[LauraleeBraswell]

Wait, This is the New York Times? Am I reading this right? Do I need glasses?

[There You Go Again]

Nice piece by D. Brooks, but he doesn't even mention genes. You just can't go there these days; and yet, that is where many of the answers are to be found. I know it is a dangerous area and I understand why people don't want to go there. Still a very murky area....

[neverdem]

Wait, This is the New York Times? Am I reading this right? Do I need glasses?

I regularly read Brooks and John Tierney at the Times. Here's Tierney's last piece, Debunking the Drug War .

Most of their other OpEd columnists and masthead editorials are good for exercises in frustration and barf alerts, unless you want to mock them in detail. Their OpEd Contributors, i.e. those who contribute guest opinion pieces, and occasionally Friedman and Kristof can surprise you occasionally with good writing, but the latter two authors are usually compelled to make at least one obligatory swipe at the Bush administration, marring an otherwise good article.

[AmericanVictory]

D. Brooks is their token conservative and Friedman is often conservative. They are not to be confused with the general culture and adcocacy of the NYT.

[Mongeaux]

My NYC Actor-Lefty pal made some derogatory remarks about the midwest(red states)tonight. I told him to keep up the patronizing coastal elitist attitude and maybe he and his Greenwich Village buddies would be out of power for another decade. After all, every American deserves a voice in government, even if he doesn't live on a coast or have sex with members of his own gender, right?

He didn't like that at all. I don't think he is used to hearing any voices of intelligent dissent - but he's an actor and lives in NYC, after all.

He changed his tune after I gave him a decent story idea to shop around. I don't think the leftie postmodernist writers in New York have much to offer outside of the usual "Gay Nuns Getting Abortions in Iraq" storylines they dote on.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

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