dagblog - Comments for "The Nature of Poverty"

Where are the Grown Men in

NCD — Sun, 03 May 2015 22:26:57 +0000

Where are the Grown Men in Baltimore? good article by John Blake at CNN

We called him "Mr. Shields" because no one dared use his first name. He'd step onto his porch at night in plaid shorts and black knit dress socks to watch the Baltimore Orioles play on his portable television set. He was a steelworker, but he looked debonair: thin mustache always trimmed; wavy salt-and-pepper hair....He sat like a sentry, watching not just the games but the neighborhood as well.

I knew Mr. Shields' routine because I was his neighbor. I grew up in the West Baltimore community that was rocked this week by protests...William Raspberry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Washington Post, once invoked the book's title in a column to describe what was happening to young black men in inner cities across America. He said that without the civilizing influence of older men to guide them, young black men never develop an internal moral compass....

Driftglass, World's Leading Brooks Critic, Photoshop-

Poor people should read

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 03 May 2015 21:05:53 +0000

In reply to Driftglass on this Brooks

Poor people should read biographies of successful entrepreneurs and CEOs - would help them pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Would also help if they did what Brooks' parents did - move into housing that zoned out the riffraff. And ingratiating yourself to a well-established mentor like William Buckley - everyone should do that, even if your guru has a profound dislike for blacks, Jews, Hispanics, gays and other marginalized people - eating shit and sucking up has been a well-established route to climbing the ladder for thousands of years - when it works. "To get where I am, I had to kiss a lot of ass - right on the lips". Yep, I should have been a NY Times columnist.

Driftglass on this Brooks

NCD — Sat, 02 May 2015 14:27:04 +0000

In reply to The Nature of Poverty

Driftglass on this Brooks column:

David Brooks decided International Worker's Day would be an excellent day to tell the world what really causes poverty (Spoiler: According to Mr. Brooks, poverty has nothing to do with lack of money, or community investment, or jobs. It's not deindustrialization or food deserts or shitty schools. It's nothing to do with class or race or a war on drugs that long ago became a brand new way of ruining minority lives and communities.)

Twitter went satisfyingly ballistic and articles began pouring from the keyboards of people who... had actually met one of The Poors at some point in the last 20 years.

Such as this

David Brooks Is Not Buying Your Excuses, Poor People.

And this.

David Brooks and the Federal Government's $14,000 Per Year Per Poor Person

Published: 01 May 2015

In the United States it's considered fine to just make crap up when talking about the government, especially when it comes to programs for poor people. That is why Ronald Reagan ran around the country telling people about the welfare queen who drove up to the welfare office every month in her new Cadillac to pick up her check.

Today, David Brooks does the welfare queen routine in his NYT column, telling readers...

And this.

David Brooks’ Baltimore column might be his dumbest of the year (We didn’t think it was possible, either)

And this:

Is there a greater hack in America than David Fucking Brooks?

And this:

Annals of derp: The poverty of poverty studies

And this:

...
And, perhaps, there will be even more of this insufferable David Brooks meeping about how this isn't about poverty and systemic abuse and racism, but about people fking on their sofas without the permission of their betters.

And this:

Why David Brooks Shouldn’t Talk About Poor People

And this:

Yes. The New York Times Is Toxic. Why Do You Ask?

....since the lion's share of the statistic comprises federal Medicaid payments, "what this actually means is that every time David Brooks' cardiologist neighbor raises his fees, David Brooks will complain about how we are being too generous to the poor."

And this:

David Brooks’ Really Bad Math

You have company:

Ramona — Sat, 02 May 2015 12:16:39 +0000

In reply to The Nature of Poverty

You have company:

Brooks is something of an

Flavius — Sat, 02 May 2015 04:50:01 +0000

In reply to The Nature of Poverty

Brooks is something of an enigma to me. I've written a couple of times here that of the various conservative bloviators he's the only one who wouldn't prompt me to change my seat if he sat down next to me. (Have I told you about the time that Red Smith-remember him - did?Don't get me started.).

On the News Hour he seems rational and disarmingly self deprciatory .

Sadly I'm afraid the answer is that he's in over his head.

Today's Times : he and Krugmann in their respective corners, displays that to an almost embarrassing extent.. K cogent and knowing what he's writing about.( I naturally was amused/pleased by his telling FDR quote "But above all,try something" somewhat echoing my "Do something even if it's wrong".)

Brooks, clearly bothered. Angsting. I really do think he deeply feels for the poor ,not Miss Lonelyhearts, but enough.

But he knows capitalism works , the "Invisible hand" etc.( Didn't he go to Univ of Chicago? Groan ) so we can't just emulate Harry Hopkins and just bloody give them a job . Here in this world's leading country with its world's leadership in its supply of unemployed people who want to work and undone jobs that we don't give them because some long dead, wrong, political economist thought that would upset the delicate "working"(Hmph, "working" ?) of the system. Grrr.

Sure if it "ain't broke, don't fix it:". It's broke.

We like to read your calm

trkingmomoe — Fri, 01 May 2015 20:38:33 +0000

In reply to Thanks, momoe. I am doing

We like to read your calm voice and you pick great songs. My comments crap out too. Richard is very good at posting several times before one takes. There is always some kind of mysterious bug around here. I guess that is what makes it fun. It is nice when you do drop in.

Thanks, momoe. I am doing

wabby — Fri, 01 May 2015 20:06:21 +0000

In reply to Good to hear from you. I hope

Thanks, momoe. I am doing very well now and read you are doing better as well. My wifi is sporadic and often blinks out and dies when I comment. I now consider it fate telling me to just shut the hell up.

Okay, I hereby render unto

Richard Day — Fri, 01 May 2015 19:20:07 +0000

In reply to The Nature of Poverty

Okay, I hereby render unto Mike M the Dayly Line of the Day Award for this here Dagblog Site, given to all of him from all of me concerning this rod and reel and boat situation.

hahahahah

I should not laugh, but I cannot help it.

In this country many think it a communism to help those who cannot help themselves actually help those same folks help themselves.

Good to hear from you. I hope

trkingmomoe — Fri, 01 May 2015 16:47:56 +0000

In reply to I suppose David Brooks never

Good to hear from you. I hope you are doing well. Please don't stay away. You are missed.

I suppose David Brooks never

wabby — Fri, 01 May 2015 14:23:47 +0000

In reply to The Nature of Poverty

I suppose David Brooks never looked forward to filing his income taxes to see if he qualified for the EITC.

Now, that would be one way to disburse $14,000 to a poor person, eh?