Let’s consider the words “expert,” “iconic” and “disinformation.” All are a) overused, b) misused or c) used to obfuscate. Or all of the above.

The late economist Herb Stein famously said, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Well, masking can’t go on forever, but that’s not stopping its advocates, who will very likely, when all is said and done, look nearly as foolish as the fierce proponents of school closures earlier in the pandemic.

President Biden said that there’d be divisions within NATO over a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine. This is true enough, and the chief cause would be a Germany that is staking a strong claim to be our worst European ally.

Granted, this is not the bigotry of torches and hoods. No, this rhetorical decoupling of “African” and “American,” of Black people from normal human functions, represents “only” the bigotry of the implicit assumption, the things some people believe without consciously knowing they do — much less interrogating why they do. And yet, they do.