4:34PM
A solemn promise
By 
Issandr El Amrani | Media
Issandr El Amrani | Media
Dear Arabist readers, I now promise you that even though the New York Times no longer has a paywall I will not link any of its Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd or other moronic commentators and will restrict linking to only the most essential stories or the ones by those NYT writers that actually do a good job (is it to spite me?) like Michael Slackmann.
Reader Comments (12)
please continue the Thomas Friedman bashing which is a great source of humor for this website. If you don't pick apart his cliched arguments, who will?
Charlie Rose interviews Orhan Pamuk--45 min long, in English. I haven't watched it yet cos I don't much like Pamuk's book, but I know you're a fan, and I was too lazy to look up your email, so I'm telling you here.
I can, actually, link this comment to the post: if you look to the top right of the linked page, there is a link to an interview with your main man Friedman.
I second Jose.
Poor Tom. Nobody wants to read him any more, not even to make fun of him? He might just go running back to Bangalore hotels, where everyone loves him.
Dan,
I looked at the beginning of the TomF interview on the Charlie Rose site http://www.charlierose.com/shows/2007/08/16/1/a-conversation-with-thomas-l-friedman" rel="nofollow">here) and within one minute I was almost sick. The man is so smug, self-satisfied, and in love with his own theories. Example:
"There is a second new rule I've come to understand and appreciate about this flat world, and that has to do about [sic] imagination. And the rule basically goes like this: we've often spoken of competition between companies, between countries and countries. But what I'm arguing here, Charlie, is that the great competition going forward is actually going to be between you and your own imagination."
WWWWWWWWWWWOW! I'm having a TomInsight(tm) moment here! I can feel my entire relationship with the universe changing!
He has a "time-out" moment to take on his critics later too. He sounds more like a motivational speaker than a veteran foreign and economic correspondent.
Anyway, there you are, some Friedman bashing without having to go that newspaper.
"But what I’m arguing here, Charlie, is that the great competition going forward is actually going to be between you and your own imagination.�
I have this problem sometimes when i masturbate.
Poor Tom. Nobody wants to read him any more, not even to make fun of him?
Uhh.... By what measure?
His books continue to be bestsellers.
"World is Flat" alone has gone through four editions since 2005. And the latest issue of Foreign Affairs lists the book on its top 10 bestsellers list.
The fact that the NYT had to end Times Select suggests that not many people were willing to pay to read him (or the other columnists).
Why his books are bestsellers when they are devoid of basic economic literacy is an eternal mystery to me.
Yeah, Tom's a bit much. I like Maureen though, glad I can read her again.
Wishful thinking, SP.
Friedman is still widely respected and widely read.
Not deservedly, of course. But that's another point.
I suppose it's the book-club dynamic, and he sells for the same reason self-help books do - it's easy to hand out The World is Flat to corporate employees and b-school beginners as an accessible little bit of pop-wisdom (or pop-nonsense) on contemporary globalization.
Please assure me that's a sarcastic reference to Slackman.
And I third Jose.