The most blatant and distressing previous object lesson came early last summer, when New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt appropriately spanked reporter Elisabeth Bumiller and her editors for a top-of-the-front-page story in late May that was "seriously flawed and greatly overplayed".
True, amateurs always find themselves in a potentially distressing situation when they take lessons, because the teacher can simply put the pedal to the metal and rip through the "Goldberg" Variations.
When distressing realities are covered up or denied, lessons aren't learned and short-termism continues.
Second lesson learned: part of what is confusing and distressing about this process is that health-insurance companies don't seem equipped, or maybe willing, to explain the implications of the new law to consumers.
"One of the distressing things is that they haven't learned some of those lessons that even TV-am before it rather painfully learned".
To some visitors who recall school lessons about nine planets in the solar system, the omission has been confusing and even distressing.
What is so distressing in all of this is the degree to which the Republicans have failed to learn the lessons of Bush's failures.
We're far beyond the days of analog video horror, but the lesson remains the same: For a movie to be truly scary, it needs to overwhelm us with the great distressing subjects of our own lives and the aspects of our own personality that we are repulsed by.
And a distressing solipsism..
