Thursday, September 08, 2005

Unfortunate usage of the day

New York Times columnist David Brooks sees a mighty wind:

We can't win a grandiose war on poverty. But after the tragedy comes the opportunity. This is the post-Katrina moment. Let's not blow it.

Behind this bad choice of words is the Epiphany meme that we warned you about a few days ago. Also interesting is Brooks' belief that we're just a few hurricanes away from his column of a few weeks ago, speaking of a general social revival, being actually true. Recall also that Andrew Sullivan borrowed the optimistic Brooks for a Sunday Times column. We'll watch now to see if Sully draws out the Bell Curve hints in the new Brooks thesis: Katrina ... disrupted the patterns that have led one generation to follow another into poverty.

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