Matt Taibbi famously covered this sort of thing, but since Thomas Friedman is the Milton of infelicity, there is never too much scholarship to go around:
What’s unfolding in the Arab world today is the mother of all wake-up calls. And what the voice on the other end of the line is telling us is clear as a bell:Why doesn't the wake up call just tell us to end our addiction to oil? Why is the wake-up call speaking in fucking code?
“America, you have built your house at the foot of a volcano. That volcano is now spewing lava from different cracks and is rumbling like it’s going to blow. Move your house!” In this case, “move your house” means “end your addiction to oil.”
25 comments:
Apparently Friedman thinks that ending our oil addiction is something that we've never thought of before, instead of something that we have no idea how to do.
Lock yourself in a room with a bedpan and some tomato juice, I hear.
That compound on Bradley Boulevard won't pay for itself, dude. Cut him some slack. Dude's gotta make a million, you know. At his level of brainpower, making a million is like a dolt such as myself making 10k. I should be grateful. WE should be grateful. All hail Tommyboy, prince of puffery.
I'm confused. I heard Friedman imply not so long ago that our prosperity is assured if we all just hunker down and write iPhone apps. What the hell does oil have to do with anything? And anyway why can't we get oil **from** volcanoes?
-- sglover
Do not cast aspersions on the inscrutability of the Mighty Flat Oracle of Friedman, o roundish ones!
To save America, I propose a metaphor tax.
what the voice on the other end of the line is telling us IS as clear as a bell. though it's something more along the lines of "THE GODDAMN PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE MOUNTAIN!"
Urban legend has it that Mencken's columns were all unedited first drafts. I'll bet Friedman thinks he's in good company.
I don't know why you find me so outrageous. Like you, I want fewer globes.
Two words: column inches.
Why is the wake-up call speaking in fucking code?
Dude, read more carefully next time. The coded message didn't come from the wake-up call -- it came from the wake-up call's mom. Its unfolded mom, to be precise.
Also, it's important to note that the lava is spewing from different cracks. Not the same crack, as some might imagine.
I'm with sglover. If we can get oil from babies, we can get it from volcanos!
*image of noble bald eagle*
The wake up call is coming from inside the house!!!
I know what you didn't last summer.
Talking about oil extraction as a volcano is kind of a mixed metaphor right from the get go.
i think that thomas friedman got gas, and then wrote a blog post about it, and that was this column
Ah, the old clear vesuvius parable talking bell wake up call. Always brings me back.
He meant to tell the Libyans to "suck on this volcano."
The whole thing makes no fucking sense at all: truly one of the most incoherent fucking analogies it has been my misfortune to be exposed to. "Move the house" means "end your addiction to oil?" Why not use "move your ass," or "move your car?" To this I say, "Pull my finger." In this case, "pull my finger" means....oh, never mind.
Friedman doesn't need a wake-up call. The Mustache never sleeps.
Seeing Tommy on Charlie Rose after every international crisis is one of my few remaining media pleasures: "What we have to do, Charlie, is we gotta call all our NGOs and tell them to put people on the ground in Egypt, you know, get boots on the ground...not to meddle or interfere but to observe, to see what's going on, and then report back..."
'Today on How To Do It we're going to learn how to build box-girder bridges and play the flute. Now here's Jackie to tell us how to rid the world of all known diseases. Take it away, Jackie!'
and i thought "arab" unrest is being manufactured to drive up the price of oil.
The saddest part was right after the volcano thing.
"No one is rooting harder for the democracy movements in the Arab world to succeed than I am."
Nope, Thomas. No one. Not a one.
Ya think Friedman has seen these boardroom presentations?
http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/14/the_coming_misery_that_big_oil_discusses_behind_closed_doors
via http://www.consumertrap.com/
He sure seems to be ahead of the curve, so to speak, on proposing a soft landing for Big Oil.
And interesting to see that Libya was reaching out to the Mustache:
http://www.libya-nclo.com/Portals/0/pdf%20files/Monitor%203.pdf
via Angry Arab http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/thomas-friedman-and-green-book.html
You are presuming that "end your addiction to oil" means what it says. It might mean "take your mother to the shopping mall". Which in turn might mean "Balls to Mr Banglestein", which might mean "Hiawatha loved Minnehaha". There's really no telling.
Saudi station, Iran station, Kuwait station, Bahrain station, Egypt station, Libya station, Iraq station, United Arab Emirates station, etc.
Post a Comment