TRENCHANT OBSERVATION OF THE DAY.

At City Journal, Myron Magnet calls out businesses that market to yobs.

A kid in a DOPE shirt should draw the sneers of passersby, and business executives should tell their Nike counterparts that their supposed edginess pollutes the culture. The top brass of the Diesel clothing chain, now running a BE STUPID ad campaign, should hear the same disapproval. Until recently, their Fifth Avenue store, which has defaced an urbane classical building with a 30-foot-high cast-stone bas-relief of an angry lout in a Mohawk haircut, proclaimed from its window: SMART MAY HAVE THE BRAINS, BUT STUPID HAS THE BALLS. The chain’s website asserts, “Smart may have the authority, but stupid has one hell of a hangover,” and “Stupid is the relentless pursuit of a regret free life.” Outfitting thugs and bar brawlers, while egging them on, is not an honorable way to make a living, nor is selling gangsta rap that glorifies lawbreaking and mistreating women, nor is hawking video games that have kids pretend to kill, maim, and rape. And parents who let their kids buy such junk merit the scorn of their neighbors.

Our culture isn’t something we merely consume. We also all participate in creating it.

Quite.