No, I'm not going to complain about how badly they govern or about how they think they're better than us. While we have a decent idea of what they're like because we get to read about them and see them in the media, their ideas about us are often absurdly clueless. It's cute when they try to say something about us they think we will appreciate.

For example, let the Wall Street Journal run something nice about NASCAR. Let them try to make it seem more classy by comparing it to the medieval joust - an upper-class sport if there ever was one. Then let them add a picture.

Using a picture of Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash at the 2001 Daytona 500 is such an offensive act that there are almost no words to describe it. To be clear, this reporter is so ignorant of the trespass she has just committed that she should not be writing about NASCAR in the first place.

On top of that the picture's caption -- “See some highlights in the history of stock car racing” -- seems to imply that the death of Dale Sr. is a highlight in the history of stock car racing.

I don't know much about NASCAR but that really doesn't sound like much of a highlight to me, either. All this reminds me of something Megan McArdle wrote last year:

People from a handful of schools, most of them hailing from a handful of major metropolitan areas, dominate academia, journalism, and the entertainment industry. Our subtle (or not-so-subtle) distaste for everything from their entertainment to their decorating choices to the vast swathes of the country in which they choose to live permeate almost everything they read, watch, or hear. Of course we don't hear it--to us, that's simply the way the world is.

In the 1980s, I played on possibly the worst girl's basketball team in the state of New York. Every time another Catholic school kicked our asses (I believe one memorable game ended at 48 to 2) we consoled ourselves by making fun of their big, sprayed, permed hair, and the lavish eye makeup that ran down their faces when they sweated. We didn't know that what divided us from those girls was economic class--they were the children of plumbers and bodega owners, while we were the children of bankers and lawyers and lobbyists. We genuinely believed that we had simply been gifted with a better fashion sense.

But I bet those girls knew exactly what we were saying as we got on the bus. And I'm pretty sure they knew what we were really talking about.

Ah, aristocracy and its curious ignorance.