For John, BLUF: . Nothing to see here; just move along.
From The Old Gray Lady, by Opinion Writer David Brooks, 4 January 2018.
Yes, this is almost three months old, but it is timeless advice and well worth heeding, even if you are currently a practicing atheist.
Here is the lede plus two:
Over the past several years we have done an outstanding job of putting total sleazoids at the top of our society: Trump, Bannon, Ailes, Weinstein, Cosby, etc.♠ So it was good to get a reminder, from Pope Francis in his New Year’s Eve homily, that the people who have the most influence on society are actually the normal folks, through their normal, everyday gestures being kind in public places, attentive to the elderly. The pope called such people, in a beautiful phrase, “the artisans of the common good.”And, Mr Brooks then relates it back to our Fair Commonwealth:Small deeds, he said, “express concretely love for the city … without giving speeches, without publicity, but with a style of practical civic education for daily life.”
The pope focused especially on driving, praising those people “who move in traffic with good sense and prudence.” As Richard Reeves of the Brookings Institution points out, driving is precisely the sort of everyday activity through which people mold the culture of their community.
Studies have been done, of course. According to Allstate, the most accident-prone drivers live in Boston; Baltimore; Worcester, Mass.; Washington, D.C.; and Springfield, Mass. (Way to go, Massachusetts!) The safest drivers live in Kansas City, Kan.; Brownsville, Tex.; Madison, Wis.; and Huntsville, Ala.At the bottom of the article was the welcome news that "Paul Krugman is off today."
UPDATE: Cleanup and Title.
Hat tip to the InstaPundit.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Yes, I do note a certain bitter political twist here, but we are all trying to be uplifting here, and by including Mr Harvey Weinstein, of Hollywood, he did include a likely Democrat.
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