I always knew David Brooks was an asshole ....

its a lesser pleasure

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/counter_narrative/2014/01/david_brooks_smoking_pot_should_black_kids_pay_for_his_pothead_sins.html

He needs to have a couple beers and relax

lol

The emergence of boutique hotels reflects a broader trend toward a more experientially rich commercial world.

It seems as if there is an endless supply of middle-class consumers who have boutique identities and aspirations, especially among people in their 20s. Consumers now use hotels differently. They bring their laptops down to the lobby rather than working in their rooms. Fewer people bother to unpack their bags. Therefore, room desks and closets are less important, but having a happening lobby scene is more important. People need a civic space where they can have their contiguous but individualized iPad experiences.

Boutique hotels are, on one level, kind of ridiculous. They are almost invariably too dark throughout, making it hard to read. The bed is often too low. The bathroom door is sometimes a flimsy sliding shutter, sacrificing privacy for style.

But they do exemplify a shift in the consumer market, which you might call the shift from the lima bean economy to the edamame economy

Ha ha. I saw that headline but have not yet forced myself to read the column.

This was kinda funny:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2014/01/03/ruth-marcus-and-david-brooks-smoke-pot-a-play-in-one-act/

^^ world needed these insights

david brooks reminds me of that quote from good morning america: "You are in more dire need of a blow job than any white man in history"

A basic rule of happiness is don’t buy things; buy experiences.

this might be the paradigmatic Brooks column

did anything prompt this column? did dave leave the house or something?

he left his Manhattan penethouse, crossed the street, entered boutique hotel lobby, ordered gimlet.

Consumers have been educated by the market and now the median level of cultural competence is much higher.

well thank god

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/counter_narrative/2014/01/david_brooks_smoking_pot_should_black_kids_pay_for_his_pothead_sins.html

freedom to make mistakes as a young person is probably one of the biggest and most underrated advantages of being affluent in this country (or, conversely, lack of freedom to do so is one of the biggest setbacks of being poor in this country).

good morning america's gotten pretty racy lately

good morning america: the xxx parody!

LOLLLLLLLL

whoops

(vietnam, obvs)

A basic rule of happiness is don’t buy things; buy experiences.

cf. "highest pleasures" "deeper sources of happiness"

flashbacks xp

Brooks was a former marijuana smoker, but quit after a traumatic event during English class. [42]

A basic rule of happiness is don’t buy things; buy experiences.

#livelikesteve

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/17/opinion/brooks-the-inequality-problem.html?ref=davidbrooks&_r=2

Asshole

David Brooks columns are just like blah blah blah to me at this point

"hi i'm david brooks and i've thought a lot about poverty in the last couple of hours"

Like as soon as someone says "because of the 'Superstar Effect'" is when I start stuffing them into the trunk of my car while they are still talking

"look, it's just the way things are"

knew this was gonna come down to the fraying social fabric

jobs for young men

If you have a primitive zero-sum mentality then you assume growing affluence for the rich must somehow be causing the immobility of the poor, but, in reality, the two sets of problems are different, and it does no good to lump them together and call them “inequality.”

taking this seriously for a sec, it DOES make sense to lump them together. doing anything to improve the position of the poor requires breaking the political power of the rich, since their party (or parties, hi morbs!) stands in the way.

assortative mating

superstar effect mating wink wink

these two aspects of the economy are totally unrelated why cant you seeeeee it is because ur so frayed out

I wonder how that's going for Brooks post-divorce, the assortative mating thing

lot of assorted mating around my way dave, come hang out. be cool tho, people smoke.

"fraying of the social fabric" oh noes slatternly teen wenches are allowing the fabric to fray by having babies!

(*teens are having fewer babies than they have in forty years)

why let the facts get in the way of airy and heavily loaded generalisations about "social fabric"?

theres no reason to when you think about it and are smart and reasonable and a horrific nerd

why can't you smart-asses just drop the partisanship and start from where we all agree: conservative talking points

"The incomes of the top 5% have soared even as wages for 75% of Americans have been flat for 30 years, even though their productivity has doubled; and there's a smaller and smaller tax base as those same 5% fight for lower and lower taxes and move their money out of the US, and therefore less money for things like decent schools, but I'm sure none of these things are connected and its deadbeat dads all the way down."

David Brooks' Social Fabric Softener: All the comforts of knowing your affluence is well-earned, none of the static cling of grasping, guilt-inducing poor people.

tbf, brooks is otm that lack of sittlichtkeit is primary challenge of contemporary society

nb i haven't read most recently posted op-ed but 'social fabric' is important so

just read it, he's still an asshole

"The income inequality debate is confusing matters more than clarifying them, and it is leading us off in unhelpful directions."

plz ban word "unhelpful"

I'm guessing you're coming at the idea of "social fabric" from a very different and much more legit place than Brooks

David Brooks' Social Fabric Softener: All the comforts of knowing your affluence is well-earned, none of the static cling of grasping, guilt-inducing poor people.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, January 17, 2014 11:34 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol a+

doing anything to improve the position of the poor requires breaking the political power of the rich, since their party (or parties, hi morbs!) stands in the way.

― goole, Friday, January 17, 2014 4:13 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what are you some kind of class warrior