror from his criticism, he said: “The rest are the most appalling, depraved, disgusting, amoral creatures you could find anywhere outside of prison.” In an interview with The Guardian to promote his new film, the Disney cartoon Planes, Cleese added: “And of course many of them are going to be inside a prison soon.”

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Thomas Gaist: ● President Obama on Monday formally assigned Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to form a panel to review National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance programs. Obama announced the panel at his press conference on Friday, presenting it as one of a number of steps to “reform” the spying programs exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The fact that the president has chosen Clapper to hand pick the members of the panel exposes as a fraud his pretense of making the programs more “transparent” and insuring against “abuses.” The panel is part of an effort to placate popular opposition to the wholesale, unconstitutional violation of privacy rights and to further institutionalize police state methods of surveillance of the American people. In his press conference, Obama defended programs that include the warrantless seizure of the telephone records of all calls made in the US and the collection of virtually all Internet communications. He outright lied, claiming that these and other forms of electronic snooping do not involve eavesdropping on the content of phone calls or emails. ● The purpose of the panel is to tighten the surveillance programs and make them even more immune to popular inspection.

Stephen Lendman: Obama Appoints Spy Chief to Head NSA Investigation ● You can't make this stuff up. It sounds like a bad film plot. The fix is in. Obama's reform assures business as usual. His promises aren't worth the paper they're written on. He says one thing. He does another. It happens every time. He broke every major promise made. He's a serial liar. He governs lawlessly. He claims Washington doesn't have a domestic spying. NSA monitors everyone everywhere all the time. Obama lied claiming otherwise. ● So-called review groups and independent commissions reflect damage control. They lack credibility. They spurn truth and full disclosure. Insider commissions assure safe results. Manipulated deception substitutes for truth and full disclosure. This time's no different.

The most recent congressional threat to the free press in the United States comes from California Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. ● In a proposed amendment to a media shield law being considered by Congress, Feinstein writes that only paid journalists should be given protections from prosecution for what they say or write. The language in her proposal is raising concerns from First Amendment advocates because it seems to leave out bloggers and other nontraditional forms of journalism that have proliferated in recent years thanks to the Internet. “It rubs me the wrong way that the government thinks it should be in the business of determining who should be considered a journalist,” said Ken Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Students and alumni of York University in Toronto are organizing against what they say are increasing efforts by the administration to curb Palestine solidarity activism. ● York University administration recently revoked the official club status of an on-campus group that has been instrumental in passing boycott, divestment and sanctions resolutions at both the York University Graduate Students’ Association and the York Federation of Students — the undergraduate student union — over the past year. The resolutions call upon the university administration to pull its investments in companies which sell weapons and military equipment to Israel. York University’s chapter of Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) was punished in May because of what the administration called a “disruption of academic activities” during a demonstration in March. SAIA and supporting groups gathered to celebrate recent victories at the university and elsewhere in Ontario, and called on the university to abide by the resolutions calling for divestment.