Monday, July 08, 2013

Secularism: A Land of Contrasts



Congratulations!

You may now check "Read David Brooks' whole column for July 8, 2013" right off of your bucket list.

Well, OK, except for this:
"I’m vastly oversimplifying a rich, complex book..."
There.

Now you've read the whole thing.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fucking yawn, dude. You're old. An old blogger, ranting and whatever-the-fucking you do. Don't you think there's a difference between blabbing interestingly--and your blabbing certainly is interesting--and calling the next real move? Greenwald, Snowden, Chomsky, Parmnes are all sticking it to the fucking Divided States of Some Italian Fucker's Name. What the fuck do you have to say? Oh, yes, now I remember...they're always positing a center!

lockswriter said...

"Sticking it to" the country where some of us live is not the goal. Helping and improving and opposing those who want to fuck it up is.

bluicebank said...

Whew! I wondered when the focus would return to David Fucking Brooks around here. Short but sweet.

Hey, you know what would cure DFB of his incurable both-sides-do-it syndrome? Put him on the FISA court. Only one side does it there.

Lawrence said...

"I’m vastly oversimplifying a rich, complex book..." I think I tried that once and got a D on my book report. Why not go with "I do/not recommend this book due to..."? Too much like work? How about "Who would win in a cage fight: Sam Harris or Ross Douhat?" Sam, obviously.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

reading PZ Myers trashing of the same column, all I could think of is that David Brooks sees a lenghty book with turgid prose that he doesn't understand, and he thinks it's the Most IMportant Book Of The Year Of The Week.

Also, he knows that none of his fans will be able to understand it either.

Right now the Vegas odds that he actually read the thing are at 12 to 1 against.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

"I’m vastly oversimplifying a rich, complex book..."

"Many Say"

Unknown said...

I think it's interesting that a couple of posts after a long post that developed a series of resolutions that should have happened to curtail governmental perfidy -- the debate that it raised being utterly ignored in the comments -- that the hatebots show up here to complain about lack of volume. But, then, I'm just the spawn of Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney, so who am I to call anyone out?

bluicebank said...

Unknown said...

I think it's interesting that ..."

You assume a premise. While some comments may be from what you think they are, others may be beyond your vision -- motivation-wise. I believe that DG does an outstanding job at his craft. I just don't like when he uses his sword against flawed brothers-in-arms. I don't really care about the predilections of those flawed souls who are in the fight for our side. Not when the stakes are so high. And they are. They always are, but today more so.

Unknown said...

Convoluted syntax that goes ``While some comments may be from what you think they are, others may be beyond your vision -- motivation-wise'' doesn't really instruct me as to how I have ``assumed'' a premise. My premise is that in this bauble of a blog entry, driftglass is being pilloried for a lack of depth, whilst in a previous blog entry rippling with a well-thought out series of resolutions that should have occurred to put the brakes on a runaway executive and improve life in general in the U.S., the response is largely dismissive of driftglass and the essential arguments he raises: which is, that a responsible debate over substantive issues is hopelessly crippled. And knee-jerk butt-hurt responses from Greenwald do nothing to heal the process.
At least that's the way I see it. When the pure liberal response to Snowden and Greenwald is a blindered dismissal of any skepticism at all in favor of a reflexive hero worship, the pure liberal response is effectively the same as the reflexive villification of Snowden and Greenwald by the conservative establishment. DG should be able to question Snowden's veracity and Greenwald's poor self-control AND maintain the position -- which he does -- that massive data collection from the NSA is wrong at its score.

Yastreblyansky said...

"I’m vastly oversimplifying a rich, complex book..."

I call that an Autoshorter: http://yastreblyansky.blogspot.com/2013/07/fair-and-balanced.html Credit to you, of course.