Why does my husband Thomas Friedman hate America?

Why does my husband Thomas Friedman hate America?

That's the question on my mind and the minds of a lot of other people.

Having drifted off the ice flow earlier by trashing Americans and the French as lazy, having trashed liberals in this country, Thomas Friedman found a new target for his hatred: General Motors.

"Why are people so mad?"

That's what Thomas Friedman asked, sprawled out on the sofa in his shortie robe, drinking his prune juice and eating chocolate covered cherries. Chocolate covered cherries which, by the way, I can not have any of because Thomas Friedman says that I am allergic. I don't remember being allergic to chocolate covered cherries but, according to Thomas Friedman, I am. So all three boxes of chocolate covered cherries that Nicky K gifted Thomas Friedman with can only be eaten by him. Nice how that works out for him.

Why are people so mad?

I couldn't believe he had to ask.

I grabbed the Friday paper and waved his last column in his face: "As Toyota Goes ..."

"You've advocated the closing of GM! You've spit on the workers and, maybe this will grab you by your chubby ass, the investors!"

"Workers? American workers are so lazy. In India, they work a thirty-five hour day."

"Thomas Friedman you are getting on my last nerve!"

I stormed out. I was furious.

"Prune me!" Thomas Friedman yelled, causing me to spin around and walk back into the room.

"Excuse me?"

"I need more prune juice, Betinna," Thomas Friedman whined in that voice I've become all to familiar with.

"Betinna!" Thomas Friedman whined.

You know, I'm sure my mother loved me very much and put great thought into naming me. But when Thomas Friedman whines it, starting out on one octive but quickly climbing, I really hate, hate my own name.

Taking the glass from Thomas Friedman, I watched as he reached over to the coffee table to grab a paper towel. He kept waving his chubby finers at it but couldn't grasp the paper towel.
Rolling his eyes, he stuck his fingers in his mouth and sucked off the stuff from the creamy center of the chocolate covered cherries.

"MMM!" Thomas Friedman moaned before wiping his hands on his shorty robe.

"The problem is that American workers are just too lazy," Thomas Friedman declared with a straight face.

Shaking my head, I went to the kitchen to squeeze him a new glass of prune juice.

The whole time, I was telling myself that I was not spending another Saturday night holed up in this apartment with him while he watched The District. Those kids upstairs were having a party. And when I was hauling Thomas Friedman's suits from the cleaner, without any help because Thomas Friedman felt a back spasm coming on, that nice Jess offered to help and ended up carrying them upstairs.

Looking through the plastic, Jess asked me, "Are these costumes? Are you some sort of independent filmmaker?"

I wish. I wish I was in anyway or form independent. Instead I am the only woman I know who has a baby with a hairy ass. And yes, he is bigger, but that just means he cries louder and kicks harder.

Jess had invited me up to their apartment for a party Saturday night and I was going.

Thomas Friedman didn't believe me.

"Come in here, Betinna! You're going to miss The District!"

Walking through the living room in my best fitted sheet, I told Thomas Friedman he could stay home watching TV if he wanted but I was going out.

"Betinna," he moaned, "you are allergic to parties!"

I seem to be allergic to quite a bit lately, quite a bit I never knew I was allergic to.

I told Thomas Friedman that I was willing to risk it.

"But what about me!" he howled.

"I will see you later, Thomas Friedman."

As I opened the door, I felt something around my legs and looked down to see that Thomas Friedman had grabbed them.

"Please! Please! Don't go! Stay! Please! Mommy!'

Did he just call me "Mommy?"

"Thomas Friedman," I said in my sternest voice, "I am going to a party. I will be upstairs. You have the choice of coming with me or staying here."

"But I love Craig T. Nelson! I can't miss The District."

"Then that," I began jerking my legs free from his grip, "is your decision. I will see you later."

I was out the door when he ran after me stamping his feet.

"Fine, I will go with!" he hissed.

"Not in that shorty robe," I said giving him a long, slow look up and down.

Fifteen minutes later he emerged, and they say women take a long time, wearing blue sweat pants and a Mountain Dew "Just Dew It!" t-shirt.

On the elevator ride up, he told me I was going to embarrass myself and that no one would want to talk to me "because you are so strange and backward. You can't help it because it is your culture."

I ignored him which is not all that different from what the book buying public is doing but that's a tale for another time.

The door opened and there was Ty. Thomas Friedman looked very nervous.

"Are we interrupting a robbery?" Thomas Friedman asked loudly causing Ty to roll his eyes.

Realizing his faux pas, Thomas Friedman tried to cover, "Come on, let's get 'the robbery started!' That's the new hot phase, all the kids are saying it. I am the great Thomas Friedman and this is my wife. She is black. I have many black friends. Uh . . . Bob Herbert and I spoke at the Christmas party and there's . . . uh . . . Ray Charles!"

"Ray Charles is dead," Ty said.

"He is? Why wasn't I told!"

Maybe because he never knew Ray Charles? Realizing that the longer he was allowed to speak, the deeper the foot in Thomas Friedman's mouth, I left Thomas Friedman standing outside and entered the party.

What a relief after nonstop Thomas Friedman. One moment I was discussing sex and how it had been a long, long time since I'd had any with this well dressed, attractive woman named Rebecca and the next Thomas Friedman was breathing down my neck.

Thomas Friedman greeted Rebecca with, "Are those real or implants?"

Which he followed with a loud chortle.

I started to realize that there is a reason Thomas Friedman does not get out more.

"They're real," Rebecca declared, narrowing her eyes, "and you can stop staring at them."

"Those are huge melons! We're talking Dolly Parton!" Thomas Friedman laughed, still think he was being charming.

Turning her head, Rebecca yelled out, "Which one of you f**kers invited John Bolton?"

"John Bolton's here," Thomas Friedman gasped getting excited.

"I am sorry," I explained, "He is not John Bolton. This is my husband --"

Thomas Friedman straightened his "Just Dew It!" t-shirt and plastered a smile on.

"Thomas Friedman," I continued.

"What?" he sputtered.

"Where was the great?" Thomas Friedman squealed. "The Great Thomas Friedman! The great! Is that too mcuh to ask for, huh? The Great Thomas Friedman."

"You poor dear," Rebecca said patting my shoulder before walking off.

"Thomas Friedman, you are scaring people away!"

"No, no, no," he clucked. "It is not me. It is you. I told you no one would like you here. Come, we'll go back to the apartment and watch The District and you won't have to expose yourslef to this sort of ridicule anymore."

Spotting Jess, I left Thomas Friedman standing to the side and walked over to hear Jess sing and strum a guitar. Eventually Thomas Friedman came up behind me and started snapping his fingers to the glare of many as Jess finished up "Where Are You Going?"

"That was out of sight, man," Thomas Friedman said loudly. "Was it Barry Manilow?"

"It was Dave Matthews Band," Jess said staring at the strange man.

"Well you know what you should do, man? You should learn 'Mandy.' That's a classic. Or, for something more up tempo, 'Copa, Copa Cabana.' That'd get everyone dancing, man."

"I'll take it under advisement, 'man,'" Jess replied with just a hint of sarcasm.

"You got an accordian around here?" Thomas Friedman asked. "If so we could really work up a jam, man. I do a hot version of 'Smoke On The Water.'"

Ignoring Thomas Friedman, Jess turned to me and said, "Betinna, I'm so glad you could make it. Do you need a drink?"

"Sure. Thank you."

"What'll it be?"

"Do you have a beer?" I asked as Thomas Friedman gasped.

As Jess went off to get my beer, Thomas Friedman groaned.

"One," he hissed through clenched teeth. "My wife does not drink beer. Two, me and the kid were connecting. We were talking tunes. You do not understand American kids Betinna. This is not the sink hole of an island you grew up on. Never interrupt two men when they are discussing music. Three, you are embarrassing yourself repeatedly."

Jess returned with a beer, which I accepted and then quickly moved as far away from Thomas Friedman as I could get.

A young woman named Ava had just introduced her to me when there was Thomas Friedman once again.

"Hey, I'm the great Thomas Friedman. Betinna is my wife. I got a story for you that you'll like. I was in a cab last week with a Mexican driver and he told me, 'Thomas Friedman, although you are America, to me you are also Mexican because you are my brother, mi madre."

"Why would I like that story?" Ava asked.

"Because it was about one of your people," Thomas Friedman explained looking at her like she was the dense one.

"I am not from Mexico," Ava said looking bored.

"Well then think of your parents," Thomas Friedman persisted.

"They are not from Mexico either."

"Oh. Well I was at a deli the other day and this fellow from Peru came up to me and --"

"Excuse me," Ava said walking away.

"Golly gosh darn it!" Thomas Friedman said stamping his foot. "Betinna, you are embarrasing me!"

"I do not think you need any help with that," I said evenly. "Now quit following me around. I see enough of you every other day of the week. Every time I turn around, there you are lurking! Get lost."

As I walked away, I could hear him whimper, but I was here to have fun.

Damn it, that's what I was going to do.

Suddenly, the stereo was playing. A man grabbed my hand and said, "Let's dance."

As we did, he introduced himself as Jim and asked me if I was okay?

"Yes, why?"

"I see that weirdo who looks like John Bolton following you around. He's so creepy."

"Oh that," I laughed. "That's my husband. He is creepy. Until you get to know him. Then he's just weird. Then you get used to his weirdness and he's just dull."

As the song ended, Jim walked me over to his girlfriend. As they kissed, I thought about how the last time Thomas Friedman and I kissed, if you can call it that, was when we were playing Bill Keller Will Grovel and I was down on my knees kissing his butt saying, "Thomas Friedman, you are a great man, you are a wise man. We should change the paper's name to The New Thomas Friedman. Or Thomas Friedman's New York Times. . . ."

Dona nodded to me and asked who the weirdo was going around telling stories about cabbies?

"That is my husband."

Dona grimaced and mouthed sorry.

"No problem."

"Is he all there?" Dona asked. "I just wonder because apparently every cabbie he's ever met just wanted to sing Thomas Friedman's praises"

"No, he is not all there. And he is Thomas Friedman."

Dona grimaced again and mouthed sorry again.

It was time for some sort of reading and Jess, Dona, Jim, Ty and Ava took turns reading lines.

As I remember it, this is what they read:

Editorial: "Illegal" bombing raids? When will the domestic press note this?
A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war "to put pressure on the regime" was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.
The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began "spikes of activity" designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.
The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was "not consistent with" UN law, despite American claims that it was.
The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers -- the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.
It's Sunday, it's the editorial, we're highlighting a report, so of course it's Michael Smith's. Of course we have to look overseas to find "British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office" in The Sunday Times of London.
"Illegal under international law?" That's a chage, a strong one. We're confused as to why it's received so little attention. "Spikes of activity," as we've noted here and C.I.'s noted at The Common Ills, mean the increased bombings that took place before Congress authorized the Bully Boy to act. "Spikes of activity" also refer to the attacks on a country supposedly run by a madman possessing WMDs that he was looney enough to use. That was the public commentary from the Bully Boy and the Boy-ettes, right?
As C.I. wrote, you can't have it both ways. You can't claim "Saddam has WMDs! We're all at risk!" and increase the bombings. If you really believe the WMD lie (we all know it was a lie now, right?) you don't attempt to start a war before you're ready. You don't put your country at risk. If you really believe there's a risk, to invite an attack when you're unprepared, a WMD attack, may border on derelicition of duty for the one who wanted the whole nation (military and civilian) to call him "commander-in-chief." (Note to Diane Sawyer, unless you enlisted, he wasn't YOUR commander-in-chief, nor was he the Dixie Chicks' "commander-in-chief.")
Now if you feel there's no risk, then that means you were lying. You were lying to the people, you were lying to Congress.
We're prepared to argue either way, just let us know which lie you intend to stick to this time.
Did you believe Saddam Hussein had WMDs and that the nation was risk? If so, you put everyone at risk by increasing the bombings to invite an attack.Did you not believe in the WMD myth? If that's the case, you lied us into war.
We're betting it was the second one but we're aware that the only one who has more of problem than our mainstream press with applying the term "liar" to you is . . . well, you.
So do you want to stick to the "I told the truth!" defense?We think it's a loser. (We think both are losing positions for you.)
Sticking to the "I'm another George who can never tell a lie" defense leaves you wide open for charges of recklessly endangering the citizens and the nation you swore to protect. Sometimes, it seems like the Bully Boy really forgets his job duties.Again, tell us which story you're going to stick to so we can make our case. We'll take either option: lying us into an illegal war or risking the lives of many Americans.
As for the press, one Scott Shane article does not a paper of record make. Possibly The Timid's been limbering up for a limbo contest? If so, trust us, you'll surely come in first. Now how about getting back into the business of news?
The nation needs to know what's going on and what is at stake. Citizens have depended upon one another because the press didn't do their job. Publicity releases do not a news article make.
But we think, deep inside, there's a part of you that's itching to prove what you can do. Somewhere inside, you want to strut your stuff if only to prove to the country that the bloggers (making up Bill Keller's fantasy "circle jerk") are full of crap.
Have at it, big boys & girls. Pimp slap us around by showing just what you can do when you marshall all the reporters you have on staff and use the full weight of your paper to get behind a story.
But until that day comes, lose terms like "circle jerks," or "arm chair media critics" (another one Keller's fond of) and drop the attacks on web sites and bloggers because the reality is we've done the reporting you've refused to do.
"Reporting!" we can hear the snort coming down from Mount Keller.
Yeah, the same kind of brave reporting you run on Monday where a Timid reporter "reports" from the safety of his or her arm chair on who said what on the Sunday Chat & Chews.
The Associated Press is getting behind this story. A few regional papers have already run their opinion pieces. Rumblings all around, probably not a good time for The Timid to take a pass.
As we said in last week's editorial, "Mainstream press, do your damn job."
Hats off to C.I. who got two mentions of the latest from The Sunday Times of London up last night (while on a break from helping us). We're sure that what C.I. could do in fifteen minutes, you with your large staff can do in five. If you apply yourselves. We'll be handing out grades next week.

We all applauded, except for Thomas Friedman who was plowing his way through the guacamole when I glared at him.

"We've got a real treat," Ava declared. "A really special person is here tonight."

Wiping his hands on his "Just Dew It!" t-shirt Thomas Friedman winked at me. I used to think that was cute.

"So put your hands together and get ready to be blown away," Ava said.

Looking over at Thomas Friedman beaming, I noted that he had guacamole in his mustache.

Good, I thought. I couldn't believe that he was once again about to make it all about him.

"Give it up for C.I.!" Ty hollered.

Thomas Friedman had almost pushed his way to the front when he heard "C.I." He immediately ran to my side and began muttering but I was applauding too loudly to hear what he was saying.

C.I. started to a do a reading and I had to tell Thomas Friedman to shut up. C.I. said something like the following:


Islam Online reports that US occupation forces have detained Iraqi women as "bargaining chips" (Omar Salah Al-Din & Khalid Yassin El-Yassari)
US occupation forces completed on Sunday, June 19, the release of twenty one Iraqi women held as a bargain chip in the northern city of Mosul."
The release came after massive protests organized by the Islamic Party and the Islamic organization for human rights over the past three days," Nour Al-Din Al-Hayalli, the Islamic Party's media officer in Mosul, told IslamOnline.net.
The Islamic party championed a massive demonstration following the Friday prayers on June 17 to press for the immediate release of all Iraqi women in the US custody.
Assembling outside the Sedek Rashan mosque, protestors denounced the American occupation for dishonoring the Iraqi people by detaining women.
They carried photos of detained women, demanding the government of Ibrahim Jaafari to live up to its responsibilities toward the Iraqi people.
The above was sent in by Erika. It's from Islam Online, Omar Salah Al-Din and Khalid Yassin El-Yassari's "US Frees Iraqi Woman Detainees After Protests" and it's disgusting (as Erika noted in her e-mail). Barganing chips? We're holding women as bargaining chips?
Is this story in our press (United States)? No one but Erika e-mailed on it so I'm thinking it's not. (As always, I could be wrong.)
So our hearts & minds campaign now includes taking women and holding them as bargaining chips? And that's apparently okay or, at least, something we're not going to talk about.
I don't think so. It is not okay, it is not alright, it is not "the product of war" or "collateral damage." If the report is true it's disgusting. There is no "higher ground" left for us to take in Iraq, we're firmly in the gutter now.
Al-Hayalli said many Iraqi families have complained that the occupation forces were holding women as a bargain chip against relatives reportedly involved in resistance operations.
That's how we do things now? The Bully Boy tries to the turn the military into the mafia?
How exactly did the discussion for that plan of action take place?
Rummy: We think we know some resistance fighters but we can't catch them. So what if, I was watching Scarface last night, we went after the women?
Bully Boy: Great idea! I love it! Reminds me of when we used to do panty raids in my prep school!
Rummy: But you went to an all boys prep school?
Bully Boy: What's your point? Do it, Rummy! Do it!
Is that how it went?Who made the call that it was okay to grab people as barganing chips?Let's note, they don't even know who the resistance is. They may suspect, but they don't know. So on suspicion of the activities of some, they grabbed people that they don't even think are involved.
Do you realize how disgusting that is? How far from what we're supposed to stand for that takes us?
If the protests hadn't led to the women's release, what next? Do we decide, if the resistance continues (and it will) that we start "offing" a few of the women we have detained to show the resistance we mean "business?" Is that the next step?
You've already done a round up and imprisoned people that you think are innocent. You've already violated that aspect of what America is supposed to stand for. It's not that hard to then decide that you'll torture these detained women or worse.
This is disgusting. Erika is exactly right, this is vile and goes against all notions of what we're supposed to stand for. There is no justification for it -- no legal or moral justification. It's just flat out wrong, flat out illegal, flat out immoral, flat out unethical. It never should have happened.
And that's the thing, day after day we lose our grip on what we're supposed to represent. We trash notions of democracy, notions of freedom, notions of rule of law. The invasion/occupation should never have happened to begin with.
But those who want to argue we need to "stay the course" regardless (think of Betty's "husband") better realize what we're turning into and what we're doing over there. They better realize what we're sacrificing and destroying within ourselves and our concepts of freedom and humanity.
It's not getting better. Trot out the Happy Talkers, launch a new round of Operation Happy Talk, tell us that ceiling fans went up in some building or that you're really going to work, at some point, on the water system (how long have we been waiting on that?). Keep jaw boning about things that have nothing to do with what's going on.
And the New York Timid won't tell you about it. Embed reporters, reporting from the Green Zone, have other concerns. Which is why one of them (you know which one) can go on radio and speak of what "we" are trying to do. They've lost objectivity, they've forgotten that they're not there to write titters for the base newsletter, that they're actually supposed to be reporting on what's happening, not what Centcom tells them is happening, but what is actually going on.The stay the courses see an event like the one excerpted above and avert their eyes or speak of the "costs of war." I'm not prepared to pay the "cost" of abandoning living in free society. Nor am I prepared to go along blindly as we degrade everything we are taught to hold dear. The longer we are over there, the more we lose our way.
What's going on Iraq, the destruction of Falluja, whatever, it's disgusting. But for those Happy Talkers who see Iraqis and only see the "other," let's put this to their base self-interests because they lack the ability to see the humanity in anyone who doesn't look like them or talk like them.
So Happy Talkers need to ask themselves how much are they prepared to "pay?" What "cost" is okay?
They don't care what goes on over there. They justify it as needed to "spread democracy" or some such b.s. Well, what about what it's doing to our country? I won't note the military casualities because that doesn't seem to bother them either.
But I will note that we long ago crossed a line and if they're okay with that, if they're okay with tossing out everything we're supposed to stand for and believe in, then these people who paint themselves as uber patriots really must hate this country. You really have to hate it to trash every concept that we're taught it was built upon.
We're becoming something very ugly. Forget in the rest of the world's eyes because Happy Talkers aren't concerned with that or "global tests" or "polls." But we're becoming something very ugly in our own eyes. And we can look away or pretend it's not happening, but it doesn't change reality.
When we're silent on Iraqi women being detained because their family members are suspects, we're giving our approval. Silent or otherwise, we're endorsing that as okay. So when that "policy" that we're okay with comes back home and we start seeing it used by law enforcement in this country, we've already endorsed it. We've said it's "what had to be done" with our shrug or silence and, therefore, there's no reason for it not to be used here.
Certainly, we have horrible crimes in this country. So if it's okay to be used in Iraq, then it's okay to be used here, right? Maybe we'll start out by using it on someone accused of terrorism?
The administration loves to convict by the press. They're not so crazy about getting anyone into an actual court room (ask Jose Padilla), but they're happy to try their cases through the media.
So they pick X. X's is an American citizen. Probably of Arab descent because that's easier to target without a huge uproar. People get nervous apparently about defending rule of law because, well, it's a person of Arab descent, what if they did do something!
Rule of law is rule of law. Everyone's guaranteed their day in court. (It's just the Bully Boy who thinks he can subvert the Constitution.) But knowing that someone of Arab descent won't stir a lot of concern in our press or public, they target X.
Then after, what?, three years in a prison, holding cell, or military base, they come back out to the mikes and cameras and reveal that they didn't have luck "cracking" him so they've also taken in his wife. They don't think she did anything, they're not accusing her of anything, but they needed a "bargaining chip." So it's okay, right?
And probably for some people it will be. The Timid may launch an editorial, a tiny one, but there won't be huge press coverage and what there is will just repeat the administration's line without questioning.
So we've used family as a "bargaining chip" there. And there wasn't an uproar. Even though it goes against every legal convention in this country. So what's next? Drug dealers? Do we detain their family members? What about organized crime? Probably that's where we'd hit hardest because we likened, in the initial round ups following 9-11, "terrorism suspects" to members of organized crime. So we'll go after family members of organized crime suspects (suspects, no convictions), family members we have nothing to charge them with, and we'll round them up and detain them.
At what point in this process do you say no?
It's not very "American" to do any of it. But it's not very "American" to detain Iraqi women as "barganing chips." What it is is shameful. It goes against everything we're supposed to believe in. The Bully Boy has so trashed our notions of self that things are being done in our name, under his orders (Diane Sawyer couldn't stop noting he was "our commander-in-chief" in that looney attempt to shame the Dixie Chicks), that it's hurting us. Not just in terms of blowback, but in terms of what we stand for and how we see ourselves.
Again, Erika's right. It's disgusting.
There are other reasons to "Bring the Troops Home," ones that don't involve our own self-interests. (Link takes you to the February 2005 editorial from The Progressive. We noted it in January and agree with all the points raised.) They are solid reasons and we've endorsed them and continue to do so. But for those Happy Talkers that can't seem to grasp any concern further than their own noses, maybe it's time for them to ask what "costs" they are willing to pay in terms of their own lives and liberties and how far they're willing to allow the Bully Boy to trash the United States.



When it was over, all Thomas Friedman whispered to me, "Well I should have been credited by name, but I realize that many people are intimidated by me. See, I am the New York Times. I like that kid."

Thomas Friedman headed for the buffett table and began inhaling taquitos.

"Oh my God!" the woman exclaimed. "I have the flat sheet that goes with the fitted one you're wearing!"

She introduced herself as Kat and drug me over to the stereo where we went through the CDs wondering what to listen to next.

Looking over, I saw Thomas Friedman standing by himself. Grinning as he chowed down on quesadillas.
I knew this would somehow all be rewritten in his mind. And in his column, I'm sure. Suddenly he will have been the center of attention. With each and everyone at the party stopping him to inform him of how much they enjoy hi scolumn. Pulling out clipped copies of his column to read the inspiration part that turned their lives around him.

Then I thought, "You know Betinna, it's not all about him. Find another topic."

Which I did. I ended up having a blast.

Later in the apartment, Thomas Friedman was still floating from being "mentioned." That lasted about thirty minutes before he started moaning and gasping that he was having an asthma attack.

"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" he kept screaming.

"Thomas Friedman, you are not having an asthama attack," I said trying to remain patient and calm.

He would not listen. He kept clutching his throat and finally called Nicky K who came over right awy much to the displeasure, I'm sure, of Mrs. K.

Bursting into the bedroom after I opened the front door, Nicky K gasped. I do not think he had ever seen Thomas Friedman when we were in the middle of playing Iraqi invasion and Thomas Friedman was all tricked out in Judy Miller garb.

Thomas Friedman had the wig on. He had the the drab, brown, dress on that looks ridiculous when Judy Miller wears it (is she going trick or treating as a Brownie?) and with the bright red scarf tied around Thomas Friedman's neck. Tied tightly around Thomas Friedman's neck.

That is, in fact, why he couldn't breathe.

After Nicky K got over his shock and stopped giggling, he walked over to Thomas Friedman, asked, "Do I call you Judy or Thomas?", and untied the scarf.

Inhaling deeply, Thomas Friedman repeatedly thanked Nicky K for saving his life, "man."

Did I detect a sense of superiority in Nicky K? I think I did.

Today, Nicky K came by with more boxes of chocolate covered cherries and Thomas Friedman recieved him warmly, wearing his shorty robe, natch.

Thomas Friedman can have guests, but I cannot even speak on the phone. I met a delightful guest at the party, Folding Star. Thomas Friedman was impressed as he eavesdropped on our book conversation. But then Thomas Friedman had to butt in and mention his own book.

"I really haven't read it," said Folding Star. "Who wrote it?"

Thomas Freidman immediately went froze Folding Star out for the rest of the party. And now, everytime that Folding Star calls, Thomas Friedman says I am not home.

Thomas Friedman has been eating his chocolate covered cherries, wearing his shorty robe and crashed out on the couch all day. Between commercials during The Young & the Restless, All My Children and Passions, he has been yelling out "Prune me!" or "More Doritos! Cool Ranch!"

Even with the constant stuffing of his mouth, he has found time to mutter. He has muttered things such as not only should GM shut down and be replaced with Toyota but that other companies should go out of business as well. For instance, Krispy Kreme doughnuts which Thomas Friedman feels is a "little too skimpy on the sugar." And Hanes' underwear which Thomas Friedman feels is using cheap materials which is resulting in his pairs splitting when he bends over.

If you ask me, the problen is not the material, the problem is that he spends all his time on that couch, in his shorty robe, eating candy, cheese and crackers, Cool Ranch Doritos and drinking, always, his Mountain Dew.

I am dreading his column in two days. I wonder who there is left to attack? And as it is, he is already being accosted on the street on those rare times he goes out by practically everyone.
If we are all lucky, he will just write a column about how he is "down" with the kids, about how he is a "guru" and "philosopher-king" (two phrases he has been tossing around lately) to the youth of America.

Let's Talk About Thomas Friedman

Quicker than he cry out "Gut check time!" and faster than he can string together a whole host of half-baked Mc-Ideas on how to have it his way in a flat world, Thomas Friedman finally managed to prove to people passing by that he wasn't John Bolton, but that he was possibly something far, far worse.

There we were, Wednesday morning, on our way to the Second Avenue deli he liks so much, he was talking real fast, rubbing his belly while he spoke of, "Rice pudding! Rice pudding! Betinna, I'm going to get me some rice pudding!" when it finally happened.

"Aren't you Thomas Friedman?" an elderly woman asked approaching us.

I don't know who was more shocked, Thomas Friedman or me.

This never happens. Trust me, this never happenes. When he's announced for a book signing, the two or three people that turn out for it generally know he's Thomas Friedman but despite all of his talk of "a cabbie from Bejing," "an elevator operator from Belfast," "a taxidermist from Belgium," no one ever recognizes him.

They mistake him for John Bolton a great deal. It's the mustache and I have tried and tried to get him to lose it. He thinks it makes him look distinguished. I think it makes him look like he's part of the Ant Hill Mob in search of Penelope Pitstop, but hey, I'm just the wife.

So that a woman recognized him was a huge deal. Even the born with a finger on the bragging trigger Friedman was at a loss for words for about thirty seconds.

And that's all it took for her to rolls up her newspaper and hit Thomas Friedman over his big snout with it.

"You're a stupid, stupid man!" the elderly woman spat before walking out.

It was like something out of The Runaway Bride but when I said that to Thomas Friedman and told him he was like Richard Gere, that only angered him more.

"Oh and who's Julia Roberts? Judith Miller!" he whined. "I am America's sweetheart! I am! I am!"

Not today, Thomas Friedman, not after "Let's Talk About Iraq" which seems to have angered everyone from the five burroughs of NYC and beyond.

We never made it to the deli. After about the twenthieth person accosted Thomas Friedman on the street, we hailed a taxi and went home. Apparently some days, the only thing to do is sulk in the safety of your shorty robe which is exactly what Thomas Friedman proceeded to do.

"Why do they hate me!" Thomas Friedman sobbed.

"Come now," I said trying to point out the obvious, "You've given them good reason."

Thomas Friedman glared at me, asked me if I'd been taking my vitamins but then went back to focusing on himself.

"It's not my fault that stinking liberals have no plans!"

"Now Thomas Friedman, you do not know that. That is why you are in trouble. You go off half-cocked making your half-baked statements in your half-assed way and it comes back to bite you in the ass. Just because your paper doesn't report on something doesn't mean it has not happened."

"That is it!" Thomas Friedman hollered. "It is because of the paper! It is not because of me! I am still the toothsome sweetheart of America! I am just trapped in a stupid vehicle like when Julia Roberts had to promote I Love Trouble!"

"Thomas Friedman," I said evenly, "no one forced you to endorse that we go into Iraq with overwhelming force. There are people who think we do not belong there. That we shouldn't be there. That having made the mistake of invading and occupying we should now do the right thing and get the hell out so that the Iraqis can decide their own fates."

"Nonsense! They are a backwards people, not unlike yourself. What would they do if we did not tell them what to do?"

Thomas Friedman is never wrong. It is always everyone else in the world. Living with Thomas Friedman, that's one of the first lessons you learn.

By late afternoon, after he's spent the entire day watching Passions, The Young and the Restless and Green Acres while eating his beloved cheese in a can directly out of the can and getting most of it on his shorty robe, Thomas Friedman was a mess, a sobbing mess.

Thinking maybe this was the time to attempt to reach him, to provide him with a dose of reality of what the left did and did not think, I logged onto the computer and hunted down "Should This Marriage Be Saved?"

I'm thinking maybe this will help him understand what some on the left think and how insane his remarks were. But he keeps interrupting over and over with "Who's Sandy?"

"Sandy is Iraq!" I scream after the fourth time I've had to stop to explain to him. "The speaker is the United States! Sandy is Iraq! The marriage is the occupation! Jesus, you're supposed to be a writer! Can't you follow an analogy!"

"You don't have to be so huffy," Thomas Friedman says miffed, smoothing the edges of his shorty robe.

"Look, this is the part that's about you. Do you want to listen?"

"Me?" Thomas Friedman asks excitedly. "Oh read it! Read it, Betinna!"

So I do:


"You've got to make it work!" that's what I get told. And like last Sunday my friend Tommy, well he's not really my friend. I don't even care for him. I don't know why he's always showing up telling me what I need to do. I'm not so sure he even knows what he should do himself. But he always issues these proclamations like some coach from Hoosiers morphed into Dr. Phil with a dash of Sally Jessy Raphael. Or something.
So Tommy's blustering to me, "Improv time is over. This is crunch time. This marriage will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile." I don't even know what that means! I don't think he knows either. I would've asked him but I was afraid that he'd babble on some more, you know?
I mean, I just wanted to get away from Tommy. Trust me, a lot of people feel that way. It's not just me. I was all, "Uh huh, later Tommy."
Then I bump into Nick. Now Nick seems like a good guy. I don't doubt that he cares, but we're always getting into disagreements because Nick is the type who makes these "universal truth" statements but often doesn't have all the facts. I'm sure you know someone like that. (Hopefully, you aren't someone like that!) He's the type who'll say, "No one ever cared about foreign athletes until the missionaries went ___" wherever. And you can say, "Woah, Nicky! That's not true. The Olympics have been going on for decades! Longer even!" But he's just read something about some missionary and he's convinced that history has just begun or something. He means well. That's what I try to remember, that he means well.
So Nick weighs in with, "If you leave too soon, Sandy will fall apart. There are areas that aren't strong enough to take this, areas in Sandy." Or like, "Sandy could sink into this really dark period and do you know about mortality rates in a situation like this, because I do!!!!" And then he's giving these examples that he just read and I'm already tuning him out.
I pay attention when I hear him say something like, "Granted, my argument for staying the course is a difficult one to make to you when your immediate concern is your own life. There's no getting around the fact that if you stay, you will be unhappy at best. And at worst, who knows . . ."
I think he's going back into morality rates. I don't know. I nod and stand there thinking about what I need to pick up at the grocery store.
"I also have to concede," he begins and that gets my attention because I always forget he uses that language not to make a real concession, but as a debating ploy, "that this friend of yours who's saying you should just end it may in the end be proven right: perhaps you and Sandy will stick it out and even so end up divorcing? After squandering both of your lives, both of your dreams."
Nick means well, but he really loves the sound of his own voice, so I hurry away while he's still yammering on about how the marriage has left Sandy "desperately vulnerable and it would be inhumane to abandon . . ."
I'm just trying to get back home, you know? Wow! That works on so many levels. Talk about insight. Anyway, so then I bump into the Billy Goat Gruff, you know the type. I'm sure there's at least one who lives in your neighborhood. Willie's always screaming, "Turn down that music!"

"Do you get it, Betinna!" Thomas Friedman exclaims interrupting me.

I sigh thinking that at least he's understood, he's grasped an idea that never made the pages of the paper he works for.

"I was top-billed! Not Nicky K! Not William Safire! And Judy Miller isn't even mentioned!"

Thomas Friedman was dancing a little jig on the shag rug carpet, his shorty robe flying up and down as he jerked his body with a kind of energy one doesn't expect in a stocky man of his age.

"Top-billed! Because I am America's sweetheart! I am!"

Want to talk Thomas Friedman? That's Thomas Friedman. From the beginning to the middle to the end, it always has to be about him. He'll never learn anything that hasn't been trumpeted on the pages of his paper and he'll never move beyond focusing on himself.

Ripping off his shorty robe, he ran out into the hall screaming, "I am America's sweetheart!"

I didn't hear of him or from him until nine hours later when the vice squad called. Now I've got to go all the way crosstown to bail him out of jail because he got picked streaking up and down Lexington Avenue.

And that, in a nutshell, is life with my husband Thomas Friedman.

Behind every great ego

Utterly Delicious? Don't be silly. Everyone's excited, a new place, a new beginning. Nicky and Mrs. K are excited. Thomas Friedman's acting excited. I'm the only one who is realistic.

Of course we ended up at the usual 2nd Avenue deli. Mrs. K was upset but as I told her at least it wasn't the French bakery.

She didn't look any happier when Thomas Friedman pulled out his latest column, "Behind Every Grad..." and began reading from it.

"People loved this one!" Thomas Friedman gloated.

Two things about that. "This one." Of course they loved it compared to the last one where he insulted the French, Americans and the poor. After that low blow, he could have written about how he has to trim his nostril hairs twice a week or else it looks like his mustache has horns and they would have loved it. Second thing, it was published that day. He hadn't taken a call, he hadn't been online. How does he know that "people loved this one!" when he's spoken to no one?

Now, yes, an old woman did stop us on the way into the deli and say, "I know who you are."

She, of course, added, "And I hope you don't get confirmed," before spitting on the ground and storming off. Because, like so many, she thought he was John Bolton. I keep telling him it's the mustache.

So he reads the first paragraph:

You don't expect to learn much at a graduation ceremony - especially if you're the commencement speaker. But I learned about a truly important program at the Williams College graduation last Sunday.

Mrs. K leans in and whispers to me, "Could he be more in love with himself?" so right away I know she doesn't read his columns regularly because, obviously, he can be and often is.

By the time he's summing up with how the greatest skill is to learn how to learn and the best way to learn to learn is to love to learn, even the people at nearby tables have a glazed look about them.

His voice booming, he stood with a flourish, tossed back his head and cried, "How about it?"

Mrs. K looked around at the silence greeting him and then politely clapped which caused others to clap.

"They love me," he whispered as he took a bow.

Now I don't know about that because while I was waiting in line for the ladies' room later, a woman stopped me to tell me how wonderful I was.

"A lot of people act embarrassed when they're with someone with special needs," she said patting my shoulder. "Good for you that you're just happy to spend time with your friend."

Needless to say, I didn't repeat that to Thomas Friedman.

When I got back to the table, Nicky K was pulling out a piece of paper and about to start reading. He waited for me to sit down.

This is what he read:

Editorial: Connect the dots

You too can be a well informed American, provided you read the British press. But maybe things are picking up? The Associated Press has a story today entitled "Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing" and we suggest you read it. It's by Charles J. Hanley and here's an excerpt:
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved. A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Bolton fired Bustani, in 2002, because Bustani wanted to put chemical weapons inspectors in Baghdad. Now that might seem strange to you if you rely upon the American mainstream press.
If your news sources are a little more well rounded, you may however remember The Sunday Times of London's Downing St. Memo which reveals, in 2002, that the United States is willing to shape and distort to push forward on the invasion of Iraq. The same invasion that Bully Boy and his minions were saying they had not yet decided to go forward with.
How does Hanley sum up the Downing St. Memo (yes, it's mentioned in the article)? Thusly:
An official British document, disclosed last month, said Prime Minister Tony Blair' agreed in April 2002 to join in an eventual U.S. attack on Iraq. Two weeks later, Bustani was ousted, with British help.
Here's something the memo says that's not in the AP account:
Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The Sunday Times of London published that memo May 1, 2005. What did they publish last Sunday? Michael Smith's "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war." From the opening of that article:
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.
Is a pattern emerging? A pattern that even the mainstream press must begin to notice?
We think it is. But we wouldn't bet the house on it. We've shared our feelings/concerns on the mainstream press in an essay in this edition. The way we see it, the press has plenty to address. It's just an issue of whether they want to or not.
Hats off to BuzzFlash, once again, for finding the Associated Press article and drawing attention to a very important article. As always the place we flocked to when finally getting ready to compose this edition's editorial.


Oh my goodness, it was that Third Estate Sunday Review crowd. I remembered how furious Thomas Friedman was about that when he found them last time. How he howled and screamed.

I look over and he's grinning.

"Buzz flash," he says slowly. "Well that's as good a nickname for me as any other."

Mrs. K looks at Nicky and then tries to explain, "Wait, Thomas Friedman," he makes her call him that too, he thinks he was being nice by not insisting she preface it with "the great," "you're not --"

"Not what!" he demands glaring at her.

She looks at Nicky, then at me. We're both sending looks that say "Don't poke the dancing bear."

"Uh," she says haltingly, "you're not going to finish those potato pancakes?"

Laughing, he slides them over to her.

While I'm sitting there trying not to scream because the most I ever get is my own glass of water (check) and a forkful of something he offers me.

But better he should try to flirt with her, and refer to himself as a regular "Diamond Jim Brady" for sharing his left overs, than he should go into one of his fugue states. I doubt the deli would be as understanding as I am about those.

Quite the contrary, some busboy would probably kick him in the ribs a few time, get no response and then start hollering, "Hey everybody, I think John Bolton's had a drug overdose!"

So what ever gets you through the deli, you know?

But that doesn't mean that yesterday I didn't have some fun. When I was online, I went to that site and printed up their latest editorial. I handed it to Thomas Friedman and said, "It's those kids that gave you the nickname."

Grinning proudly, or at least self-importantly, Thomas Friedman cleared his throat, stood and began reading aloud:

Editorial: Mainstream press, do your damn job

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was "necessary to create the conditions" which would make it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.
The above is from Michael Smith's article in today's Sunday Times of London ("Ministers were told of need for Gulf war 'excuse.'") Yes, Michael Smith again. Yes, The Sunday Times of London, again. And yes, thanks to BuzzFlash for making it the big story on their website this morning.
Last week, we said it was time to connect the dots. Forget connecting them, there are so many now that it's a pointalism work of art that says "We were lied into war!" That comes as no surprise to many of us who were against the invastion/occupation from the start.
But is the clampdown on these revelations from our media not just deriving from a need to kiss Bully Boy ass, but also from the fact that the mainstream media was complicit by acting like cheerleaders instead of reporters?
We have no idea. But we know that wishing the revelations coming out of England wouldn't reach American eyes and ears is a futile desire.
The people are ahead of the domestic press on this issue. Unless the mainstream press desires to become completely superfluous it better begin to do it's job.
In case anyone's forgotten, the role of the press is to inform the public.
Oh that might not be as fun as fluffing for the Bully Boy. It might not provide the "access" that results in so many false claims (but don't it feel good to have Dick Cheney name-check you on Meet the Press!). It might mean, shudder, that the administration might say some mean things about you.
Well those are the breaks. You're in a profession you elected to go into, a profession that is supposed to demand accountability from those in power.
Want to be trusted, do your damn job.
As it stands, you've become the person who denies your spouses drinking problem while the whole neighborhood's whispering about it. Sure we nod to your face and act like we believe you, but as soon as you walk off, we shake our heads and wonder "Who does s/he think s/he's fooling?"
It's become the elephant in the room.
And the press better start addressing it because it's an important topic and, at least right now, we have internet freedoms that China doesn't. We can read papers from outside the US. We can find out what's being reported away from the clamp down.
There is no excuse for a New York Times D.C. editor to claim that the Downing Street Memo may not be verifiable or any other nonsense. Forget that no verification was ever needed for the witch hunt of the Clintons, any second year journalism student knows you report something you're not sure of as, "Others are saying . . ."
We know you're familiar with that method. You use it all the time when you cite unnamed officials. Here you can cite The Sunday Times of London. "The Sunday Times of London is reporting . . ."
There's no excuse for the clamp down. It's making the press look like something worse than cheerleaders. It's making them look like liars with their heads stuck in the sand (or up the Bully Boy's butt).
William Greider titled a book Who Will Tell the People. We know The New York Times is at least familiar with the title because they used it in an editorial not all that long ago. So we ask the mainstream press, who will tell the people?
This isn't esoteric information. It's not arcane. And obviously, the clampdown hasn't prevented Americans from learning about it. You can fluff it all you want (and you have) but the word is getting out. Word will continue to travel. With or without you (to cite a U2 song). But if it continues to travel inspite of you, despite you, you better find something better than "arm chair media critics" and "circle jerk" to slam the new information sources because it's the "arm chair media critics" and the "circle jerk"ers, Bill Keller, that have been doing the job that mainstream press is supposed to do.
A month later, you can finally kind-of, sort-of address the Downing Street Memo that The Sunday Times published May 1, 2005. When will you address it fully? And when will you inform your readers and viewers of other revelations?
When will you address Michael Smith's "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war?" From the opening of that article:
THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.
And do you have plans to explore Charles J. Hanley's Associated Press article entitled"Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing?" If you missed it, here's an excerpt:
John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved. A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani "had to go," particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Your silence has been embarrassing. Your continued silence will render you useless. With you or without you, the word is getting out. To the print press, we ask what happens when your readers realize that you've been playing clamp down? Don't they pay for your paper because they expect to learn what's happening in the world around them? To the electronic press, we ask what happens when your viewers find out that all the chatter about Michael Jackson and other dubious topics have filled the airwaves while real news, news that matters, has been ignored.
Ava and C.I. caught The Chris Matthews Show while they were writing their review.
Chris Matthews had time to address the very important, we're sure, topics of Hugh Grant and John Kerry's college grades. While we're sure there were plenty of chuckles from some viewers, you think they'll be laughing when they realize what you've been sitting on?
We don't think so. We think if the press wants the public's trust, the press needs to do its job.
That's not been happening. You can whine about the mean old bloggers all you want, but you're trashing your own image far worse than any blogging "arm chair media critic" in the midst of a "circle jerk" could. (To use some of Bill Keller's favorite phrases.)
Do your job. Report. Do what you were trained to do.

Sitting down, I waited for the explosion.

There was none.

"Well?" I asked finally.

"I like those kids."

"You do?" I responded in surprise.

"Yeah, they give that namby pamby Bill Keller hell. And how can I not love a group that's nicknamed me buzz flash. It's like I'm a super hero. It's like I'm Flash Gordon."

That's what living with Thomas Friedman is like, it's all about him.

Thomas Friedman: Dull and Duller

Thomas Friedman: Dull and Duller.

This week, that's what I decided he should call his autobiography.

My husband Thomas Friedman, what is there to say? Even his tantrums grew boring this week.

He was a roller coaster ride as usual but, as B.B. King would say, the thrill is gone.

Not even when Nicky K and Mrs. Kristof came over was Thomas Friedman amusing.

Nicky's niece was graduating. And back when Thomas Friedman and Nicky K were talking, Thomas Friedman begged and begged to speak at the graduation.

"I must speak!" he would intone over and over until he sounded like Greta Garbo in reverse.

Finally, and not surprisingly, Nicky K caved. But all of that was before they decided to play their own sad version of Whatever Happened to Baby Bobo Friedman? That was the end of everything. Thomas Friedman mocked and ridiculed Nicky K. Now my husband Thomas Friedman loves to upset Nicky K. But he usually stops once Nicky K's lower lip is trembling.

But as you know, it was very, very ugly.

Nicky K was now in a bind because he had arranged for Thomas Friedman to speak. So ego in hand, he and his wife came for a visit.

Thomas Friedman locked himself in the bathroom which he insists upon calling a "home spa."

Nicky K begged and pleaded, weeping against the bathroom door.

At one point Mrs. K and I exchanged a look. It was obvious she wasn't pleased with her husband's groveling.

I jerked my head towards the kitchen and we went in there to talk over pink lemonaide.

She poured her heart out to me and, though we've frequently gone out to eat as a foursome, we were still really strangers.

Listen to her pour her heart out about how Nicky K always buckled made me realize I didn't have it so bad. Thomas Friedman is easy to control. You just push the vanity button. You tell him he's great or you indicate that he's not great. Either way, he reacts and you can control it.
Most of the time.

But Nicky K's spine is apparently a noodle.

Mrs. K offered that every day their paper is thrown not in the house but in a gulley by the drive. The gulley has a build up of water from the spring rains and each day the paper is too soggy to read. Each morning Nicky K will come back into the house in his purple sweat pants and his raggedy, torn Madonna Like a Virgin concert t-shirt. He will say he will handle it but he never does.

Mrs. K finally said she was calling the paper.

"No, no, you musn't," Nicky K . . . well whined.

He would handle it. So he went outside to wait for the paper the next morning. He waved to the kid and in his hand was a crisp twenty dollar bill. The kid came over.

Nicky K offered him the twenty dollar bill and asked that he not throw the paper in the gully anymore. The kid grinned, snatched the twenty dollar bill, threw the paper into the gully and strode off laughing.

Nicky K wept for hours and hours.

I was just about to tell her about Thomas Friedman's frequent fugue states when he began hollering, his voice booming through the apartment, "Betinna! Prune me!"

Sighing, I stood up and walked into the hallway.

"No prune juice for you, Thomas Friedman," I hollered back.

"Great Gods in heaven!" he shrieked. "I will have prune juice! Prune me!"

As I walked over to the door, Nicky K blew his nose on his shirt cuff and rubbed his red eyes.

"Thomas Friedman, you have been in that 'home spa' for almost 1 hour. You obviously have no problems with regularity. No prune juice for you."

He howled like a wounded animal.

Patting Nicky K on the shoulder, I steered him towards the kitchen while Thomas Friedman continued to cry and howl.

"No prune juice until you get your butt out of that 'home spa!'"

"Why do you be so cruel to me!" Thomas Friedman shrieked. "Why! Why! Why!"

"Knock it off, Baby Jane," I told him. "You want prune juice, get your ass out of that 'home spa' and go talk to Nicky."

Thomas Friedman threw the bathroom door open and charged out in his shorty robe and high drama.

Waving around something thing and white in one hand, Thomas Friedman began to pace madly while hissing, "Nicky, Nicky, Nicky! Must everything be Nicky, Nicky, Nicky?"

He made a large clock line movement with his arm on the question. As he waved the hand around, I recognized what he held between two fingers.

"Nicky, Nicky, Nicky, Nick-vil," Thomas Friedman said pursing his lips and popping his eye balls.

Slapping him on the ass, I said, "No Oscars today, Miss Davis, now get your ass in the kitchen and for God's sake, stop waving around a tampon."

Thomas Friedman sharply turned his head and muttered, "Hmmph!"

But he headed towards the kitchen, shorty robe flying up in the back.

In the kitchen he eventually made up with Nicky K but not before he spent the better part of a half hour sitting on the kitchen table with his knees widely spread in an attempt to harrass Mrs. K and Nicky.

When I called him on that, he giggled coquettishly and tossed his hair back, attempting to call attention to the highlights he had put in this week.

Finally someone noticed them.

"Are you getting more gray hairs?" asked Mrs. K.

Thomas Friedman glared at her while sucking on the tampon.

I handed him his prune juice hoping it would persuade him to put down the tampon.

Either Thomas Friedman screeches in a high drama burst that causes his shorty robe encased body to shake -- or the the even keel Thelma Ritter-style manages to calm him down. Part Bette Davis, part Marilyn Monroe, part Judy Garland, part Sharon Stone and full time creepy, I had to remind myself I was married to this Sybell-like bundle of joy who at any moment might begin acting out the monologue of his favorite scene:

Oh look at you painted up in your little halter top, you're nothing but a litle slut. I'm a Puerto Rican lady senor. You're nothing but a little slut Sybill Ann Dorsett. I'm not a slut. I'm not a slut. I'm not a slut. I ain't no slut!

That can be very embarrassing when we're walking through Central Park and Thomas Freidman is in the mood to "bask" in the "stares of recognition" from others. I always tell Thomas Friedman that they are not looking because they recognized him but because what Molly Shannon can get away with dressed up in a Catholic school girl uniform just comes off bizarre when spewing from the mouth of a stocky, middle-aged man screeching those lines in a public park. The question is, is the hommage to celluloid bitch goddess an act or is it the real thing?

The last comment was made by Nicky K, whispered to his wife but overheard by Thomas Friedman who cocked his head and looked off in the distance as he sipped on the prune juice.
I could just the clunky wheels in his brain attempting to get rolling as he considered whether there was a column in that statement.

That's how it always is when you live with Thomas Friedman, every moment, every scene, he's wondering whether, "Is there a column in this?" Early this week, while watching a grieving Nick Newman return to work on The Young & the Restless, Thomas Friedman got that look.

"Thomas Friedman, there is no column in this," I cautioned.

"But Betinna," Thomas Friedman said, "Brad is telling Nick that he should be at home mourning while Nikki is asking Victor if he's offered to help Nick through this. And all the time Nick is maintaining that he has to be at work because he can't go home and open himself up to those feelings. Don't you get it? The world is flat. The message is all there!"

Thomas Friedman is always looking for a way to promote his own book in these columns. But I told him that he was not going to rip off The Young and the Restless and, besides, he is not grieving. Muttering and ripping at a frayed edge on the front of his shorty robe, Thomas Friedman finally agreed with me.

To distract him, I asked, in my best Dustin Hoffman, "Are you trying to seduce me, Thomas Friedman?"

This so amused Thomas Friedman that he laughed so hard and so long, he began wheezing.

After his coughing fit passed (maybe he should switch to filtered tampons?), he was still beaming.


"Fine, I will do it," Thomas Friedman declared.

Nicky K was happy. Until Thomas Friedman guzzled down the prune juice as though it were a vodka martini.

We knew it was time for a visit with the Albees -- very Who's Afraid of Thomas Friedman and the Big Flat Earth? - so after Nicky K had repeated, "Thomas Freidman is a great man, I am not fit to walk the same earth as Thomas Freidman" for the tenth time, Thomas Friedman finally gave Nicky K a bear hug.

Still hugging Nicky, Thomas Friedman looked at me and Mrs. K, and said, "What can I do? I'm just a people person. Now we shall all go out to eat to some place really special."

"McDonalds?" asked an excited Nicky K.

"Even better," replied Thomas Friedman. "We will all go to Utterly Delicious!"

Knowing we were far more likely to end up at the usual deli on 2nd Street, I didn't share Nicky's excitement. No, I did not dance from foot to foot murmuring, "Utterly Delicious! Utterly Delicious!"

Instead, I just advised Thomas Friedman that if we were going anywhere, he better change out of his shorty robe and into some big boys pants. Looking at the expression on Nicky K's face, I knew he was so happy to be friends with Thomas Friedman again that he'd once again tossed aside his critical thought facilities. But I noticed that Mrs. K was staring a look that seemed to ask, "What fresh hell is this?" She is still to new to the antics of Thomas Friedman to realize that they are best greeted with a yawn. Or, as Thomas Friedman has been known to snarl, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride."

Thomas Friedman is a petty man

Thomas Friedman is my husband. He is also a petty man. Thursday we went out doors, a rare occurence since it requires him abandoning his beloved shorty robe and putting on pants, to go to a French bakery on 9th Street. Thomas Friedman wanted his rice pudding. Jean Claude repeatedly explained that they had no rice pudding. They had many things. They had eclairs and Napoleon's but, yes, they had no rice pudding.

Thomas Friedman began bellowing, "You and your Freedome Bakery suck! You blow!" over and over until we were asked to leave.

The whole time, Thomas Friedman had a perverse grin on his face that seemed to say, "You don't know who you're messing with buck-o!" Or maybe I just think that because he kept screaming it at Jean Claude.

Regardless, it was with trepidation that I read the column Thomas Friedman kept thursting in my face this morning.

It's, as I told Thomas Friedman, the most embarrassing thing I've ever read. Embarrassing because a child knows better. Embarrassing because I'm married to the global village idiot that wrote it.

Note that he once again claims to be in India. He also says he was in Europe. Ninth Street isn't Europe. But Thomas Friedman says "it adds color."

He manages to insult everyone, not the least of which is any reader who took joy in reading in Friedman's columns. There have to a few of those, right?

He never came off more simple minded. Take this sentence, "It is interesting because French voters are trying to preserve a 35-hour work week in a world where Indian engineers are ready to work a 35-hour day." A thrity-five hour day? Again, Thomas Friedman's defense is it "adds color."

Way to tackle the tough issues, I told him.

"Indians are ready to work harder" than Americans and Europeans probably pissed off at least two continents right there. For someone so quick to point a lazy finger, Thomas Friedman is the king of sloth. Many's a day when the only way I can trick him into getting out of bed before ten is to trick him and tell him that The Young and the Restless is on. He swears Nick Newman is so him. Personally, he reminds me more of Victor of the bad mustache.

So who is this highly pampered man to lecture anyone about hard work?

Take this sentence which made my blood boil: "Sure, a huge portion of India still lives in wretched slums or villages, but more and more of the young cohort are grasping for something better."

That's right, Thomas Friedman, disadvantaged people are disadvantaged because they choose to be. And, of course, because they are lazy.

I read that sentence and wanted to punch him in his latern moon-faced jaw.

Thomas Friedman grew very angry at me. I told him I had even started to speak.

"You see yourself as the Paul Revere of the global village," I informed him, "But in truth, you are the world's Gladys Kravitz, the nosy neighbor on Bewitched, peering in the neighbors' windows and forever getting the details wrong."

Thomas Friedman's face grew bright red and he started huffing and puffing. Picking up a can of cheese, he looked at me and I knew he was considering hitting me over the head with it or, perhaps, throwing it in my face yet again.

"Do not even think about it," I hissed. "And for God's sake, put on some pants. That shorty robe does not go with your stick legs!"

As I left the room, he was muttering something about dosage and saying he'd set me straight.
How? Via another "turbocharged" bedroom session. Thomas Friedman calls it turbocharged sex. I call it premature ejaculation. I am seeing a side of Thomas Friedman that is far from pretty. It makes him flat, hairy ass look quite fetching by comparison.

No "gut check" time for you tonight, Thomas Friedman, sleep on the futon.

It's all liars poker with Thomas Friedman

Well today I read my husband Thomas Friedman's column in print. It's called "America's DNA" and it carries a dateline slug of "New Dehli." I don't know what New Dehli is supposed to mean. It's a chore to get him out of that shorty robe each afternoon since we got back from the brief book tour. Trust me, Thomas Friedman is going nowhere.

For a moment, I considered that perhaps it was supposed to read "New Deli." Every now and then he talks of maybe checking out Utterly Delicious. He brings it up every weekend and usually at least once during the week. But he never goes. He'll decide it's too long of a trip.
And remind me that the 2nd Avenue Deli is both kosher and close by, so why bother?

He'll have the beef goulash or the stuffed cabbage. He has to have the noodle pudding "or why bother going?" he always asks. Due to his cholesterol, his doctor's been on him to have more fruits and vegetables. So lately Thomas Friedman has been having the Whitefish Salad. It's a "salad" in the way that potato salad is a "salad" only less so.

And if you think his shorty robe is a daily nightmare, you should see his shirt and tie after a trip to the 2nd Avenue Deli. It's as though Julia Child merged with Jackson Pollock -- a dirty canvas of culinary delights.

Me, I always get stuck with the potato pancakes. If Thomas Friedman's feeling especially generous, I get a bite of his mud cake. But Thomas Friedman tells everyone, "I don't know what the problem with Betinna is, she only loves to knosh."

So let's be clear that not only is Thomas Friedman not in New Dehli, he hasn't even visited a new deli. While we were on the road with his book tour, he did sample a Jason's Deli but he pronounced it to "goyish" and we left without ordering.

From there, the lies just pile up. In the first paragraph, he mentions his daughter.

"Thomas Friedman, is there something you need to tell me?"

That's what I asked. There are no children around our apartment. No grown children come to visit. I am not aware of having birthed any children. So what was that lie?

"Oh, Betinna, people love children," Thomas Friedman explained without looking me in the eyes. "They love to imagine that a man as great and powerful as I, Thomas Friedman, would be highly potent and a modern day Abraham siring an entire dynasty."

Mmmm-hmmm.

Later on, he tells a story about a man who had clipped a Thomas Friedman column and carried it around with him. The closest that ever came to happening was when the young man kept yelling for Thomas Friedman to pipe down during Monster-In-Law and kept threating to "clip your mustache if you don't shut up, John Bolton!"

That's the sort of thing that happened over and over. People usually thought he was John Bolton. And Thomas Friedman would get so mad.

But outside of a few elderly woman, not a great many people recognized Thomas Friedman on the book tour. The few who did usually made a remark along the lines of, "I did not realize that you weighed so much." Thomas Friedman explained that real life adds ten pounds. I followed that by noting that fake cheese from a can probably adds twenty.

But he just got on my every nerve during the road trip.

Look, some of the things he had to say in his column today were worth hearing. But, as I told him, when I pick our laundry or go to that "exotic" store on 488th on 8th Street to pick up whatever item my husband Thomas Friedman has ordered, the people there are going to think that he is New Delhi and that we have children. He is not in New Delhi and we do not have children.

Thomas Friedman told me that I have a "reality hang up" and advised me to go with the times.
I was not sure if, by the last part, he was trying to sell me a subscription or if he was trying to tell me to go with my gut? But Thomas Friedman only uses the word "gut" to describe the fun he has with fish and, of course, when he reaches orgasm and, admist huffing and puffing that would concern me if this continued for a great period of time or even more than thirty seconds, and cries out "Gut check time!"

Thomas Friedman says no one takes it seriously. While my husband Thomas Friedman has lost some prestige and influence, we are still known at the places where we pay our bills.

I said to him, "It is all a game with you."

Thomas Friedman snapped back, "Liar's Poker! And I never lose!"

That about says it all.

Thomas Friedman's Days of Rage and Whine

Oh it has not been a good time to be my husband Thomas Friedman. He has spent the Memorial Day Weekend alternately in a rage and in a fugue state.

When not yelling and screaming, shaking his fists at the plaster on the ceiling, or stomping his feet, he has been curled up in the fetal position sucking his thumb.

I have not seen anything like this before. Even when Gail Collins changed the op-ed schedule he was not this upset. And that is Gail Collins, not Gale Collins. Before I met Ms. Collins, I assumed all those remarks about the destructive gale Collins was my husband Thomas Friedman's railing against the destructive aspects of nature, that he was truly concerned with the lives of others. Needless to say, in weeks that have followed, I have had to revamp that opinion.

Not even Thomas Friedman's favorite snack, soda crackers and cheese from a can, could calm him down this weekend. Nothing could. At one point I attempted to get him to put on his Judy Miller wig but he was having none of that. When I grabbed diapers and put on the Peggy Noonan mask thinking he might want to play William Safire, he ripped the mask off my face.
Even Iraqi invasion or Bill Keller Kisses Thomas Friedman's ass have not been games he has wanted to play.

At one point, when he was ripping out his hair and wouldn't stop, not even when I pointed out that he couldn't get those highlights he's been considering if he was bald, I dropped to the floor and kissed his feet while saying, "Look, I am Nicholas Kristof." Although that stopped his hair pulling, even me playing Nicky was not enough to end his Days of Rage and Whine.

All I have wanted to do was to get on the computer and collect my thoughts. But there has been no time for that. Friday he was feeling slightly well until Nicky K told him that he thought previous columns were better. Nicky K did not realize that I had written the columns that he was praising. I am not sure how many people grasp that. My husband Thomas Friedman has spun around so many times that a shift in tone at this point just appears to be more back pedaling on his part.

At first, Nicky did not realize how upset Thomas Friedman was. I could tell by the look in his eyes that Thomas Friedman was about to explode. Taking a soda cracker off the platter, Thomas Friedman moved over to Nicky and asked him if he'd like one.

"Yes, thank you," responded Nicky.

Thomas Friedman slammed the cracker into Nicky's face nearly poking out Nicky's eyes and making a mess on the carpet.

"Ow! My eye! My eye! That damn cheese stings!" Nicky screamed.

The two got into a horrible row that only ended when Nicky asked Thomas Friedman if he realized he could have blinded him. Thomas Friedman's response sent Nicky storming out of the apartment.

Here it is in full:

"So what! It's not like you use them or you wouldn't insult the greatest writer of all time --"

That would be Thomas Friedman.

"-- so it would be no loss at all. You Joan Crawford, hand-wringing, simpering, psuedo think-tankering, sincerity oozing Dear Abby of the global village! Get out before I kick you up and down Lexington Avenue in your candy ass!"

Needless to say, Nicky stormed out. I am not sure whether it was due to his offense at the way Thomas Friedman characterized Nicky's writing or whether Nicky realized how serious Thomas Friedman was about kicking his ass up and down Lex.

And so began the Days of Rage and Whine.

Things did not get better when Thomas Friedman learned that Baghdad Burning had criticized his writing.

He printed it up and stormed around the apartment reading aloud from it, spitting out each word as he puffed on one of those thin Cuban cigars while I realized that whether or not Nicky was a "modern day Joan Crawford," Thomas Friedman certainly is the Bette Davis of his set.

Here is one portion that he read aloud:

One thing I found particularly amusing about the article- and outrageous all at once-was in the following paragraph:
"Religiously, if you want to know how the Sunni Arab world views a Shiite's being elected leader of Iraq, for the first time ever, think about how whites in Alabama would have felt about a black governor's being installed there in 1920. Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their brutalization."
Now, it is always amusing to see a Jewish American journalist speak in the name of Sunni Arabs. When Sunni Arabs, at this point, hesitate to speak in a representative way about other Sunni Arabs, it is nice to know Thomas L. Friedman feels he can sum up the feelings of the "Sunni Arab world" in so many words. His arrogance is exceptional.

"Arrogance!" he exploded. "I am not arrogant! I am the most generous man in the world! Am I not the most generous man in the world? I am! Betinna, you are a backward woman so Riverbend should be able to relate to you. Get online right now and tell that woman at Baghdad Burning that I am not arrogant! I will dictate what you will write because I know better how to communictate with people like you!"

Needless to say, Riverbend did not respond to the e-mail Thomas Friedman dictated and made me send. Which I am glad about because Thomas Friedman does "shape" events in his narratives. He does promote exceptionalism and, yes, he can be arrogant. As someone who has been on the receiving end of a tossed can of cheese, I would have to say that calling him arrogant is not stretching the truth.

But that was not all that enraged Thomas Friedman. Perhaps to goad him on during his Days of Rage and Whine, Nicky e-mailed him an article he found online. Thomas Friedman was so pleased to see Nicky's e-mail in his inbox.

"Betinna," he called. "Come here at once!"

I was in the kitchen squeezing his prune juice but he said that could wait.

Wondering what the fuss was, I wiped my hands and went to find out.

He was beaming and I was so happy thinking that perhaps his dark mood might be over and he might actually stop his tantrum and possibly bathe and put on something other than his shorty robe.

"Look," he said gesturing to the computer screen. "Nicky has come groveling back to apologize."

"You be nice to him, Thomas Friedman," I said still wiping my hands because prune juice is so sticky. "He has always been very nice to you and stuck up for you. You should not torture him the way you do."

"Nonsense," Thomas Friedman said puffing on his tiny Cuban cigar. "He is the gas bag Baby Jane to my intellectual Blanche. My emotional kicks to his psyche are cleansing for him. That is why I do it."

Baby Jane and Blance are characters in the movie Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? so obviously, even Thomas Friedman grasps that he has Bette Davis-ish qualities and, no, I do not mean his eyes.

"Now sit, my backward Betinna," Thomas Friedman said patting his lap, "and we will read his genuflecting together because all good shamings must include an audience. And Nicky would not be so quick to put on his Third World, sweat shop produced hair shirt if he did not enjoy it on some level."

Trying to aovid a particularly nasty stain, one that looked still damp, on his shorty robe, I sat down as he opened the e-mail . . . and quickly exploded.

There was no "Thomas Friedman, I am humbled before you" kind of talk. It was a link to an editorial and it enraged Thomas Friedman.

Here it is because I so enjoyed it that I bookmarked it thinking that, at a later date when Thomas Friedman is really getting on my nerves, I might print it up and hand it to him.

Editorial: Sunday Times says we attempted to goad Iraq into war in 2002, is Bush a liar or just willing to risk the safety of American citizens?

The Sunday Times has an article by Michael Smith entitled "RAF bombing raids tried to goad Saddam into war." It opens with the following:

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.
The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.
The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that "the US had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime".

We realize that our readers are far more intelligent than the mainstream press corp but indulge us as we address the above. The Bully Boy and his cohorts went around screaming that we didn't want a "mushroom cloud," that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons. To accept those lies today, in the face of The Sunday Times of London's story, you have to accept that the Bully Boy was perfectly okay with the United States being attacked with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. If that were true, then the only response would be to call for an immediate impeachment. The leader of the country is not supposed to actively court the destruction of our nation.

But to believe the lies we were told, that truly is the most obvious conclusion.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that we were lied to. Everything we were told leading up to the invasion and everything that's followed can be characterized as lies and more lies.

Lying a nation into war is a pretty serious offense.

Now there are some who feel that the recent defense of Newsweek has awakened our press corps. We'd love for that to be the case. However, it can also be argued that the press is just closing ranks, protecting their own and still willing to swallow every lie the administration feeds them and duly spit it back out in a report.

Look, this is a serious matter. We'd even be willing to hold our tongues regarding Judith Miller and other stenographers if The New York Times or any other institution wanted to do now what they should have been doing in the lead up to the invasion, investigating the administration's claims and telling the people the truth.

Scott Shane, Douglas Jehl or Monica Davey (or anyone else) could be front paged with stories about the difference between what we were told and actual reality and we'd be willing to hold our tongues about Miller and the others. (Miller's the most infamous, she was far from the only one. And to date, no television program has issued any mea culpa that we're aware of.)

Why could a group of smart asses like The Third Estate Sunday Review do that? Because the bigger picture demands that Americans start getting some truth with their journalism. It's past time for some truth. We spent thirty minutes discussing this (Ava, Jim, Jess, Ty, Dona, Rebecca, Betty and C.I.) and we all agree that the truth coming out now (strongly and on the front page -- not tucked safely inside the paper where it can be ignored) is a great deal more important than Miller's head on a platter at this moment in time.

What we're saying is that we could take The Times running truth telling stories without requiring them to note "by the way Judith Miller reported this differently." (Or any newspaper or TV program doing the same without making a point to name their reporters who got it wrong.) And here's a thought, who knows the lies that were told better than Miller? Get her committed to exposing reality and team her up with someone more trust worthy and let it rip. We're willing to bet that the sympathy she's been unable to garner for her current court issues, despite repeated attempts to garner sympathy, would suddenly emerge.

We're not going to spin here and say that all is forgiven and forgotten regarding Miller (to focus on The New York Times). That's not the case. It never will be. But if The New York Times wants to get back into the news business, we're perfectly willing to table our criticism of Miller for several months. Because we feel, and we can only speak for us, that the truth on the invasion/occupation is far more important than any individual reporter.

The latest from London's Sunday Times is explosive (as was the Downing St. memo). The press seems to have awakened a bit after the attacks on Newsweek. Our guess is that the way the domestic press handles the very serious issues emerging from across the Atlantic will tell us whether recent press coverage was about truth telling or protecting one of their own.

Lastly, we'll give credit to BuzzFlash for making The Sunday Times article their main headline.As always, the editorial is the last feature (other than our "note") that we work on. As soon as we finish everything else, we rush around online (BuzzFlash is always one of the stops) to come up with potential topics for our editorial. There was no debate this week. All eight of us agreed that the only topic was The Sunday Times revelations. Congratulations and thanks to BuzzFlash for catching the story and prominently running it at their website.

posted by Third Estate Sunday Review @ Sunday, May 29, 2005

Oh, did that make Thomas Friedman mad.

He was peeved that his paper was being called to task for their own actions. But he was especially mad that Judith Miller got mentioned.

"What is this obsession with Judith Miller!" he screamed, tears streaming down his face. "I am American's sweetheart, not Judith Miller! When will the world start to give me my props! Why must they disrespect me and dis me thusly!"

"Now, Thomas Friedman," I said evenly, "Judith Miller was not praised. So perhaps you should be glad that you were not mentioned."

"Nonsense!" he sputtered. "They mentioned Scott Shane, Douglas Jehl and Monica Davey! Who's ever heard of those nobodies! I work at the paper and I don't even know those losers!
You cannot mention the paper and not mention me! I am the paper! I will have to speak with Bill Keller about this! These damn bloggers! Arm chair critics on a ride at Magic Mountain with no concept of what and who I am! They will tremble at my might! Tremble! I am the great Thomas Friedman and I will not be ignored! Keller will have to institute a new policy ASAP or it will be his A-S-S! He will have to declare that whenever the paper is mentioned it will be called 'Thomas Friedman's New York Times!' That every comment on the paper will include my name! There has not been a greater miscarriage of justice ever, not even when Britney Spears was denied a deserving Oscar nomination for her delightful and engaging turn in the emotionally draining but spiritually uplifting Crossroads! Why do these silly fools deny those of us who sparkle and entertain, who warm the hearts of America, their due? When will I get my props!
Betinna, talk to your peeps, give them the 411 and tell them Thomas Friedman is a great man!
Like Hillary Duff's moving performance in the modern day classic A Cinderalla Story, I have been ignored! Must we all wear thigh high boots and engage in oral sex like that hideous Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman to be rightly crowned America's sweetheart!"

I was about to suggest that thigh high boots or not, engaging in oral sex might be something he should consider because Lord knows I could use a little satisfaction and reciprocation but he was still raging and I fell to the floor as he suddenly stood up and began pacing around the room.

"Must the 411 come from the AP wire for me to get my props! When will the global village issue a cry of 'Raise the roof, y'all!' for me, the great Thomas Friedman! Give me my props!"

Watching him puff away on that tiny cigar and gesture dramatically with it, I'd argue Thomas Friedman already has one prop. Eye balls popping and shorty robe flying as he stormed around the room, I wondered when the latest tantrum would end.

I didn't have to wait long before he collapsed to the floor and began banging his fists against it as he repeatedly screamed, "Give me my props! Give me my props! Give it up for your global Daddy!"

After thirty minutes of this, and numerous calls of complaints from neighbors, Thomas Friedman finally curled into a fetal position and began sucking his thumb. He's been like that for over eighteen hours.

His last words to me, before insterting his thumb into his mouth, were said with moist, red eyes: "Just tell me this, who's gonna' love my ass? Huh? Who's gonna' love my ass?"

Last time this happened, I wasted a great deal of time worrying. Today, I have just ran the sweeper around him and enjoyed being able to be the one to control the remote control and watch what I wanted. For the last eighteen hours, anyway, it has been a vacation.