WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Ending The Poverty Blues. “One of the most important claims that the friends of the blue social model make is that it addresses the needs of the poor and the weak better than any other existing social system. This is a serious point that blue critics sometimes don’t think enough about, but the claim is more questionable than blues admit — and more to the point, from where we are today, the basic methods of the old social model aren’t likely to make things much better.”