What Mark Krikorian was saying is that America is being dragged down into the swamps of unproductive and un-innovative second-ratery by all these “illiterates” as compared to Japan. The idea that Japan is more innovative than America was all the rage back in, oh, 1985. Raising it again, as Mark did, is like wearing a Flock of Seagulls haircut. Don’t get your hair cut that way, Andrew.