Started watching that miniseries about the Kennedys, called “The Kennedys“, on Netflix.
Get nine minutes into the first episode and the focus turns to Papa Joe Kennedy, played by Tom Wilkinson.
Conduct a Wikipedia search for Joe Kennedy Sr. Start reading a list of all his kids, including Rose Kennedy, who I learn was subjected to a lobotomy at age 23.
Begin Wikipedia-ing Rose Kennedy and why in the hell she had to be lobotomized. The reasons are quite unclear, as different contemporaries of the Kennedy’s describe her somewhere between manic depressive or having severe mental disabilities.
BUT — somewhere in the assessment of Rose Kennedy I read that she could do arithmetic, specifically, multiply 436 by 12. And that requires at least an IQ of 90.
This leads me to question whether I still know how to multiply by hand.
I frantically grab a piece of paper and start trying to multiply 436 by 12. Succeeded.
Decided I was hungry after all my great multiplication achievement.
Never restarted the miniseries.
Just as well, that mini-series is bogus. It was intended to slander the family in a 1984 style history re-write. It was so transparent in its right-wing efforts that the History channel and Showtime rejected it — “scripts were inaccurate and overly critical.” I think what you learned was much more valuable than anything gleaned from watching all of it. I did want to see Katie Holmes as Jackie though…