From Doug Giles:

By Doug Giles

“One of the most salient features of our culture is there is so much bull——.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, Princeton philosophy professor

How many of you have met the book smart 4.0 magna cum laude lady who, in regard to street smarts, is a magna dumb loopy chick? What about the poor honey who is neither book nor street smart? What a shame, eh? My goal for my girls is for them to own the twain. My wife and I push our daughters to academic excellence; we insist that they strain their brains so they won’t sound like Paris Hilton when they open their mouths.

That being said, as much as I want my little rays of sunshine to have a high GPA (not that a jiffy GPA means squat anymore given the bogus bunk being taught in school) I want them to have an equal or higher level of street smarts: what some would call a sixth sense, an otherness, a discerning spirit, a fourth dimension, or what I call a well-honed and greased BS Detector (BSD).

Street smarts will give our kids the shrewdness to see through the veil of crap most guys, governments, gimmicks, gadgets, gurus and evil girlfriends live behind. Being the helpful guy that I am, I want to help you help your kids whet their BSD and overcome any proclivity they have to becoming as sharp as a sack of wet rats and assist them to discern that which is detrimental to their lives—even if it’s all dressed up as the greatest thing in all the world.

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