Andrew Gelman hilariously skewers the ever-tepid-minded David Brooks

http://andrewgelman.com/2015/03/10/voices-from-everywhere-saying-gently-this-we-praise-this-we-dont/

One of America’s leading political columnists, David Brooks, has just come out with a column called “The Cost of Relativism” about the growing chasm between college-educated America and those who write for major newspapers. It’s got a definitive collection of data about this divide.

Just kidding about the “definitive collection of data.” Anyway, to continue:

In the 1960s or 1970s, newspaper readers and newspaper columnists behaved roughly the same. But since then, behavior patterns have ever more sharply diverged. Columnists dine with their readers less, read to them less, talk to them less, take them to church less, encourage them less and spend less time engaging in developmental activity.

I don’t really want a columnist taking me to church, but whatever.

The first response to these stats and to these profiles should be intense sympathy. We now have multiple generations of columnists caught in recurring feedback loops of economic stress and family breakdown, often leading to something approaching an anarchy of the intimate life.

That sounds like bad news. It’s hard enough having to come up with three columns a week, without having to deal with anarchy of the intimate life as well.

. . . really, go read the whole thing. It's hilarious.