Tuesday, May 10, 2016

This Where a David Brooks Post Would Ordinarily Be


But today, not so much.

Because while the presumptive nominee of Mr. Brook' Republican Party demolishes Mr. Brooks' Imaginary Conservative Movement right before his eyes --


-- America's Most Ubiquitous and Respected Conservative Public Intellectual has decided to walk briskly away from the biggest political story in a generation and instead write about America's real crisis:  Our diddly darn obsession with the grade point averages.

Because, I suppose, his shoe tops were not as interesting in the cold light of day as they had seemed after his fourth martini, and he had already exhausted the subject of hanging around in hotel lobbies:

From today's New York Times:
Putting Grit in Its Place

David Brooks MAY 10, 2016

We all know why it exists, but the grade-point average is one of the more destructive elements in American education.
...

Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania is the researcher most associated with the study and popularization of grit. And yet what I like about her new book, “Grit,” is the way she is pulling us away from the narrow, joyless intonations of that word, and pointing us beyond the way many schools are now teaching it...
At this point, Brooks looks like a man who wants more than anything to go profitably and lazily to seed taking over that sweet stream-of-banal-consciousnesses media space that Andy Rooney used to occupy:


8 comments:

trgahan said...

Ah yes....that in-vogue magical notion of "grit" and how conservatives embrace it with the deluded tacit erroneous assertion that its OTHER people who lack it.

Brooks et al. co-opt it as an excuse for why there are still poor people in America after each round of tax cuts and deregulation. They always conclude that anyone with a +$5 million net worth must have it because, well, how else did they get +$5 million dollars?!?

Unknown said...

hu.brooks: noun

1. David Brooks' habit of acting on his mistaken belief that others massively crave to know what he thinks about anything.
2. A speech or written work by Brooks displaying same, especially if the subject matter has already been beaten to death by others.

see also: Brooksian brain fart

Robt said...

At some point, Brooks' employer (Editor) has to accept some amount of failure of providing its readers with incoherence.

Nah, They will buy the paper anyways.

Like Trump, they love the "uneducated" For a profitable reason.

I wonder if Brooks takes the Donald's advice of surrounding oneself with lameness of the human species so they respect you and you appear smartest amongst them. As other outside the reality show are intended to perceive it.

dinthebeast said...

I was taught by my chef that grit was what you got in your fettuccine when you didn't rinse your clams long enough.

-Doug in Oakland

Unknown said...

I thought "Grit" was one of those mail-order scams from the back of comic books? If I sell enough of it do I get my X-Ray Spex?

RUKidding said...

Bobo awakens with a start and remembering a vague dream about John Wayne in the original "True Grit." Grit? huh, Grit, zzzz, wait! I can so use that. It'll make me sound populist-y, and I don't have leave my precious Acela Corridor!

Lawrence said...

That hard sleeve on the end of a shoelace is called the aglet. Thanks Phineas & Ferb.

Chan Kobun said...

🎵 A-G-L-E-T
don't forget it 🎵