The Manhattan Project
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Yes, yes, thank you for sending us 342 emails about how New York Times columnist and Bethesda resident David Brooks wrote something really ridiculous today about District's Ward 3. The column posits that the upper-upper-middle-class section of Washington is populated entirely by trial lawyers, TV news producers and Democratic staffers, and that these people are only upset about the excesses of Wall Street executives because they are envious. They are wealthy, you see, but not as wealthy. A sample:
People in Ward Three have nationalized extravagance and privatized Puritanism. Under their rule, the federal government is permitted to throw hundreds of billions of dollars around on a misguided bank bailout, but if a banker like John Thain spends $1,500 on a wastepaper basket then all hell breaks loose. Dazzling personal consumption is out. Middle-class drabness is in. It’s sad, but there’s nothing to be done.Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh told the City Paper that Brooks should be ashamed of himself, which doesn't do a lot to lessen the impression that Ward 3 residents are all humorless, judgmental liberals. Now, clearly Brooks is exaggerating here, in order to make the larger point that the culture war has shifted since the economy tanked and Obama took office. Apart from the liberal part, surely Brooks's household fits right in to the income bracket he's describing. Lines like, "On any given Saturday, half the people in Ward Three are arranging panel discussions for the other half to participate in," could just as easily apply to Bethesda. Is Brooks making huge, largely ridiculous cultural generalizations? Of course he is. He's David Brooks. He's written entire books full of them.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
David Brooks: massive, pulsating dickhead. Case closed. Next topic.
And Mary Cheh is a self-important media troll who will suffocate if she goes for more than 24 hours without pontificating about something nobody gives a dessicated turd about. Next topic
Actually, he's kinda right...Ward 3's completely populated with elitist scum children of hippies who hate to see anyone succeed a little bit more than they -- what's that? I live in Ward 3? Wait, really? HA HA HAAAAAAAA I'M RICH BIAAAAATCH!!!!!
for a good list of take-downs of mr. brooks, click here.
Umm... Mr. Brooks? When used correctly, the Nordic Track tones both the upper and lower body. That's what those top swinging things are for.
Hugs & Kisses,
A Ward 1 Resident
(who can't afford a Nordic Track and has no room for it in her overpriced, tiny apartment)
Isn't he making fun of his own over-generalizations with that lame Nordic Track joke? Of course some of what he says is ridiculous, but some is kind of true: In short, people in Ward Three disdain three things: cleavage, hunting and dumb people who are richer than they are. I live in Ward 3 and love my neighborhood and I can laugh at this tripe.
If you get past the use of Ward 3 to define these people, his whole theory that they have changed the "sumptuary code" is crap.
Half the people in Mr. Brooks' Bethesda ARE NOT arranging lectures for the other half.
One third is busy running over pedestrians in their EuroMotors Mercedes SUVs.
Another third is in the Apple Store complaining because the sales guy won't fix an Apple IIc keyboard for free.
Another third is having plastic surgery.
Another third is busy banning trans-fats, salt, shouting, profanity and public flatulence.
Another third is petitioning for the Purple Line and calling everyone who opposes them a baby-eating Republican pig.
And the final third is petitioning against the Purple Line.
Gee - there are a lot of people in Mr. Brooks' Bethesda
And the final third is really bad with fractions.
There's the liberal entitlement state's public education system for you!
You forgot that a third of us are still bitching that the shops at Chevy Chase didn't score a full Hermes boutique and so we still have to make do at the little tiny boutique within Neiman Marcus. Or maybe that's just me.
(And we get all the fractions we want because we're so privileged.)
It's discrimination, I tells ya! We needs our full Hermes boutique!!! Our human rights is bein violated!!
I am so happy though to see another shitty store go down the pan: BoWhe and PearHe or whatever the fuck it was called next to the B&N has gone titusp.
Now if we can only get rid of more of these fat-Bethesda-Lady stores and get the Blockbuster and Cameron's Seafood back. And WTF is with the diamond-studded 30 foot neon-buttplug outside 'tickled pink?" What crack-addled idiot thought THAT was a good idea?
Wow...who knew they'd find William Kristol's replacement right there in their very own stable of columnists?
As a Ward 2 resident, I should laugh, but the truth is, reading that steaming pile of road apples just makes me jealous of Brooks. I mean, he gets paid big bucks to write un-researched over-broad generalizations that, even if they were true, are completely meaningless (oh, look, rich people hating on richer people!). So yeah, I'm playa hatin' on Brooks like a Ward 3 staffer, y'all.
The quote on panel discussions was, in a word, hysterical.
Wow, David Brooks is a bitch. F*ck you and Bethesda too.
Wow, David Brooks is a bitch. F*ck you and Bethesda too.
You have to buy me a drink first. Oh how I miss the Yacht Club of Bethesda.
Personally, I think this is a prime reason for voting rights: elect Marion Barry to national office...then, Mr. Brooks could write a far more interesting article about how Ward 8 makes the rules.
Sure, there are wealthy people living in Ward 3. But don't most federal legislators live out in Potomac or McLean?
Ack. I already despised douchebag Brooks and now he is making fun of my Ward. Suck it Brooks. I live in semi-commune next to another group house next to totally awesome neighbors who have nothing to do with the grandiose generalizations that Brooks has for my neighborhood. One of my former neighbors fit the Brooks' description but luckily was smart enough to move to Cambridge, MA and away from the nicer Ward 3ers. Good riddance! oh and Brooks, you ain't welcome here neither.
John Thain has nothing to do with others in Ward 3 are like and to be fair Stan O'Neal effed things up for ML in the first place..
where's ward 3?
Essentially north of Georgetown/Burleith and west of Rock Creek Park. List of neighboods by ward.
how about this.
lighten up folks of all various wards and municipalities, Brooksie's a satirist. there's no need to split hairs or feel slighted. I find his over-generalized pseudo-sociology HILARIOUS! and had a good laugh reading this.
The Nordic Track is the DC clothing rack -- no closets in our tiny apartments.
I grew up in Ward 3 and can still appreciate Brooks' colum for what it is: humor with a point. All stereotpyes and generalizations are grounded in a truth (at least loosely), as are those poised by Brooks. As he is (practically) one of them, I doubt he writes with malice but more to make fun of himself. It's just as much an "attack" on New York as it is Ward 3. I currently live out of the country, and one of the biggest generalizations about Americans (again with the generalizations) is that we take ourselves too seriously. Can't we all just lighten up a bit and laugh? I certainly am.
I thought it was a lazy column, filled with the usual broad over-generalizations that most NY Times columnists use to try to make a larger point (e.g., Tom Friedman and his never-ending conversations with taxi drivers in India, Thailand, China, Uranus, etc.).
But Cheh's reaction made me laugh because it seemed to personify the caricature Brooks was making fun of. I'm all for Ward 3 pride, but Cheh needs to relax. She could have taken some good-natured shots and Bethesda, rather than putting on a verbal hissy fit.
I was wondering where Courtland Milloy got his Taxicab Confessions gimmick from.