Absolutely hysterical review of Friedman's book "The World Is Flat"

[lateo]

Sorry if this has already been posted.

http://nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

[freedom_to_read]

1. thank you

one of the better reads I've had in awhile!-

[carnie_sf]

2. This is a great review

reminds me of Molly Ivins' ruminations on *

[Melodybe]

7. Ha Ha

I love the end when he asks, "Is there no god?"

That was awesome, thanks for posting.

[Fenris]

3. "How the fuck do you open a window in a fallen wall?"

:rofl:

[Protagoras]

4. Perfect summation of Friedman's work

Of course my latest book order just came in yesterday and The World is Flat is now sitting on my desk...oh the humanity of it all.

I wish my bank account were half as big as Friedman's ego.

[Fenris]

5. Or his moustache.

[MisterP]

21. is it modelled after Saddam Hussein's or is it just me

and does his share it with Cal Thomas?

[Demit]

6. Oh god, that is brilliant! I hope Taibbi had as much fun writing it as I

did reading it. He absolutely, if I may say, FLATTENS Friedman.

By no means the best part of the review, but a nice sample:

"...Friedman is a person who not only speaks in malapropisms, he also hears malapropisms. Told level; heard flat. This is the intellectual version of Far Out Space Nuts, when NASA repairman Bob Denver sets a whole sitcom in motion by pressing "launch" instead of "lunch" in a space capsule. And once he hits that button, the rocket takes off. ..."

Thanks for posting it!

[mike_c]

8. "Four hundred and 73 pages of this, folks. Is there no God?"

That is one righteous arse-drubbing of a review!

[LizW]

30. Best last line of a book review EVER!

:rofl:

[quiet.american]

9. Taibbi's very last line did me in -- ROTFLMAO!!! n/t

[Totally Committed]

10. That was a very funny review.

Matt can write when his subject is something he really cares about.

I am not a Friedman fan at all, especially after his last appearance on "Real Time with Bill Maher", so this review was something that was eight up my alley.

Thank you so mcu for posting it!

TC

[Pithy Cherub]

11. That review is priceless! "Middlebrow Horseshit" my fave!

Has Cinabon's,herd animals and Freidman acting likes the director for branding for all these corporate concerns. :rofl:

[mrfrapp]

12. Inconsistant Rhetoric

The reviewer, Matt Taibbi is right. Friedman has difficulty getting his "metaphors and images to agree". Take for example his famous essay from 1999, Senseless in Seattle, where he describes the anti-globalist protestors as, amongst other things, "a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates". And here we are, six years later being told that the world is indeed flat.

It would be amusing if it weren't for the fact that people take him seriously.

[Lisa]

19. yes, he does seem to have bad luck with his extended metaphors ...

Or "intellectual conceits", I think the official term is.

Remember his "Golden Arches rule" (about countries that have McDonald's franchises not going to war with each other) -- disproven by the US bombing of the former Yugoslavia shortly after Friedman published it?

[HughBeaumont]

13. Ass-stompin's a'plenty, and deservedly so.

I've always hated "free trade" advocates who can't see the forest for the fire on this issue, and Friedman is one of the worst next to Davy Dreier.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

14. Check out this other article: "Imbeciles at Home"

http://www.nypress.com/18/16/news&columns/markames.cfm

IMBECILES AT HOME
By Mark Ames

If you don't suffer from high blood pressure, then hovercrafting through the vast, foul swamp of the Middle American mind can offer the voyeur a sick thrill.

Take any issue—say, the estate tax.

-snip-

And yet, as the Republicans rightly point out, polls show that most Americans—up to 80 percent—support the total repeal of the inheritance tax. It gets funnier: According to a poll last year by McLaughlin & Associates, 85 percent of those who earn under $40,000 found such a tax on "large estates" to be "unfair," whereas only 78 percent of wealthy people earning over $100,000 found the tax "unfair."

Just for the sick rubber-necking thrill of it all, I went dumbshit-trekking on the Net, and what I found would break Thomas Frank's heart. I spotted Richard Williamson, who posted an open letter on a small suburban Atlanta community website calling on his local Republican Congressman "to eliminate the 'death tax.'" Williamson, we learn, "works for the DeKalb County school system."

[Merope215]

25. Damn

The Fayette Citizen, whose contributors he lampoons, is my hometown paper. It's a right-wing toilet paper rag. The columnists are Bill O'Lielly, Michelle Malkin, a far-right evangelical preacher, and an assortment of local characters. You should check out the website sometime - it provides a fabulous glimpse into the "vast, foul swamp of the Middle American mind." :P

www.thecitizennews.com

[msanthrope]

15. Nearly wet my pants reading it......n/t the review, that is...

[BigMcLargehuge]

16. my favorite quote -

"Told level; heard flat. This is the intellectual version of Far Out Space Nuts, when NASA repairman Bob Denver sets a whole sitcom in motion by pressing "launch" instead of "lunch" in a space capsule. And once he hits that button, the rocket takes off."

[lateo]

17. My favorite...

"The World Is Flat would appear as no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country. It is a tale of a man who walks 10 feet in front of his house armed with a late-model Blackberry and comes back home five minutes later to gush to his wife that hospitals now use the internet to outsource the reading of CAT scans. Man flies on planes, observes the wonders of capitalism, says we're not in Kansas anymore. (He actually says we're not in Kansas anymore.) That's the whole plot right there. If the underlying message is all that interests you, read no further, because that's all there is."

I especially like the way he points out that Friedman is "the most important columnist in America today." And then lets you know that quote is attributed to one of Friedman's co-workers.

LOL

[Jacobin]

18. Wow. Beautiful ass-kicking of the first order

IraqTom deserves it in a very big way.

[Ms. Clio]

20. Hella funny skewering of that insufferable ass Friedman

Thanks for posting it.

[hippiegranny]

22. when the reviews are better than the book...

haha...

I liked this little passage:

>Friedman is an important American. He is the perfect symbol of our culture of emboldened stupidity. Like George Bush, he's in the reality-making business. In the new flat world, argument is no longer a two-way street for people like the president and the country's most important columnist. You no longer have to worry about actually convincing anyone; the process ends when you make the case. <

[hellbound-liberal]

23. It made me sick to see Jon Stewart fawning all over him

saying what a great writer he was. I know Stewart is prone to sarcasm but, on this point, I think he really believed that Friedman knew what he was talking about.

[MisterP]

24. the Pointy-Haired Boss writes a book!

"you go from running to sprinting with gazelles and from eating with lions to devouring with them"

[megatherium]

26. devastating.

"God strike me dead if I am joking about this." Too rich!

[applegrove]

27. He points out the arrogance. Well done. I don't think I have ever

seen a review so decisive.

And funny since Neocons and freepers always attack the structure or the vocab in an argument - to keep from discussing the issues. So this was really quite poignant in that the reviewer really showed what going after the structure could be like - if you know what you are talking about.

[lateo]

29. I agree...

This guy shined a big bright light on how our media props up lame excuses for "jounalists".

[applegrove]

31. Used to be you had to have some sort of talent. I cannot say more

than that about this writer. Because I have not read him. But the review was a 'moment' I will cherish for a long time. And it reminded me of all the times some freeper has tried to obscure the debate by going after anything but the content of an argument.

They cannot win on content.

[roguevalley]

28. I love Matt Taibbi. He did the worst pundit olympics recently. He

is ruthless and hysterical and on my computer, bookmarked.

[elehhhhna]

32. Love this part:

"Man travels to India, plays golf, sees Pizza Hut billboard, listens to Indian CEO mutter small talk, writes 470-page book reversing the course of 2000 years of human thought..."

[TolstoyAndy]

33. no quotes, just go read it

shameless kick with almost no content: just read the original.