The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Question and Answer–I

  • “Why Are Ivory Tower Types in Charge of Food Choices for Millions of Americans?”–headline, FoxNews.com, March 20
  • “Food Pantries on the Rise at US College Campuses”–headline, Associated Press, March 15

Question and Answer–II

  • “Will Children Ever Care About Opera?”–headline, Daily Telegraph (London), March 20, 2014
  • “Opera’s Not Just for Kids”–headline, Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.), Nov. 20, 1977

Bottom Story of the Day 
“Walnut Farmers Support Continuation of California Walnut Board”–headline, Walnut Bargaining Association press release, March 19

Welcome to Htrea 
Consider two stories. The first is from Forbes.com:

You can’t spell “PRIVACY” without “PR,” and it’s the latter, not the former, that the National Security Administration [sic] has handled poorly, according to its deputy director, Richard Ledgett.

Speaking via video link at the TED conference in Vancouver–two days after the agency’s arch-nemesis, Edward Snowden, did the same–Ledgett acknowledged that the NSA deserves criticism for shocking the world with the extent of its data collection programs, but insisted the programs themselves are necessary and operate under adequate controls.

Basically, he said, if the NSA had done a better job of explaining itself earlier, Snowden’s revelations wouldn’t have been nearly so problematic.

And the second from London’s Guardian:

One of the co-founders of the Occupy Wall Street movement has called on Barack Obama to resign as president, and “appoint Eric Schmidt CEO of America.”

Justine Tunney, a self-styled “champagne tranarchist”, is now a software engineer at Google, but remains involved with Occupy Wall Street, through the occupywallst.org website, which she created.

In the petition, which currently has two signatures (a far cry from the 195,000 who follow the Occupy Wall Street twitter account Tunney started in 2011), she calls on Obama to arrange a national referendum to:

1. Retire all government employees with full pensions.

2. Transfer administrative authority to the tech industry.

3. Appoint Eric Schmidt CEO of America.

So we have spies promising to explain themselves and anarchists calling for a corporate dictatorship. This has got to be Bizarro World.

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”