The Genius of Our Times

• As I'm sure you've heard, Obama is doing something about housing. Someone, please, dumb this down for me. Thanks.
• Speaking of housing: "Orange County: Subprime lending stupidity capital of the U.S." And it shows.
• I think we have a theme here: Pew Research asks, where would YOU want to live in America, based on whatever idea you have of that other place. The result? Denver's #1!!! Yay Denver. As Tamara, a fellow Coloradan said, I love it when pseudo-scientific research shows that my hometown is the best. Well Tamara, you need to meet...
• David Brooks! A man who will take selected aspects of that pseudo-scientific research and moralize about it at length:

These are places with loose social structures and relative social equality, without the Ivy League status system of the Northeast or the star structure of L.A...They are not, except for Seattle, especially ideological, blue or red...

The folks at Pew asked one other interesting question: Would you rather live in a community with a McDonald’s or a Starbucks? McDonald’s won, of course, but by a surprisingly small margin: 43 percent to 35 percent. And that, too, captures the incorrigible nature of American culture, a culture slowly refining itself through espresso but still in love with the drive-thru.

The results may not satisfy those who dream of Holland, but there’s one other impressive result from the Pew survey. Americans may be gloomy and afraid, but they still have a clear vision of the good life. That’s one commodity never in short supply.

Oh David, you know us so well - we are so incorrigible. The man's a genius, I swear, and yet, an ordinary person. You can find him at an Applebee's salad bar near you.

• Not really related to housing, but certainly related to the sagacious brilliance of our nation's op-edessoriate, is Peggy Noonan's latest attempt to wander the upper east side in search of truth:

And there's something else, not only in Manhattan but throughout the country. A major reason people are blue about the future is not the stores, not the Treasury secretary, not everyone digging in. It is those things, but it's more than that, and deeper.

Deeper, yes...like the core of imperialistic, religiously inflected violence that will one day lead America to squander its potential and devour itself? No - it's because a woman had eight kids (seriously. That's what she says. Read the article).

That's it! I demand a David Brooks/Peggy Noonan morning show. We must be able to gape at the awesome wisdom of these leading intellectual figures every morning, not just twice a week. Also, if I were rich I would sponsor a Peggy Noonan essay writing contest.