Kids today

Idea-Bank deposit: Beloit College is out with the latest edition of its annual Mindset List, updating us on the cultural frame of reference for the college class of 2014, entering school this fall.

Seventy-five insights like these:

The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since “digital” has always been in the cultural DNA, they’ve never written in cursive and with cell phones to tell them the time, there is no need for a wrist watch. Dirty Harry (who’s that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. … Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat.