Thomas Friedman, why don't you break up?

Actually he seems to have become disillusioned with the current Israeli government (it took him a while, but...) and actually criticizes Sharon a fair bit in his recent columns.

Why do you call him a bigot? Perhaps there is evidence, but that's a strong accusation.

I wrote a negative review of From Beirut to Jerusalem in 10th grade. I still think he's a terrible writer.

please quote some examples of his bigotry

And can someone help me get this bag of worms open?

He is very pro-Isreal both as a fact and concept.

I'm going out now.

(Said has been on point with the righteous anger and white-hot vituperation for the bush administration [I love it when he just cuts through and calls a bushadmin figure "stupid"] but sadly there's not much there other than "we should do something about all this.")

*dundun DUNNNNNN*

Grow up.

I hope this statement won't bother anyone, but: I'm continually amazed that "Zionism" as a concept is given quite as much credit as it is parts of the Western world. It strikes me as strongly opposed to a lot of core "Western values" -- in a lot of senses it's sectarian or specifically religiously derived; nationalist and, in its vision, sort of bound to be segregationist; etc. In theory it should be at least somewhat incompatible with the supposed principles of mainstream western thought, if not radically so.

(Since this might just turn into a discussion of "What is Zionism" I'll note that before posting that paragraph I looked at the Zionism entry at the Jewish Virtual Library, which reduces to: "the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel.")

However I'm not prepared to defend a state wherein a majority is privileged in law as they are in Israel. Apartheid is the appropriate term, although not of much use when trying to mend fences or make peace treaties. One big problem for me is that the state of Israel--dedicated as it is to Jewish sovereignty over an (increasingly large) part of the Holy Land--has sort of coopted Zionism and a large chuck of Jewish identity along with it. In fact c. 1948 there were many Jews in Palestine, Europe, and the United States who were opposed to the "war of independence."

Umberto Eco wrote a wonderful essay regarding geographic demographics and migration; I believe it's the fifth one in "Five Moral Pieces".

The point is, whether or not you agree with the fundamental philosophy which fostered Zionism, the migration already happened, the people are there now. It's been fifty years since the state was established. To call them Zionists still would be like calling Andrew Jackson a revolutionary and traitor to the British.

Actually, many white farmers in Zimbabwe are leaving for the UK, so it's not inconceivable, although it should be.

(btw. there is no 'white' in that Microdisney album title, but I always add in my head)

his position towards goyim criticizing Israel, however, isn't that far removed from an ipso facto assumption that any non-Jew that criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite. friedman's position seems to be, "if you feel you must criticize Israel, then you should list every other country in the Mideast that abuses human rights." i hope that i don't have to explain precisely why this argument is a classic red herring (i will anyway -- we aren't pissing off Muslim extremists because we turn a blind eye to, say, Syrian human rights abuses; not to mention the fact that it's no excuse that it's no excuse to Israeli human rights abuses that Syria or any other Mideast country also abuses human rights). at any rate, this position isn't much of an improvement on the usual "if you criticize Israel you're an anti-Semite" bullshit.

I haven't noticed the anti-Semite-baiting specifically in Friedman's columns, but that's because I've ignored them lately. That attitude--and the red herring you mention--is certainly prevalent on the op ed pages of American newspapers. The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) is particularly good at couching this lame argument in terms that don't seem as outrageous as they should.

There was a forum at the University of Chicago which was attended by Jews and Palestinians and others, meant to address the very issue you mention--it was called "On the Difference Between Anti-Semitism and Criticism of Israeli Policy." It was largely organized in response to this odious organization (see this page for a glaring series of misrepresentations of Israel-Palestian politics on the U of C campus). Unfortunately in my opinion the event was very poorly organized and degenerated into a screaming match.

There are groups around the country trying to widen the range of acceptable discourse among Jews -- such as Not in My Name. A few prominent local Jews in Chicago have tried to blackball this and other groups, temporarily keeping them from having speakers at certain colleges and synagogues, but in general the trend has been for previously wary congregations to accept speakers from NIMN, Yesh Gvul, etc.

I think it's very promising. The problem you identify still remains, but steps have been taken. The gulf between Jewish and other critics of Israel was once very large; I could sense that from attending both NIMN events and Palestinian-American political events. But increasingly I see dialogue happening, between the Jewish community (and not just the Jewish left) and other critics of Israel.

Sorry to go on so long. It's an issue I feel strongly about. Hopefully the ADL won't come up again, because my skin will boil.

I remember hanging out with Khalidi's daughter when I was little, while my mom and her dad were at political meetings. They had Free Palestine stickers and I remember being taken a little aback, having been given the standard "Palestinians are evil" line in the first few years of Hebrew school. (The racist things that would come out of my Hebrew school teachers' mouths are not fit to print, in some cases.)

yeah, didn't the ADL use to monitor the Christian right? it is sad to see how they've degenerated, and how otherwise-OK folks affiliated with them have been tainted both by the ADL and defending the Likud (Dershowitz comes immediately to mind, but I digress).

it is good that some Jewish people realize that the Christian Right really aren't their friends, or true friends of Israel. the Jesus Freaks only "support" Israel because Israel has to exist (and the Temple has to be rebuilt) for the End Times -- and when that happens, any Jews who don't convert will die (who needs Hitler when Jesus is going to do the dirty work)? the real crime is that these religious fanatic wackos are driving foreign policy.

(n.b.: i agree that the smear job done to Said -- not to mention Gore Vidal and Noam Chomsky -- has been truly disgusting. which doesn't mean that i agree 100% with any of the foregoing, but i do dislike the endless character assassinations that they have had to put up with from the Israel-über-alles claque.)

They also have those "diversity workshops" (is it "Teaching Tolerance"?) in high schools--I attended one such--which are totally banal and useless.

Yeah Dershowitz. I used to be a big fan of his, oh well. Safire isn't half as smart as he thinks he is. Friedman I'd like to read but more often than not I just skip over, which is really too bad. It's sad because even with some of my friends I've gotten this 'criticism of israel'=anti-semitism vibe. I was sort of thinking about how this might play into that "Ireland/Italy and America" thread that was going a while back. Obviously in this case there are way more complicated issues in play; the binding tie of religion, the establishment of Israel being a recent historical occurance, etc. I guess what in one case is a romanticization, in another becomes a protectiveness, a defensiveness.

I am not anti-Semitic, in any sense, but I do have difficulties with the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israeli government, and how such actions are either outright condoned or conveniently overlooked by the U.S. Government. I do think that Apartheid is the correct concept in this situation - and I can see both sides, to some extent. I can understand the anger and frustration of the Palestinians and I can understand the fear of the Israelis. What I cannot understand is why it is that two groups, with damn identical ancestors back in Biblical times, can't grow-up and quit acting like hot-headed adolescents squabbling and going-off half-cocked and all (er, sorry for that wording).

Basically, lots of shitty things have been done on both sides - hell, on all sides if you look at the actions of other countries in support of either side. But at some point we people need to get past this finger-pointing and name-calling and "let's just keep killing each other a fostering a sense of hatred and fear and anger" and say "Okay, here we are. And none of us are remotely happy with the situation. Now what can we do to rectify things so that we can at least live without being in fear 24/7?"

Yes, I know that the Israeli's say that they can't trust Arafat, and I think they're right - he is proving to be fairly ineffectual (though that doesn't mean that he's not trustworthy, just that he's not really helpful right now) and the Palestinian's say they don't trust Sharon, and they're right, too - he should be tried on crimes against humanity for what happened in the camps. So the people need to get new, sane leaders into office and agree that they (the people) will accept and work within a framework of peace.
Right now, though, I think that the two populations are so angry and scared that they cannot see any possible way of rectifing the situation. And that they're not being offered leaders that might be able to get the peace-talks moving, again. And this is horrible, and unacceptable. And I don't know what to suggest doing to make things better.

But I do think about making Jerusalem an "International" city - run by the U.N., with peace-keepers and such - basically "if you two kids can't quit squabbling over this toy (Jerusalem) then we're going to take it away and neither of you can have it until you learn to share." Isn't that what our parents and teachers told us? And didn't it, in most cases, work?

BTW is the "From the sea to the river - Palestine forever" slogan the Muslim Association of Britain had on its banners just a coded way of calling for the destruction of Israel? It disturbed me a bit.

One big problem for me is that the state of Israel--dedicated as it is to Jewish sovereignty over an (increasingly large) part of the Holy Land--has sort of coopted Zionism and a large chuck of Jewish identity along with it.

Safire is such an idiot. He's still apologizing for Tricky Dick's anti-Semitism. We know he got you the speechwritin' job, Bill, but that doesn't make him not an asshole!

Safire is beyond the pale.

Amateurist, if non-Jewish Israelis (and by this I don't mean the Palestinians in the occupied territories, although they support my argument as well) were treated as well as Jewish Israelis, I'd agree with you. Codified or not, there is a major difference between both, which is good enough for me for it to qualify as a non-secular state.

The mistreatment of Arab Israelis has always gone on, but it's gotten much worse since the recent intifada. Which has had the effect of radicalizing the Arab Israeli population. I believe we saw the first such suicide bomber a few months ago.

(Answer: James K. Polk)

(But Mr. Stencil, he has a salad named after him!)

Could you explain what that means? I'm not sure I get it.

The government condoning, as well as paying for, Jewish Israelis building settlements on the land of non-Jewish Israelis or even technically non-Israelis (i.e. those in the "Occupied Territories") seems to be a pretty blatant action based around being non-secular.

(So how does Polk Salad Annie figure into all this?)

The sad problem with the impulse Laura points out is that even then there's so much work to be done: even if we imagine both leaderships at the table in full good faith, it still has to be decided what really constitutes a valid and workable compromise. And it's daunting to think this can even be done, because it's impossible to think of the situation as really having two equal "sides." You have (a) a Palestinian leadership that doesn't even have much authority to make agreements on behalf of its people, as plenty of them are in open opposition to it, and (b) an slanted bargaining table, on which Israel holds 54 cards to begin with, and the only one Palestine holds are the really sad joker of terrorism (which everyone frowns on and affords Israel a "legitimate" right to exercise more of their might) and international sympathy, which is about as helpful as a 2 of spades.

Here's the relevant definition of "secular," from the OED:

Belonging to the world and its affairs as distinguished from the church and religion; civil, lay, temporal. Chiefly used as a negative term, with the meaning non-ecclesiastical, non-religious, or non-sacred.

There is no official church in Israel, the laws aren't based on religious law, religious practice is not mandated in schools, etc. There was always a tension between religious and secular Zionism (see my note on Zionisms upthread) and it was secular Zionism that largely won out in Israel, although there's the possibility that recent events will establish a different course.

By your formulation any chauvinist state, from Zimbabwe to Japan, could be considered non-secular.

Nabisco: don't mean to ignore your post. I wrote mine before it posted.

This doesn't make Israel any less of a secular state but it does make it hard for non-jews, secular jew and any non-orthodox jews with the conviction not to want to be married by an Orthodox Rabbi.

I don't see how def of Jewishness can be construed as national, and not as religious or ethnic (although the latter has probs too - there's obv. big differences between, say, Eastern European Jews and Ethiopian Jews).

what do Muslim and Christian Israelis do if they want to get married?

Legal system: mixture of English common law,
British Mandate regulations, and,
in personal matters, Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim legal
systems; in December 1985, Israel
informed the UN Secretariat that it
would no longer accept compulsory
ICJ jurisdiction

It would appear that muslims and christians can sort that one out for themselves, but it does suggest that for personal matters the Torah takes precedence to a certain extent.

in December 1985, Israel informed the UN Secretariat that it would no longer accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.

?

It's code for "Fuck you, we'll invade who we like"

I believe that Jews are not solely a religious grouping, and the first Zionists (first self-identified Zionists, not the messianic return-to-Palestine groups that have always existed no matter how small) believed this as well. In fact it was many religious Jews in E. Europe that were most opposed to Zionism--to the politicization or secularization of Jewish identity.

"Nation" per the OED:

An extensive aggregate of persons, so closely associated with each other by common descent, language, or history, as to form a distinct race or people, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a definite territory.

Note the "usually." Jews are an instance of a nation without a state.

I'm not trying to assert this as common sense, although I think I may have given that impression. It's a contentious issue.

Zionism \Zi"on*ism\, n. [Zion + -ism.]
Among the Jews, a theory, plan, or movement for colonizing
their own race in Palestine, the land of Zion, or, if that is
impracticable, elsewhere, either for religious or
nationalizing purposes; -- called also {Zion movement}. --
{Zi"on*ist}, n. -- {Zi`on*is"tic}, a.

It's possible to argue that the early Zionists, savvy assimilated Western Europeans as they were, realized that to win adherents to the cause and to get support from modern European democracies, they had to frame Jewishness as a national and not a religious identity--by contrast Jews in Iran post-Shah have had to frame it as a religious identity lest they be perceived as an Israeli satellite community. A question is whether there is a Jewish identity which remains--relatively--constant despite these shifts in "approach."

I still honestly believe in the idea -- which has had a rough time in practice so far -- that the only way Israel can be free from terrorism is by working as hard as possible to help transform Palestine as an organized entity, something that has so far been given only the most tentative and half-assed efforts. (And sadly, the lack of success in those attempts has led Israel to decide to put less, and not more, effort into them.)

i just had to read a chapter from "the world is flat" for an economics class and gooooooooddaaaaaaaamn is friedman a pandering brainless blowhard. endless fluff about how "globalization" is making the world safe for democracy followed by a stern reminder that americans are "falling behind in the global work force."

friedman's biggest problem is imagining that everyone wants to work hard for money. the man has apparently never observed a successful crime in his life.

Aren't we falling behind in the global workforce, though, with all those Indians suiting up and working all shifts?

I lost all my illusions that Friedman was writing about anything resembling reality a long time ago.

Smooth.

She said, finally, that Friedman gives generously to charity.

This man's career has been a miracle. He and David Brooks should get on their knees every day and thank whatever saint is the patron of mediocrities.

Be a rather bland saint. St. Whatever.

Well then.

"Instead of asking who clogged the toilet, maybe we should be asking why America’s scores on standardized math and science tests are so low." Ha ha.

How is it this thread doesn't contain any mention of Matt Taibbi's infamous takedowns of the mustachioed one.

<a title="http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html"; href="Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman">Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman</a>

<a title="http://www.nypress.com/article-19271-flat-n-all-that.html"; href="Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded">Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded</a>

Doh.

Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas Friedman

Taibbi on Hot, Flat, & Crowded

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/opinion/the-day-our-leaders-got-unstuck.html?hp

This is a scary economic moment. The response we need is not easy, but it is totally obvious. We need a Grand Bargain between America’s two parties — and we need it right now. Until you read the following news article, we’ll be stuck in a world of hurt.

first time i've clicked on a friedman column in forever and it has to start like THAT??

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/Friedman-a-theory-of-everyting-sort-of.html?src=me&ref=general

This one is just so mind-bogglingly awful and empty.

seriously, did someone drop him on his head when he was a baby?

the existence of his column is far more baffling to me than the quiddities/style aspects of the nyt

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/books/niall-fergusons-empire-traces-wests-decline-review.html?hpw

this has got to be a banner day for ol thomas:

As usual, Mr. Ferguson, who teaches in Harvard’s history department and business school, uses his powerful narrative talents in these pages to give the reader a highly tactile sense of history. But his book as a whole has a hurried, haphazard feel to it that underscores its genesis as a companion volume to a British television series called “Civilization: Is the West History?” Not only do the book’s more cogent arguments owe a decided debt to ones made by the New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman and the CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria, but its more original hypotheses also tend to devolve into questionable generalizations (“Europeans today are the idlers of the world”), contradictory assertions and silly Power Point schemas that strain painfully to be relevant and hip.

Friedman shows up in "the Revenge of the electric car" docu for no discernable reason at all

Oh no for Paul Simon fans:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/hey-isnt-that-paul-simon-and-thomas-friedman-at-the-bombay-club/2012/02/07/gIQAuvGCxQ_blog.html

Singer Paul Simon and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman dining together at the Bombay Club Monday night with two others. Shrimp, kebab, veggies among their shared dishes. What’s the occasion? Nothing special, the columnist’s office told us, “just a dinner with friends.”

Bombay Club in Washington D.C. I think

idk, i can see friedman and paul simon being friends and shit ... they're both on the same bland "one flat world" wavelength.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_04/taking_one_for_tom_friedman036755.php#

What a knucklehead. He wants Bloomberg to run for Prez as a 3rd party candidate. He whines:

had to catch a train in Washington last week. The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster. I traveled on the Amtrak Acela, our sorry excuse for a fast train, on which I had so many dropped calls on my cellphone that you’d have thought I was on a remote desert island, not traveling from Washington to New York City. When I got back to Union Station, the escalator in the parking garage was broken. Maybe you’ve gotten used to all this and have stopped noticing. I haven’t. Our country needs a renewal.

He is right tho about the Acela being a sorry excuse for a fast train.

And only in his fantasy world is he going to get a Congress that will vote for the money needed to have a good fast train

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2012/04/one-true-wanker-of-decade.html

there are no limits to his idiocy

Yep.

What's your favourite 2Unlimited song?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/thomas-friedmans-new-state-of-grace-20120627

Love it. I just read Max's February Gawker piece on Friedman columns and Paul Simon lyrics too. Friedman's an unintentional laugh riot.

"Inside Deadmau5's Rolling Stone Cover Shoot"

slapped around by Greenwald... haven't heard the New Zealand radio interview at the bottom yet, but if it's "contemptuous" we should all like it.

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/25/the_value_of_tom_friedman/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/no-kidding-the-most-incoherent-tom-friedman-column-ever-20120725

Thomas Friedman and David Brooks are both people who allegedly have large audiences out there, and yet I've never met anyone professing to like them, or at least not in the last ten years.

Correction: October 28, 2012

A phrase in this version of the article has been changed to “every fertilized egg in a woman’s body” from “in a woman’s ovary.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-grenade-of-understanding-winners-of-the-write-like-friedman-challenge-20121115

http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/Power+With+Purpose+e25453#

god I hate his mustache muppet face

The American Conservative: Tom Friedman: High-Tech Philistine. And that's about right.

It’s P.Q. and C.Q. as Much as I.Q.

Y/N: this is the most tom friedman headline ever

The winners won’t just be those with more I.Q. It will also be those with more P.Q. (passion quotient) and C.Q. (curiosity quotient) to leverage all the new digital tools to not just find a job, but to invent one or reinvent one, and to not just learn but to relearn for a lifetime. Government can and must help, but the president needs to explain that this won’t just be an era of “Yes We Can.” It will also be an era of “Yes You Can” and “Yes You Must.”

Maureen Dowd is off today.

never have i so longed for maureen fucking dowd

stuff like that always just reads to me like "depressives can just fuck right off, sorry you won't be employable in the brave new economy"

Now, notes Craig Mundie, one of Microsoft’s top technologists, not just elites, but virtually everyone everywhere has, or will have soon, access to a hand-held computer/cellphone, which can be activated by voice or touch, connected via the cloud to infinite applications and storage, so they can work, invent, entertain, collaborate and learn for less money than ever before.

can it type punctuation that isn't a comma

Only magical people will thrive in the new economy. This is destiny and cannot be fucked with. Unmagical people will simply wither away, just as the state was predicted to wither away under flourishing marxism. Friedman has spoken.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/friedman-need-a-job-invent-it.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you,
fuck you fuck you fuck you,
fuck you

that headline's partic good w his picture

so they can work, invent, entertain, collaborate and learn for less money than ever before.

But, more than ever, our kids will have to “invent” a job. (Fortunately, in today’s world, that’s easier and cheaper than ever before.)

Please quit the NY Times and go do this yourself

i've got a new job that i've invented right here in my solar backpack.

Now there is only a high-wage, high-skilled job.

you say this, tom, but your continued employment suggests the existence of high-wage, no-fucking-skills jobs.

columnists are basically monopoly rent-seekers

http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/

aw already posted

One, people don't behave like migratory birds, so attempts to treat them as such are a waste of time. Migratory birds never suddenly set up a black market for Western DVDs.

otm

friedmanomics

xpost i smell new yorker caption

argh, just fucking END this guy already
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/opinion/friedman-its-a-401k-world.html?hp&_r=1&

So people like reading this junk:

If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you’re not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing. That is what I mean when I say “it is a 401(k) world.” Government will do less for you. Companies will do less for you. Unions can do less for you. There will be fewer limits, but also fewer guarantees. Your specific contribution will define your specific benefits much more. Just showing up will not cut it.

Self-motivation is all it takes, right...

that a-hole is sorta correct, given that for average investors 401ks are basically rigged against them, inefficient, and a total and utter crapshoot that is far too likely to end in woe, as far as retirement income security goes.

that doesn't really make him "sorta correct" -- Friedman is saying this all just means you have to "learn about investing"

I posted this on the "Rolling Economy" thread but it fits here too. Salmon totally destroys Friedman:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/05/01/the-systemic-plight-of-labor/

youre correct, he is oblivious to the manner in which his analogy has any merit at all.

xpost

that "thought leaders" zing at the end stings, i love it

enjoying juxtaposition of thomas friedman and arkham asylum in SNA tbh

u_u

floors don't protect you, unless he means from vermin

just showing up is all i have in me, motherfucker.

Thomas L. Friedman: This Ain't Yogurt

Saw this blurb in a NY Times email. This sounds too painful to read.

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Blowing a Whistle
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Respecting and caring about civil liberties means supporting the government programs needed to prevent another 9/11.

and now i went and read that whyyyy

mostly cut & pasted the asshole from The Wire, White People's Favorite TV Show Ever

haha yes The Wire, white people's favorite show that had reruns on BET

someone wrote an article on medium about what the next generation's thomas friedman would be like

I appreciate the idea that a countercultural female figure could be the next generation's generalizing annoyance

If Kerry’s mission fails — because either Israelis or Palestinians or both balk — he will either be tacitly or explicitly declaring that this two-state solution is no longer a viable option and “that would plunge Israel into a totally different paradigm,” said Grinstein, who recently authored the book “Flexigidity: The Secret of Jewish Adaptability.”

really only posting for that book title, which is vaguely Friedmanesque but not Friedman

lol

a little grossly sexual too

This has got to be one of his worst:

"Never go to a hockey game with Putin and expect to play by the rules of touch football. The struggle over Ukraine is a hockey game, with no referee."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/opinion/friedman-playing-hockey-with-putin.html?src=me&ref=general

loool

gahhhhhhh!

http://www.seoish.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/inconceivable-1.jpg

This is not a joke. This is actually taking up space in the New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/thomas-l-friedman-the-world-according-to-maxwell-smart-part-1.html?_r=0

IN the 1960s, there was a popular sitcom — “Get Smart” — about a hapless secret agent named Maxwell Smart, played by Don Adams. Smart went by the code name “Agent 86.” “Get Smart” famously introduced the shoe phone to American audiences, but the show also introduced something else: its own version of the bipolar world. Do you remember the name of the intelligence agency Maxwell Smart worked for? It was called “Control.” And do you remember the name of Control’s global opponent? It was called “Kaos” — “an international organization of evil.”

The creators of “Get Smart” were ahead of their time. Because it increasingly appears that the post-post-Cold War world is cleaving into the world of “order” and the world of “disorder” — or into the world of “Control” and the world of “Kaos.”

can't wait for his take on dick van dyke

"Today, in this globally connected, app-driven, post-Uber world, our mothers are, in a very real sense, cars."

he's NYT quiddities-ness, in the flesh.

seriously, i don't think i can stand both Friedman and Dowd making a "comeback."

have they been away? i thought their voices had just been drowned out by the sea of clickbait crap.

huge lol @ eephus

A+

"I was shocked that my Tunisian cab driver had never heard of the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Show, but after I recounted the plot of an episode he agreed with me that all of world's Maynard G. Krebs need to be taught the lesson of force."

The Arab Spring is failing not for lack of bandwidth, but for lack of human understanding that can only be forged when someone is late for breakfast, and you say, "Thank you for being late."

Felix Salmon is great

i don't even understand what Friedman is trying to get at

my theory all along has been he's severely aphasic

Among the many questions I have is how do you "forge" a lack of understanding, or a lack of anything for that matter.

i totally get "lack of human understanding which can only be forged", it's just missing a comma--what i don't understand is why the hell anyone would ever thank anyone for being late

Friedman had just explained that he is writing a book called ‘The World is Fast’, a sequel to a previous book of his called ‘The World is Flat’.... The title of the final chapter of his new book is ‘Thank You for Being Late’....

Some dumb new Friedmanism apparently. buy the book and find out

I guess I get that by "which can only be forged" he means "which can only be the result of," but it's a very awkward and inept way of putting it. And I'm not sure who is late and who is thanking the person for being late, and what that means, and I'm also not entirely clear on what "lack of bandwidth" would be with respect to a revolution.

Being important CEO types, Tom Friedman’s friends are sometimes 15 minutes late for their breakfast meetings. And when that happens, Tom Friedman thanks his friend for being late, since his guest’s tardiness has given him 15 minutes of peace and quiet, during which he can think peacefully. Hence the title of the chapter.

This is the only way to forge human understanding.

olol

http://crookedtimber.org/2015/07/22/a-brief-theory-of-very-serious-people/

@mtaibbi
Friedman has to be trolling people with this column.

https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/667005782190399488

Really, you don't have to read the rest of it.

looooooooooooooool

TF is beyond both parody and therapy.

Has anyone done a TF generator yet?

the New York Times has one

Ha

http://thomasfriedmanopedgenerator.com/about.php

When thinking about the recent troubles, it's important to remember three things: One, people don't behave like muppets, so attempts to treat them as such inevitably look foolish. Muppets never suddenly shift their course in order to fit with a predetermined set of beliefs. Two, Romania has spent decades torn by civil war and ethnic hatred, so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, freedom is an extraordinarily powerful idea: If authoritarianism is Romania's ironing board, then freedom is certainly its faucet.

is that from the random op ed generator or from this week's column?

If u can't tell, does it matter? (Random generator)

Oh boo.

I think a good name for Thomas Friedman's next book would be "The 3D-Printed Scimitar"

"Deutschland, Uber, Allah"

I've had the phrase " disrupting the world of camels" in my head all day.

Taibbi on Mr I Don't Know

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/thomas-friedman-takes-on-isis-20151119

Yep, didn't want to go too deep on the article itself but it's just straight up wrong in every way imaginable. Dubai is a terrible example of Arab start-up capitalism - most Emiratis are pretty much paid to do nothing, Kuwait has invested zip in the post-oil economy and is doomed unless it changes course PDQ, the "isles of decency" Tunisia and Jordan have more ISIS fighters per capita than any other countries in the world by a margin of three to one, Iran has a spectacularly good education system and has dramatically improved quality of life over the last thirty years, Saudi Arabia has a thriving industrial sector because of forward thinking investment in manufacturing, etc, etc.

yeah but capitalism! A hundred Starbucks will bloom.

Saudi has 91 Starbucks at the moment so it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

Wednesday's lede:

"Just get me talking about the world today and I can pretty well ruin any dinner party."

Are Thomas Friedman still an item?

later in that column: Bernie Sanders' ideas "died in 1989"

a single payer national medical system is a "dead" idea? Christ! who's going to tell all those Medicare recipients? and Europe? and Canada? and most of the rest of the world?

raising tax rates on the super wealthy is a dead idea? he fucking wishes.

birth of Taylor Swift killed Bernie's ideas duh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CofAv3nXEAArs9t.jpg

peter parker is among the undecideds

omg

this summer is actually the 10th anniversary of me learning about and hating Thomas Friedman

also the 20th friediversary

The bigger Clinton’s margin of victory, the less dependent she’d be, I hope, on the left wing of her party, and the more likely she’d work with Republicans, as she vowed during the last debate...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/12/opinion/can-the-us-win-this-election.html?_r=0

persuasive!

I say “hope” because I don’t know who the real Hillary is — the more Bernie Sanderish one speaking publicly or the more Bill Clintonish one who spoke privately to Goldman Sachs.

I know, Tom. I know.

Tom Friedman should have to eat the New York Times every time he publishes in it

pretty sure he does with a side of risotto

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/a-brief-selection-from-the-index-to-thomas-friedmans-ne-1789617753

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-reviews-thomas-friedman-book-thank-you-for-being-late-w453529

saw this guy in a garage last year. I didn't hold the elevator for him.

'as a man in a garage elevator told me last year, the world economy is like shoegaze -- it looks both down *and* forward . . . and uses a whole lot of effects pedals'

http://thebaffler.com/blog/friedman-dreams-electric-sheeple-johnson

https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/857266317287718912

Thomas Friedman: the US has to bomb 7 muslim-majority countries in perpetuity because um they're the real racists https://t.co/WIx3SRJt66 pic.twitter.com/gCsLJ1MYxK

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) August 16, 2017

Friedman . . . otm?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/opinion/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-terrorism.html

If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he were a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …

If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and “politicize” Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.

No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour “I told you so,” as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be “weighing all options” against the country of origin.

But what happens when the country of origin is us?

What happens when the killer was only a disturbed American armed to the teeth with military-style weapons that he bought legally or acquired easily because of us and our crazy lax gun laws?

Then we know what happens: The president and the Republican Party go into overdrive to ensure that nothing happens. Then they insist — unlike with every ISIS-related terror attack — that the event must not be “politicized” by asking anyone, particularly themselves, to look in the mirror and rethink their opposition to common-sense gun laws.

So let’s review: We will turn the world upside down to track down the last Islamic State fighter in Syria — deploying B-52s, cruise missiles, F-15s, F-22s, F-35s and U2s. We will ask our best young men and women to make the ultimate sacrifice to kill or capture every last terrorist. And how many Americans has the Islamic State killed in the Middle East? I forget. Is it 15 or 20? And our president never stops telling us that when it comes to the Islamic State, defeat is not an option, mercy is not on the menu and that he is so tough he even has a defense secretary nicknamed “Mad Dog.”

But when fighting the N.R.A. — the National Rifle Association, which more than any other group has prevented the imposition of common-sense gun-control laws — victory is not an option, moderation is not on the menu and the president and the G.O.P. have no mad dogs, only pussy cats.

And they will not ask themselves to make even the smallest sacrifice — one that might risk their seats in Congress — to stand up for legislation that might make it just a little harder for an American to stockpile an arsenal like Paddock did, including 42 guns, some of them assault rifles — 23 in his hotel room and 19 at his home — as well as several thousand rounds of ammunition and “electronic devices.” Just another deer hunter, I guess.

On crushing ISIS, our president and his party are all in. On asking the N.R.A. for even the tiniest moderation, they are AWOL. No matter how many innocents are killed — no matter even that one of their own congressional leaders was shot playing baseball — it’s never time to discuss any serious policy measures to mitigate gun violence.

Whoa that’s a helluva column. How the fuck did that come from Thomas Friedman?

how many Americans has the Islamic State killed in the Middle East? I forget. Is it 15 or 20?

tbf, this is not a good metric for the danger posed by the Islamic State.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/opinion/saudi-prince-mbs-arab-spring.html

The most significant reform process underway anywhere in the Middle East today is in Saudi Arabia. Yes, you read that right. Though I came here at the start of Saudi winter, I found the country going through its own Arab Spring, Saudi style.

tom friedman is worthless as a writer, how the fuck does he have a job

oh man, i read that last night and kept loling. so many friedmanisms in that

do you think he reads anything in his own newspaper?

does he speak arabic?

imagine being this credulous, each new day must be so exciting

does he speak arabic?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, November 24, 2017 9:52 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

none of these fucks do

He probably has at best a rusty ability to wrap his tongue around liturgical Hebrew

I am becoming more set in the theory that his whole deal is a performance with another layer that other cons like Limbaugh, Hamburg etc don’t quite have.

ref: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/surprise-winner-in-thomas-friedman-porn-title-contest-20130510 I mean come on.

He’s playing to a different audience but he’s running the same type of game.

do you think he reads anything in his own newspaper?

NYT has a looong history with this.

In honor of Thomas Friedman’s latest love letter to Saudi here is 70 years of the NY Times describing #Saudi royals in the language of #reform.

— Abdullah Al-Arian (@anhistorian) November 24, 2017

a challenger appears

When confronting a challenging problem, it’s sometimes useful to listen to someone who looks at it from an entirely different angle. That’s why I found it fascinating to talk about the rise of populism and nativism with Bono: My latest column: https://t.co/pOGsOByofo

— Fareed Zakaria (@FareedZakaria) September 21, 2018

Every time I see Thomas Friedman, I think about kicking his severed head down a rural back road until an amber sunset burns into my eyes and I feel one with nature. And then dinner. pic.twitter.com/FwYURS77IM

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) April 24, 2019

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8RCSd7W4Ac31Ri.jpg

Team building exercise at Dave & Busters.

classic tom

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D_su7-yWsAAODN3.jpg

growing the pie

this man has been a professional writer for decades

a growing pie lifts all boats

not only that, but he is DISTURBED that no one else is talking about growing the pie

enriching the soil by cannibalizing entrepreneurs and risk takers

grrr was just taking an old friend of mine to task as gently as I could for posting that damn NYT piece and agreeing with it

"if only Democrats catered to Republicans" part LXVIII

pretty sure Bernie was talking about how his policies were going to grow the economy and another NYT columnist took him to task for it

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S10E05/1084499.jpg?b64lines=Tk8sIE5PLCBOTy4gWU9VCiBDQU4nVCBMT1NFIFRIRSBQSUUuIFRIRQogUElFIElTIFlPVVIgSEVBUlQu

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDoWNhFCBM

This is real plague on both your houses material. pic.twitter.com/Ak5ibdMokB

— Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) July 19, 2019

"the chin". week burn. calling mayor pete alfred e neumann - top drawer stuff.

I prefer not to call myself a "centrist." That label implies someone whose views are mush, situated between two clearly defined poles of left and right. My views are not mush. They just emerge from a different approach to politics.

This era calls for a different approach -- one best articulated by Linton Wells, the defense analyst and expert on resilience. Wells argues that to find the solutions to today's wicked problems you should "never think in the box and never think out of the box. You have to think without a box."

Trump just threw complexity out the window and went full dog whistle on race to hold and expand his base. Democratic candidates are being more serious, but their need to win primaries tugs them back to the old binary checklist -- even though the real solutions require a left-wing wrench, a right-wing hammer and all sorts of new tools and combinations we've never imagined.

The right question on education is not whether college should be "free." It's what should be taught there and who should teach it.

Leave your rigid right-left grid on the hook outside the door. That's actually happening locally. But taking that national is really hard.

For Democrats who want to be serious: How do they think without a box against an incumbent president who speaks without a box -- without any restraints?

I don't have the answer, but I'm working on it! We all should be.

I hate him

clearly a Buttigieg endorsement in his future

^ sad lol

Wait that’s a real Friedman quote and not some simulator or parody?

it's the emmis Tom

that is the real thing (and the italics is in the original)

to quote John Houseman in his signature role, TF has "a skull full of mush"

Opinion

Why I LIke Mike

By Thomas L. Friedman

I have a pet theory about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — that it is to wider trends in world affairs what Off Broadway is to Broadway.

you don't say

footlights! curtain! genocide!

Tom Friedman and his traveling menagerie, touring the rust belt in his box truck, dazzling americans with his extensive collection of pet theories

omg his Bloomberg endorsement column is the laugh riot of the season! Five stars!

Don't miss the disclaimer! Greatest exit line since Some Like It Hot!

the only more expected thing than this would be Friedman endorsing a TED Talk for president

it's the first column of his i've all the way through in several years. a laugh a minute, seriously fucking hilarious.

"a moderate progressive with a heart of gold but the toughness of a rattlesnake"

and then the reveaal of the donation to Mrs Friedman's literacy museum

nothing sez "heart of gold" like "gift of gold"

bump

cuz Tom's fellow Bloombito supporters must read this

Was someone supporting Bloomberg on this messageboard?

Sanpaku doesn’t count

Effectively, we’d ‘reboot’ our society in two or perhaps more weeks from now. “The rejuvenating effect on spirits, and the economy, of knowing where there’s light at the end of this tunnel would be hard to overstate. Risk will not be zero, but the risk of some bad outcome for any of us on any given day is never zero.’’

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/opinion/coronavirus-economy.html

you go first, asshole

So, can we make lemonade out of this lemon — and not destroy our economy?

one for the annals

jesus h christ

lmao

A fantasy, you say? No, no. I’ll give you fantasy.

now what

https://i.imgur.com/LWjJ96H.png

quiz: identify the one good word in his opening paragraph:

In the last Democratic debate, Joe Biden declared that he would nominate a woman as his vice-presidential running mate. That felt right at the time. But times have changed. Biden needs to go much, much further: At the Democratic convention he needs to name not just his vice president, but his entire cabinet. And it needs to be a totally different kind of cabinet — a national unity cabinet — from Democrats on the Bernie Sanders left to Republicans on the Mitt Romney right. Why?

has the coronavirus made the world more or less flat?

That is a vmic Thomas Friedman Bold Idea (tm). It is strong, forthright, fresh and new, also unnecessary, unworkable and so self-important as to be faintly insane.

the important thing is that the GOP and republicans would really notice the pre-emptive compromise by Biden and the Democratic party, and realize that they, too, should act in a bi-partisan way from now on. we could look forward to a new era of total partnership between the parties, wow!

i never thought anything would get through to mitch mcconnell's cold heart, but i think a cabinet made up of half republicans and half democrats would really change him, i do!!

Tom is just as dumb when he works remotely

If I Told You My Idea Was a Robot That Harasses Chickens, You Wouldn’t Believe Me. But That’s My Best Idea. By Thomas Friedman pic.twitter.com/GVaJ2yoah4

— Hamilton Nolan (@hamiltonnolan) April 15, 2020

"It patrols the poultry house for dead birds" passes without comment

Buffalo Bill's most chilling line

If recent weeks have shown us anything, it’s that the world is not just flat. It’s fragile.

Can someone plz photoshop a pic of Friedman with a light bulb appearing in a thought bubble over his head?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EaJtI-cWsAAL_tj?format=jpg&name=900x900

wow

i'm gonna admit, this is headed toward so bad it's good territory

he dreamt a motto that was based off another motto, and then made a parody motto of that. then made that the headline

he's a goddamn genius

you can tell because of the way his hands are folded beneath his chin, true sign

i couldn't help it, sorry

Let's Change our Motto to __. It is Heading Toward __, and I fear it Becoming __.

any guesses?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eb240XTWoAA413C?format=jpg&name=small

A Chicken in Every Pot

Truck Fump

Make the Pie Bigger

A Big Fucking Deal

The Heart Rate Is Flat

I hate-read this post this morning. His stupidity is unfathomable.

end the suspense, mook! we need that slogan to phone-bank for Big Joe.

“Respect science, respect nature, respect each other.”

the catchphrase champion has done it again

what's the over/under on how long he spent thinking of that bumper sticker that will also win the election?

30 seconds?

America Is Already Great

Make America Greater Againer

xxp no way, he spends like half his day thinking about catchphrases

i'm not joking at all

i'm sure he heard from a pipe-fitter in Des Moines

...and a taxi driver in Abu-Dhabi.

the slogan that comes to mind was suggested to me by the environmental innovator Hal Harvey. Harvey didn’t know he was suggesting it; he just happened to sign off a recent email to me by writing: “Respect science, respect nature, respect each other.”

I thought — wow, that’s a perfect message for Biden, and for all of us.

so the answer to this sounds like between 0 and 2 seconds.

I thought — wow phew, that’s a perfect message for Biden, and for all of us I might malke this deadline after all

malke?

make

Does anyone have any idea where 65-year-olds and older can get vaccinated against Covid in Maryland? They opened the category today and told people NOTHING about where to go. None of this would be happening if Larry Hogan were governor.

— Thomas L. Friedman (@tomfriedman) January 25, 2021

None of this would be happening if Larry Hogan were governor.

Nice use of ambiguity there, Tom.

pls someone give Tom the placebo vaccine. please.

ask your driver

Kids, this is what it was like. pic.twitter.com/BlWrjCe8LL

— mattgallagher0 (@MattGallagher0) August 20, 2021

middle east expert thomas friedman

i can't fucking BELIEVE i read the world is flat

"It's far away."

The World is Flat is from 2005. i wonder if afghanistan opened him up to that? he was like, wait a second, the world IS far away. and it is also flat

hey there, lorryman! how flat are these roads, to you?

"interesting...he uses technology and it changes how he operates"

nexts day's column:

MY FACE IS LIKE A WALRUSMAN

I’m rereading this line and contorting my face in a number of ways

Check the map. It’s far away.

*checks the map. checks the scale. confirms far*

thomas friedman spins the globe. around and around it goes. he puts the finger on it and stops it on the other side, right on afghanistan. he checks the scale

he furiously pulls out his palm pilot and with quaking hands writes a note to remember for the morning: "it's far away"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4roxM8hUMk

Aghanistan...istan so far away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UofYl3dataU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyK1bZZ7E-s

It is beyond my powers of imagination that "give war a chance" was ever written or published unironically.

is he dead yet

He was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary "for his clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat".

This is Afghanistan we're talking about. Check the map. It's far away.

https://i.imgur.com/acTZjmp.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIIxlgcuQRU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwFaSpca_3Q

This is his super villain speech

The world is bubble

i was going to post that speech but i felt too much second hand embarrassment to even copy the link once i looked it up

http://i.imgur.com/fKBZsdw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/IsYX0BS.png

But what if humanity tried giving war a chance? Has anyone thought of that?

war, while it poses many downsides, has been responsible for many advances. the drone technology that was developed to fight terrorism in the middle east has been adapted to deliver amazon packages to consumers. so overall, a complicated issue, not 'all good' or 'all bad'.

war - what if it's good for some people

commercial innovation per war death is higher than innovation per civilian death

there is a common perception that companies are REQUIRED to maximize profit over all other prioritized. although i have skimmed a full page of google search results of op-eds suggesting that it isn't technically true, let's face, it's fucking true

My colostomy bag is smarter and has more nuance than Thomas Friedman

not a joke, incredibly

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FDHYQpvVQAQKdH5?format=jpg&name=small

I saw that today and actually burst out laughing in bed, waking up my partner in the process.

Friedman started coasting so long ago he came to a complete standstill in 2010

by 2015 he was encrusted with fungus

“i’m sure they would buddy! hey have you cleaned your room yet?” https://t.co/H0mcU6ggdw

— edie (@multiplebears) November 1, 2021

We’ve never seen this tactic before from Beijing: We’ll clean our air, but only if you let us buzz Taiwan’s airspace and choke off the air of freedom in Hong Kong.

He is so good at metaphors.

The earth is FLAT, don't you know.

My column: Biden-Cheney 2024? https://t.co/T3OaMtWbhC

— Thomas L. Friedman (@tomfriedman) January 12, 2022

jfc

great job on the pin, NYT graphics dept

Pretty sure we are being punked.

Imagine The Consensus! The Alignment!

AOC/MTG

Cruz/Sanders

looooooooooooool

what a fool

Thomas Friedman, professional wise man, dreams things that never were and asks, "why not?"

I haven't actually read the column and don't see any need to, I'm just going to imagine it takes the form of a conversation with a commonsense taxi driver — an aspiring immigrant putting his son through Harvard by driving 23 hours a day and trading in crypto between fares, who just doesn't understand why "those people can't work together for all of us."

Saving a democratic system requires huge political sacrifice, added Levitsky. “It means A.O.C. campaigning for Liz Cheney” and it means Liz Cheney “putting on the shelf” many policy goals she and other Republicans cherish. “But that is what it takes, and if you don’t do it, just look back and see why democracy collapsed in countries like Germany, Spain and Chile. The democratic forces there should have done it, but they didn’t.”

Liz Cheney or facism. Not a choice, but an echo.

When you accidentally click a link to a new piece of his on Putin, shrug and vaguely read it, and then encounter this bit of combined sociopolitical and music criticism:

If you look at his behavior, it seems that Putin is quite frightened today by two subjects: arithmetic and Russian history.

To understand why these subjects frighten him, you need to first consider the atmosphere enveloping him — something neatly captured, as it happens, in lyrics from the song “Everybody Talks” by one of my favorite rock groups, Neon Trees. The key refrain is:

Hey, baby, won’t you look my way?
I can be your new addiction.
Hey, baby, what you got to say?
All you’re giving me is fiction.
I’m a sorry sucker, and this happens all the time.
I find out that everybody talks.
Everybody talks, everybody talks.
It started with a whisper.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a foreign affairs writer reporting from autocratic countries is that no matter how tightly controlled a place is, no matter how brutal and iron-fisted its dictator, EVERYBODY TALKS.

Tom Friedman has Still Got It pic.twitter.com/LuMI8CBucn

— Keith Harris (@useful_noise) May 7, 2023

does anyone know what year this photo is from

https://i.imgur.com/jjJGUfk.png

Year of the Walrus

I sometimes think about the time a C-suite exec at my then-employer was speaking at a departmental meeting and went on a tangent about something in Friedman's The World is Flat book and I left thinking... wow, I don't know about this exec

and he was gone from the company within the year

I remember Taibbi's classic take-down of that book. I wonder which of them is worse these days though.

I think Friedman's never tried to be unorthodox and if someone's coming to his work and picking up ideas from it, that's... probably an indictment of how well-informed they are

His writing can be terrible but it's just an articulation of things his readers already believe, but haven't written bad articles about

absolute king shit

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFbhdU9XAAAUPFv?format=jpg&name=900x900

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFb_ZW_XUAAndy3?format=jpg&name=small

also says My guess is that the next week or so is likely to be the most important in the Gaza war since Hamas launched it on Oct. 7.

just the least self-aware person in the world

When you have been spewing BS for so long you have no longer have a sense of the stench.

“Is there a better description of Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq today?”

I’m no Middle East expert, but I’m gonna go with yes here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/israel-war-rafah-riyadh.html

Friedman's got a great plan folks to solve all Mideast issues if you ignore what happened to Jamal Khashoggi, women and others in Saudi Arabia and those in Yemen (he mentions none of these drawbacks) --

the U.S.-Saudi-Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic-security deal that the administration is close to finalizing the terms of with the Saudi crown prince. It has several components, but the three key U.S.-Saudi ones are: 1) A mutual defense pact between the United States and Saudi Arabia that would take any ambiguity out of what America would do if Iran attacked Saudi Arabia. The United States would come to Riyadh’s defense, and vice versa. 2) Streamlining Saudi access to the most advanced U.S. weapons. 3) A tightly controlled civilian nuclear deal that would allow Saudi Arabia to reprocess its own uranium deposits for use in its own civilian nuclear reactor.

And last, the United States would bring together Israel, Saudi Arabia, other moderate Arab states and key European allies into a single, integrated security architecture to counter Iranian missile threats the way they did on an ad hoc basis when Iran attacked Israel on April 13 in retaliation for an Israeli strike on some senior Iranian military leaders suspected of running operations against Israel, who were meeting at an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria. This coalition will not come together on any continued basis without Israel getting out of Gaza and committing to work toward Palestinian statehood. There is no way Arab states can be seen to be permanently protecting Israel from Iran if Israel is permanently occupying Gaza and the West Bank. U.S. and Saudi officials also know that without Israel in the deal, the U.S.-Saudi security components are not likely to ever get through Congress.

The Biden team wants to complete the U.S.-Saudi part of the deal so that it can act like the opposition party that Israel does not have

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/26/opinion/israel-war-rafah-riyadh.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk0.rXgm.WH78ETdBDTbF&smid=url-share

Those renowned Saudi peacemakers.

To be fair, I think he's right the Saudis will have to play a role in any post-Israeli-offensive scenario. But the glib framing of his opening alone is impeachable.

Blinken is over there trying to do some of the above, but Friedman comes across as naive and simplistic about all aspects including the Saudi part

I asked Trump, when you get up in the morning, what do you read? Whom do you talk to? What information sources do you trust?

“Much of it is very basic,” Trump said. “I read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. I read the Post and the News, not so much for business, just to sort of I live in the city and you know, it’s reporting on the city.” The New York Post covered Trump almost obsessively.

“I rely less on people than I do just this general flow of information,” he said. “I also speak to cabdrivers. I go to cities and say, what do you think of this? That’s how I bought Mar-a-Lago. Talking to a cabdriver and asking him, ‘What’s hot in Florida? What’s the greatest house in Palm Beach?’”

“Oh, the greatest house is Mar-a-Lago,” the cabdriver said.

“I said where is it? Take me over.” Trump then added, “I was in Palm Beach, I was in the Breakers, and I was bored stiff.”

Trump eventually bought Mar-a-Lago for $7 million.

(from an 1989 interview that bob woodward recently found in a storage closet)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/bob-woodward-trump-interview-1989

if you have no idea how this connects to thomas friedman, then you probably think the world is not flat

TS: cab drivers around the world vs. real Americans in midwestern diners

as to who possesses the deepest of all truths about the universe. it's gotta be one of those 2 demographics right

Cab drivers of the world, unite and tell us anecdotes

I haven't read a Friedman column in forever, for obvious reasons, but I dipped into today's just to see what the headline was referring to. I was rewarded with typically tortured Friedman "word play."

It’s downright scary to watch this close up. President Trump is focused on what teams American transgender athletes can race on, and China is focused on transforming its factories with A.I. so it can outrace all our factories.

Still the king

I dislike the overuse of the word factories. "Transforming its factories... so it can outrace all our factories". That's just clumsy.

It should have been "transforming its factories... so it can leave us in the dust" or "beat us into a distant second place", or something.

My second thought was "does this column begin with Thomas Friedman telling us that he flew first-class on a prestigious airline, thus cementing the fact that he is a major world traveller", and lo and behold... it doesn't. No mention of a flight. But it does make the point that he wrote the piece while on a trip to Shanghai. It even has an implausibly apt quote from someone he met whilst on the trip.

Ultimately it boils down to "I flew to Shanghai and toured an newly-built office complex", which doesn't sound so dramatic. He strikes me as the kind of writer who could easily be replaced by AI, and it would save a fortune in air tickets as well. Does he pay for his own travel? Presumably not, but it's a waste anyway.

I found some of his recent stuff on China useful even if not better as writing than anything else he's done. Just seemed like things no one is really talking about ATM

Ok lol, he's still him

https://i.redd.it/mtedxyv6ttwe1.png

jesus. does he not revise anything? i am baffled by "Trump is for he/him".

a reference to the Trump 2024 ad "Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you."

how many clunkers do you think he proposed as a title before his publishing company settled on "The World is Flat"?

he seems to come up with what he thinks is an interesting turn of phrase in half of his columns, and most of them are as bad or worse than "Waymo Democrats"

Way'mo Betta Blues