The Flintstones and The Jetsons are far more interesting now than they were when they first aired roughly forty years ago. It’s not because they’re funny or witty. It’s not because they have any lasting artistic value. It’s certainly not because they show us anything about the past or the future.

They’re interesting today because they provide an unwitting document of the American world view in the early 1960s. As someone who lived through the 1960s, that’s an embarrassing thing to admit.

I picked up a special edition of Life magazine called “Greatest Americans.” It’s based on a Discovery Channel poll and program series that asks viewers to nominate the hundred greatest Americans. That sounded interesting to me — I enjoy the Discovery Channel.

What we have here is another unwitting and embarrassing document of the American mind in the year 2005. We don’t seem to know much history. Even the categories come off looking pretty silly. Some names definitely belong on the list, and others are debatable, at least. But, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that this is our list of 100 Greatest Americans.”

Great Leaders

• George W. Bush
• Laura Bush
• Bill Clinton
• Hillary Clinton
• George H. W. Bush
• Barbara Bush
• Ronald Reagan
• Jimmy Carter
• Richard M. Nixon
• Lyndon Baines Johnson
• Robert F. Kennedy
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
• John F. Kennedy
• Harry S. Truman
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Abraham Lincoln
• Thomas Jefferson
• Alexander Hamilton
• George Washington
• Colin Powell
• Condoleezza Rice

Great Statesmen

• John Edwards
• Barack Obama
• Rudolph Giuliani

Great Military Heroes

• George Patton
• Audie Murphy

Great Religious Leaders

• Billy Graham
• Joseph Smith

Great Activists

• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Rosa Parks
• Malcolm X
• Frederick Douglass
• Harriet Tubman
• Cesar Chavez
• Helen Keller
• Susan B. Anthony

Great Innovators

• Thomas Edison
• Benjamin Franklin
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Jonas Salk
• George Washington Carver
• Nikola Tesla
• Albert Einstein
• Henry Ford
• Carl Sagan
• Walt Disney
• George Lucas
• Steven Jobs
• Bill Gates

Great Adventurers

• John Glenn
• Charles Yeager
• Neil Armstrong
• Charles Lindbergh
• Orville and Wilbur Wright
• Amelia Earhart

Great Entertainers

• Marilyn Monroe
• John Wayne
• James Stewart
• Tom Cruise
• Tom Hanks
• Bob Hope
• Bill Cosby
• Katherine Hepburn
• Lucille Ball
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Christopher Reeve
• Steven Spielberg
• Michael Moore
• Mel Gibson
• Clint Eastwood

Great Hosts

• Johnny Carson
• Oprah Winfrey
• Rush Limbaugh
• Phil McGraw
• Ellen Degeneres

Great Music Makers

• Frank Sinatra
• Elvis Presley
• Michael Jackson
• Madonna
• Ray Charles

Great Writers

• Mark Twain
• Maya Angelou

Great Athletes

• Jackie Robinson
• Muhammad Ali
• Babe Ruth
• Lance Armstrong
• Jesse Owens
• Michael Jordan
• Tiger Woods
• Pat Tillman
• Brett Favre

Great Entrepreneurs

• Howard Hughes
• Andrew Carnegie
• Hugh Hefner
• Donald Trump
• Sam Walton
• Martha Stewart

Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen on our misdirected obsession with testing:

And what does this metastasizing testing, for every subject, at every level, at every time of the year, do to kids? It has to mean that students absorb the message that learning is a joyless succession of hoops through which they must jump, rather than a way of understanding and mastering the world. Every question has one right answer; the measure of a person is a number. Being insightful, or creative, or, heaven forfend, counterintuitive counts for nothing. This is: (a) benighted; (b) ridiculous; (c) sad; (d) all of the above.

You know the answer.

Of course it is important to know that all students have learned to read, that everyone can manage multiplication. But constant testing will no more address the problems with our education system than constantly putting an overweight person on the scale will cure obesity. Proponents trumpet the end to social promotion. They are less outspoken about what comes next, about what provisions are to be made for a student who is held back twice and then drops out of school. The bureaucrats who have built their programs on test results seem to have lost sight of any overarching point of education. Who cares if the light comes on in their eyes if the numbers are good?