tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post4189017544440123777..comments2024-03-27T18:00:02.032-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: Vampires of the Gilded AgeKaren Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-73845605693891725482013-12-11T12:46:35.421-05:002013-12-11T12:46:35.421-05:00Seeing as how Brooks don't read comments on h...Seeing as how Brooks don't read comments on his Times pieces, maybe Brooks doesn't write or even read his Mexican columns, just cashes the checks. Maybe he's got a ghost writer named Pancho (as in Villa) who has a vivid imagination and a taste for tequila.James F Traynornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-73105836737867013232013-12-11T05:18:12.368-05:002013-12-11T05:18:12.368-05:00I hope South of the Border Brooks is right - that ...I hope South of the Border Brooks is right - that the middle and lower middle class is finally getting it - that we have to unite and speak up before it is too late. I get so discouraged by the lack of interest in politics. I long for the 60's where it was cool to be informed and to speak up against injustice sanctioned by the government. Will those days return? Or were they a blip on the screen? Is it the fate of mankind to have an oligarchic class and the rest of humanity exist simply exist to serve them?<br /><br />I see so much injustice but so much apathy as well. I don't mean to be a downer - but I long to know of these pockets of people who are actually waking up. I thought I found several groups through the blogpsphere before the last election - only to watch so many of them cave to Obama as the Lesser of Two Evils.vnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-89050561158396223032013-12-10T19:11:22.844-05:002013-12-10T19:11:22.844-05:00@Jay--
I know that you've remarked previously...@Jay--<br /><br />I know that you've remarked previously on the differences between David-Brooks-north-of-the-border and David-Brooks-south-of-the-border, but this is truly hilarious:<br /><br />http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://www.<br />jornada.unam.mx/2013/12/02/opinion/033o1mun<br /><br />Reading Brooks in <i> La Jornada,</i> one would think that the U.S. is teetering on the brink of the revolution on multiple fronts, from immigration reform activists to fast-food/big-box-store strikers to<br />the Rolling Jubilee Initiative to those resisting the privatization of American education. I could practically smell the burning barricades at major intersections throughout Albuquerque.<br /><br />And for Brooks to quote Howard Zinn as having been <i> correct </i> about something, well, I'm <i> stunned. </i><br /><br />I wonder if Brooks' bosses at the <i> New York Times </i> are aware of Brooks' duplicitous twin who lives somewhere south of the Rio Grande?<br /><br />Returning to the topic of Brooks-of-the-north's most recent column, well, it's a pretty dystopian future that he seems to be praising whilst “reviewing” Tyler Cowen's book “Average is Over.” (Though it's not really much of a critique of the book; deep in the back of my mind, I can't help but wonder if Brooks is attempting to be satirical in his “analysis” as to who will comprise the lucky 15% who succeed in Cowen's “future.”)<br /><br />If Cowen—and, perhaps, Brooks—can accept a future in which 85% of the populace struggles financially, with only the Internet left to them as a source of “enrichment” of their lives, well, they are <i> both </i> intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt.<br /><br />To me, the whole point of human technological advancement should be to free ever larger segments of society from the drudgery of mindless subsistence labor, to enjoy more intellectual and artistic pursuits. Yes, even the “average,” who just happen to comprise the majority of us, anyway—and always will, unless we begin tampering with genetics. (Something that I am terrified that we <i> will </i> try to do, sooner or later, and at our own peril.)<br /><br />In the Brave New World envisioned by Cowen and Brooks, the goal of technological advancement appears to be to reduce the remaining 85% to serving (for peanuts) the every whim of the 15% who, themselves, seem to tend “The Machines” only for their own benefit.<br /><br />What a strange and selfish future they seem to be pining for.Zeenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-8644529574048265072013-12-10T17:10:32.182-05:002013-12-10T17:10:32.182-05:00And there's one more aspect of the dearth of a...And there's one more aspect of the dearth of affordable housing that you didn't mention, Karen, but which gets to the heart of how this society views and treats people. And it adds the cruelest insult to injury, and injury to insult.<br /><br />In many places, poverty and associated homelessness are treated by authorities as prima facie grounds to remove children from their parents and place them in foster care, sometimes temporarily, which is bad enough, but sometimes extending to permanent loss of parental custody.<br /><br />http://azstarnet.com/special-section/fostercare/arizona-sees-spike-in-kids-placed-in-foster-care/article_0eae4322-23eb-5c3f-a7a2-d9faa71d50e3.html<br /><br />I think it was Barney Frank who said decades ago "Republicans' belief in the sanctity of life begins at conception and ends at birth!"<br /><br />Nowadays, that's more true than ever about the Republicans, but with their support for military spending yet austerity elsewhere, and insufficient taxation, the Democrats have often become complicit, their protestations notwithstanding. When it comes to federal appropriations, Ron Barber, the Democratic Congressman for my district (note my phrasing, I will <i>not</i> say <i>my</i> Congressman) is always gung-ho for military spending, which <i>inevitably</i> leads to the shortchanging of support programs for the poor.<br /><br />Oh, and he didn't spend Thanksgiving doing the admittedly often-hypocritical photo-op of serving food to the poor at the Salvation Army, but rather, he spent it toadying up to military voters by serving food to soldiers at the local Air Force base!<br /><br />https://iqconnect.lmhostediq.com/iqextranet/view_newsletter.aspx?id=158275&c=AZ08RB<br /><br />http://barber.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/us-rep-ron-barber-and-his-wife-will-serve-thanksgiving-dinner-at-d-m<br /><br />In the pre-Thanksgiving press release, he did <i>not</i> fail to note that "Media are welcome to cover the event, but they must contact Lt. Sarah Ruckriegle at 520-228-3406 by 1 p.m. Wednesday for admission to Davis-Monthan." At least some mass media did cover his appearance, so "mission accomplished"!Fred Drumlevitchhttp://www.freddrumlevitch.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-6988913570797622972013-12-10T16:47:05.053-05:002013-12-10T16:47:05.053-05:00There are two journalists who call themselves Davi...There are two journalists who call themselves David Brooks. One tosses contaminated red meat to the readers of the NY Times, as Karen just explained; the other tosses spicy red meat to readers of the independent lefty Mexican publication, La Jornada.<br /><br />You don’t have to remember irregular verb tenses learned in Spanish 101 to do a comparison. Just copy the Spanish column into Google Translate and in a flash you’ll have a rough translation of what Señor David Brooks is peddling south of the border in a regular column of his called “American Curios.”<br /><br />Because I know only two and a half of you out there will bother to look at the Mexican Brooks, let me summarize what this internationally acclaimed journalist is telling Mexico about America. From his column of 2 December, first, he reminds you how natural yet unexpected was the revolutionary action of blacks in the sixties with their sit-ins at southern lunch counters. The unrest back then led to a revolution.<br /><br />Then he jumps to today in describing, in detail across many sectors of the population, the widespread unrest in America at this moment, as if to suggest strongly that another revolution is brewing. No kidding.<br /><br />From a microbiology course of long ago I recall one day the lab tech showed us a strange phenomenon. Certain microbes turn on a dime depending on the light source. We looked through our scopes, turned on a lamp to the left and all those microbes scurried toward it. Before they ran off the end of the specimen plate we turned on a lamp to the right. With the precision of a marching band they did a 180. The class began to break out in laughter and wonderment.<br /><br />I'm not saying that Brooks is a microbe. Just that Brooks thinks and writes so much better under the Mexican sun.<br /><br />http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/12/02/mundo/033o1munJay–Ottawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10360356126450612113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-83331491336527478282013-12-10T14:29:34.064-05:002013-12-10T14:29:34.064-05:00Alas, Karen, it's too late. I succumbed to te...Alas, Karen, it's too late. I succumbed to temptation and read Bobo's latest. But then -- there you were, at the top of the comments section, like a perfect sorbet (lime, if you care to know) to cleanse away the nauseous blather of this pandering prick. I wish I could have 'recommended' you logarithmically.<br /><br />Thank you for speaking truth to power and for persevering when too many of us are discouraged, depressed and demoralized.Rose in SE Michigannoreply@blogger.com