More than ever, America today reminds me of a working couple where the husband has just lost his job, they have two kids in junior high school, a mortgage and they’re maxed out on their credit cards. On top of it all, they recently agreed to take in their troubled cousin, Kabul, who just can’t get his act together and keeps bouncing from relative to relative. Meanwhile, their Indian nanny, who traded room and board for baby-sitting, just got accepted to M.I.T. on a full scholarship and will be leaving them in a few months. What to do?
Great stuff. But I wonder: What about the maladjusted Saudi exchange student who seems to be stalking your daughter when he’s not hanging out at Hooters reading the Anarchist’s Cookbook? And did you forget the Mexican guy who works twice as hard as the husband for half the pay? And what about the old Japanese lady who rents the garage apartment who hoards her cash? And shouldn’t the wife be worried about the Polish applicant for the nanny job who looks like she could be an underwear model in search of a husband/green card?
What I really like about this, however, is that absolutely ludicrous intro to the paragraph:
More than ever, America today reminds me of a working couple…
Really? More than ever? So America today reminds you of this couple with their Indian nanny and Afghani cousin more than it did in the Spring of ‘06? Good Lord we do have problems!
Here is another reminder of how-
Thomas Friedman is an Idiot
Another day, another hit piece on America from the New York Times.
In Thomas Friedman's latest propaganda piece, "Time to Re-Boot America" (a phrase borrowed from Barack Obama, not surprisingly), he shreds America for lacking "modernized" infrastructure, like that of Hong Kong, China.
"It actually started well," he says, taking off from "Hong Kong's ultramodern airport after riding out there from downtown on a sleek high-speed train -- with wireless connectivity that was so good I was able to surf the Web the whole way on my laptop."
Wow. What a country. Good internet service. Nice trains. Of course, all you can get on the internet is state-filtered material, but, I guess that whole freedom of speech thing is over-rated.
He continues by berating Keneddy Airport, one of the world's busiest hubs, comparing it to that of Hong Kong's ultra modern airport:
"The ugly, low-ceilinged arrival hall was cramped, and using a luggage cart cost $3."
Perhaps if we didn't have to spend so much money on stupid things like airport security to keep our islamic friends from crashing planes into big buildings, we'd have more of a priority centered on sprucing the place up for you.
On he continues, degrading Penn Station, the Acela bullet train, complaining of some (gasp!) dropped calls along the way.
Mr. Friedman, how do you do it? How do you maintain your self-absorbed, elitist status in such a terrible country as America?
He then asks this strawman question: "All I could think to myself was: If we're so smart, why are other people living so much better than us?"
Who the hell is sitting around thinking that "we're so smart"? Did someone just proclaim there are no other smart people in this world besides us? And do the people of China really live "so much better"?
I bet this Mr. Friedman leads a pretty well-off life. One would have to, to ask a question like that.
In the narrowed eyes of this pampered, jaded individual, having an ultra-modern airport is a sign of "better living" for the people of China. And the fact that some of our infrastructure is less modern than others must of course mean that, well, we suck.
Wonderful China: Where you will be incarcerated for speaking "truth to power" (to borrow a line from the left), or told how many children you can have, or where your dog will be killed while walking it to "control" the animal population. How overjoyed they must all be with all that modernized infrastructure.
Let's, Mr. Friedman, run down some of the "better living" conditions of the People's Republic of China:
- China has population saturation, with 1.3 billion people.
- It is a Communist state.
- 500 million people in the rural, agrarian regions are willfully neglected, malnutritioned, and without employment.
- China emposes ruthless oppression of religion.
- The government censors most every bit of information, filtering what is to be said and received.
- It has instituted torturous treatment of the Tibetan people
- It is one of the most polluted countries in the world.
Sounds like a great place.
Mr. Friedman goes on in the next half of his article to let us know more of what is wrong with America, and gives us a glimpse into how an elitist snob would try to fix it. Your normal leftist pablum.
No need to rebut any of it, though. The first half says it all.
By the way, you’ve been carrying this metaphor in your head for how long now, exactly? Has it been driving your understanding of geo-politics for years? Decades? Talk more about that.
Anyway, he then goes on to make the usual point: Rah-rah China. Investment, education, whaoo. Politics bad. Problem solving good.
I know there are lots of people who really think Friedman’s a genius. That’s a debate for another day. What I don’t understand, purely as a matter of column-writing, is how he can get away saying the same thing over and over again and over again. Even if you agree with everything he’s got to say, I don’t understand how he doesn’t bore his fans to death. At least his critics can have fun whacking away at him.
Comment of the Day: On Boobs, by Thomas Friedman
By Richard Lawson Apr 20, 2010
Today we looked at the strange economy of boob jobs, and many of you had many things to say. Most important of all these comments, though, was hilarious economist Thomas Friedman. Heed his words.
From Pope John Peeps II:
Magical Retard Thomas Friedman says:
The world we live in today is a lot like a plate full of fake boobs. I thought that series of words while looking at new-fangled "media blog" Gawker on my iPad with a physicist, a puppeteer from Cambodia, the head of Daimler-Chrysler and television host Anthony Bourdain. The world is flat, oh most definitely flat. It could not be flatter. The world is flattened with a flattener called technology, driven by a flattening engine called the internet, which chuffs along and flattens things so that all peoples can stare at each other over a great, shiny plain and sell each other products. It used to be that I'd buy oranges from a Mexican lady at an intersection. Now that mexican lady has an iPad app. She's flat.
But on this flat plane, artifically smoothed by hot rolling internets and apples, there are still bubbles being created all the time. In the wake of hot flattening comes an artificial bubbling. But this artificial bubbling is coupled to an artificial bubbling in the mind of every American. As our economic reality grows small-scale boobs, so must our critical and theoretical reality grow those same boobs.
America must move forward into this new flat world, and we must do that with flat bubbles always in mind. The only way this can be achieved is if the business minds, those reservoirs of acumen and intelligence, those visionaries of tomorrow, start pairing off with the flattest, most booblical women in the country. With these living embodiments of my brilliant theories by their side, I predict the inspiration will raise their productivity by 1700%. That's not a joke. That's a percentage. Do you think those flat Chinese broads will keep erect the intellects of the Chinese business community in the future? The poor-quality implants of Hyderabad or Mumbai? No. The world of tomorrow can be dominated by America but only if we committ ourselves to a universal be-boobening.
Booblical is a term I invented right now, typing awkwardly on this wobbly pad. Booblicizing is a way of accessing the world of hyper-inspiration, it's a way of connection, a way of flattening. The only way to flatten is through boobs. Something hot. Lexus. Olive Tree. Steroids. Hot Flat.
Great. That's about 800 words. I'll expect my 15 000 dollars by the end of the week.
Send an email to Richard Lawson, the author of this post, at richardl@gawker.com.
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