Thomas L. Friedman just sucks.  We’ll start there.  Oh, and here too: since I have in the past written reviews of things I haven’t seen or read (like my virtual review of the Sex And The City movie) I ought to tell you up front that I have NOT read Hot, Flat and Crowded and have absolutely no intention of doing so.  I’m also quite sure that it’s entirely unnecessary.  I’ll get to why in a moment.

But first, back to what I was saying before, which is that Thomas L. Friedman sucks.  I know this because I did read as much of his last book “The World is Flat” as I could stomach (which was about five pages.)  I also saw him speak a couple of years ago.  Don’t do that.  He’s bad enough in small doses on television, but hearing him regurgitate the bad metaphors and boring anecdotes on which he’s built an fanbase of sycophantic Barnes & Nobel browsers and editorial page writers was enough to cause me to consider the consequences of thrusting my Pilot V5 pen into my left eye.  Thomas L. Friedman is exactly the sort of huckster I hate most: taking what is immediately apparent to anyone that thinks about it for a minute, recasting it in a metaphor that makes an audience feel smart for understanding it, then serving it up with a “gosh, isn’t this brilliant of me” verve to the bottom-feeders that hang starry-eyed on every word.  People can leave the event (or finish the book) feeling like they’ve gotten smarter and sporting one more conversation starter for the next cocktail party they find themselves feeling inadequate at: “Hey, have you read the new Friedman? He says the world is FLAT!”

One of these things is flat. It's not the world. I've provided additional visual clues if you have trouble with the process of elimination.

That book, which other NY Times columnists bravely called “brilliant,” seems to have built on a statement made to him by the CEO of Infosys, Nandan Nilekani, while Thomas L. Friedman was in Bangalore.  During a conversation about doing business globally, Nilekani used the phrase “the playing field is being leveled.”   Thomas L. Friedman relates how he couldn’t get it out of his mind and stewed on it until he decided that what Nilekani was actually saying is that world is flat.  He delivers this experience in the book as if he’s realized that Nilekani has purposely passed on a piece of very secret, very powerful information:

I kept chewing on that phrase: “The playing field is being leveled.”

What Nandan is saying, I thought, is that the playing field is being flattened… Flattened? Flattened? My God, he’s telling me the world is flat!

Eureka!  A premise for a book to be sold to lazy, wanna-be intellectuals.  I think I could hear the pop of his boner from here.  The next time Friedman wants a concept for a book, I suggest he save the airfare to India and just sit in on a marketing meeting in a SOHO loft: there’s no shortage of silly idiomatic expressions and metaphors being bandied about at one of those.  But wait!  My advice isn’t necessary (stupid Brad.)  Thomas L. Friedman doesn’t need new metaphors.  He’s actually able to recycle his shitty ones, which he’s done with his new book “The World is Hot, Flat, and Crowded.”  I hope I’m not ruining it for you if I tell you that in this one we learn (ohmigod!) that that the world isn’t just flat, it’s hot and crowded too!

His work here is done, for now. But fear not, citizen! Whenever and wherever there's a need for bad metaphors and books about things you should be able to figure out yourself, Captain Obvious will be there.

Let’s hear it in his words though:

The world also has a problem: It is getting hot, flat, and crowded. That is, global warming, the stunning rise of middle classes all over the world, and rapid population growth have converged in a way that could make our planet dangerously unstable….

I am convinced that the best way for America to solve its big problem – the best way for America to get its “groove” back – is for us to take the lead in solving the world’s big problem.

Heady shit, right?  And it goes on for 448 pages.  O.K., so the world’s hot (global warming) and crowded (global fucking.)  And?  And then Friedman drops this bomb: the next big global industry is ET.  Not E.T., with the finger, and the bike, and Elliot, and the Reeses Pieces product placement.  Thomas L. Friedman’s ET is Energy Technology.  As in wind, solar, etc.  That’s it.  That’s the book.  The world is hot, flat, crowded and there’s a big opportunity in energy technology (I refuse to support his attempt to get another meme attributed to him, especially one as stupid as “ET”).  The rest you can probably figure out on your own.  Only Thomas L. Friedman can take an idea that could almost fill a four page pamphlet and expand it into a 448 page book.  Do I even need to explain why it’s entirely unnecessary to read the fucking thing now?

Anyway, he’s shilling it all over the television so reading it is doubly unnecessary.  I’ve seen him on Maher (who is skilled: he conducted the entire interview with his lips on Friedman’s ass,) I’ve seen him on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and if I see him again I’ll take it as a sign of the apocalypse.

If you’re still with me, you might be asking yourself: “Why are you being such a pissy bitch about it, Brad?” So let me say this about that:  The crap in Thomas L. Friedman’s book, the tripe he spouts on television (did you know that you can fit “ET” into an answer to any question?  I didn’t.) is exactly the sort of pseudo-intellectual poo that passes for intelligent conversation these days and that makes me fucking nuts.  You wonder why people have stopped thinking for themselves?  Maybe because verbose gasbags like Thomas L. Friedman will do all their thinking for them, no matter what the subject.  Thomas L. Friedman’s books remind me of shitty self-help books: all the obvious answers for why mommy didn’t like you without having to figure them out for yourself.

By the way, maybe mommy didn’t like you because you did shit like read bad self-help books.

This is a post from: Bradford Schmidt's blog, Bone In The Fan.

Thomas L. Friedman’s Brain is Hot, Flat and Crowded

After I watched the Presidential debate tonight (about which I do have a few things to say, but they’ll keep,) I flipped over to HBO to watch Real Time with Bill Maher.  I’m not much of fan of Maher, who purports to be a libertarian  but is actually just a third rate comic and an arrogant douche bag.  Sure, he smokes pot so he’s in favor of legalizing it but that’s about as far as it goes for him.

So I find him annoying but he does get some good guests who say stuff you won’t hear other places, so his show is worth a watch. Except of course when he has people like that horrible no-talent hack Janine Garofolo (who’s name is so unimportant to me I refuse to take the time to spell check it.)  Tonight he had Ralph Nader, some actor I’ve never heard of, and Lisa Schiffren on as guests.  First though, he did a quick interview with Chris Rock who’s new special is on HBO tomorrow night.  Plainly a cross-promotion.  Normally that annoys the hell out of me, but being as Chris Rock is hilarious I’ll allow it in this case.  I’ll also watch his special, and I’d advise you to as well.

Anyway, the interesting part of tonight’s Maher was seeing how fucking insane Ralph Nader appears to be.  Full disclosure: I’ve always hated Ralph Nader just for his part in killing the Corvair, not to mention every other dumb-ass, invasive, save-me-from-myself policy he’s espoused since.  But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a raving lunatic; watch a replay of Maher if you don’t believe me.

Ralph Nader, pictured here in 1966 getting pumped up to do to Corvairs what he'd later do to Democrats in 2000.

On the other hand, Lisa Schiffren (who I wasn’t very familiar with) was really good.  While I’m not in agreement with her on everything, she’s smart, didn’t engage in misleading rhetoric, and appears to enjoy playing devil’s advocate.  I like that a lot.

One final thought that I refuse to make into a fourth post on the topic.  Sarah Palin, while having had a great moment at the RNC, appears to be almost as dopey as the media implied way back when.  The reason it popped into my head this evening is that after the debate, Biden went on all the news shows to spin for the Democrats.  NBC explained that while Palin was invited to do the same, the Republicans had elected to send shrunken-apple-face Rudy Giuliani instead.  This clip of Palin on CBS News might help explain why:

So it turns out that when my mother referred to Palin as a brainless beauty queen she wasn’t far off the mark.  Yes, mommy was engaging in a little extremist rhetoric of her own, but really – did you just watch that?  And you’ve got to assume she was prepped for that question.  Which was pitched underhand.  At like 3 miles per hour.

If any person reading this would be comfortable with that woman as President of the United States….well shit, I don’t even know what to say.  Did you watch the clip?  Say what you want about taking sections of an interview out of context, but….did you watch the fucking clip? I never thought I’d actually prefer Biden over anyone, but I think I’d even like that lifetime politician and monumentally gung-ho drug warrior to sit in the oval office over Palin.

At least we’d maintain a little street cred that way.

This is a post from: Bradford Schmidt's blog, Bone In The Fan.

Ralph Nader Is Insane, Palin Is Dopey

I was going to make this part of a list of horrible potential Internet purchases, but I’ve seen the commercial one too many times now, so it rates its own post. Besides, it’s not just hawked on the Internet, meaning there are enough assholes willing to purchase it that it’s actually worth buying TV time.  I’m speaking of course of the “9/11 Coin Certificate: World Trade Center Commemorative” thing you can buy here.

Is it a 9? An 11? No! Add it up to get $20 big Liberian Dollars

Now normally I’d avoid posting a link – but no one that reads this will buy that, and really, you need to go watch the commercial which they have running on the homepage. Because see, it explains all the VALUE this bad boy has.  Including:

• It’s much LARGER than US Currency. This makes it better, though its mileage will suffer.
• The 9 and 11 add up to the value of the “coin certificate.”  Never been done before!
• It has the phrase “we will never forget” on it.  Which I’m sure is true, because I’d never be able to forget making and selling these horrible pieces of shit either.
• It comes with a certificate of authenticity, which confirms its status as “non-circulating Liberian Legal Tender Currency.” So you KNOW you bought something, and that something isn’t money, but it is a real something of some kind.
• It’s exchangeable for coin of the realm! So if you find yourself in Liberia and you only have this huge silver-colored thing in your pocket, you can go….somewhere, one assumes…. and exchange it for 20 Liberian dollars with which you can make a phone call to someone that could wire you some real money. As long as the phone call costs less than 37 US cents, which is what twenty Liberian dollars equates to. This may be why the front says “In Memory” right above “Twenty Dollars.”
• The back has “a stunning design of the new freedom tower skyline, in a silvery tribute to all who were lost on that tragic day.”

Oops – hang on there – I just threw up in my mouth a little.  OK – let me finish.

• The original issue price was supposed to be $39, but you can actually get it for only $20! Sadly, they are limiting purchases to only five per caller, so that sucks. Unless you call back.

The one bright side is that this might provide at least one positive way to leverage the whole expanded-governmental-powers-and-restricted-civil-rights thing going on now: perhaps the government will seize the names and addresses of all the people who bought one (or five) of these things, round them up and toss them in Gitmo, then waterboard them to death, removing them from the gene pool.  You know, because they’re suspected of terrorism or something.

This is a post from: Bradford Schmidt's blog, Bone In The Fan.

September 11th Commemorative Garbage