Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Thomas Friedman's Trash Dump Psuedo Politics

Next month, I start college and I'm excited but nervous. My husband, Thomas Friedman, says I'm not focusing on him enough. I replied, "Unless you're going down to the drug store and buying the Depends, we ain't playing William Safire and Peggy Noonan."

It's his sex game, let him be the one standing in line with the Depends. I'm tired of the weird looks I get. It's not really even a "sex game" -- or at least not one for two. Thomas Friedman gets off on it but diapering "Willie" does nothing for me.

He kept whining and whining, so finally last week, I said, "Show me one of your columns."

See, I used to read that garbage all the time. But now I'm focused on preparing for college and really don't have the time to read junk/trash. I know he fancies himself a modern day Montesquieu but, let's be honest, there are more philosophical truths in the writings of Erma Bombeck. I made the mistake of saying that out loud and started in with a diatribe about how his "The World Is Flat" is the natural successor to "The Spirit of the Laws."

I interrupted and asked, "You want me to read this or not?"

He shut up. "Gas Pump Geopolitics" was the title.

----------------

No sooner did I finish then he asked, "Well, did you get it?"



"Yes, Rose," I replied. " 'Never let go.' They let you run this crap?"


Jerking the column from my hands, Thomas Friedman huffed, "It is not crap. 'Titanic' was a wonderful movie. And what do you mean, 'Yes, Rose'?"



Kate Winslet he's not. Except maybe in his mind.



But who am I to gripe? If I'd just smiled and said "Wonderful" I could have day dreamed for half an hour while he went on about just how wonderful his writing was. Instead, he was thrusting another column at me.



This one was called "Go West, Old Men." Right away, I had mixed feelings. It would be fun to live on the west coast but I am about to start college. Then I read past the title and saw that Thomas Friedman wasn't speaking about himself. I know! I was surprised to. With his sassy highlights and that ridiculous black turtleneck he insists upon wearing in public, he's a dead ringer for Bea Arthur. But make a joke about "The Golden Girls" and watch him blow his top.


"Black is slimming, Betinna," he whines.



White boy's lecturing me about Black?



"And it's very Bo-ho, I'm like Marilyn Monroe at the Actors' Studio or Audrey Hepburn in 'Funny Face!' "



I guess he's been brushing up on his 'motivation.' That would explain the added 'drama' in the column. Such as this statement:




It was surely no accident that President Hu made his first stop in the U.S. in Washington State -- not Washington, D.C. -- to dine with Bill Gates, who gave him the "state dinner" that the Bush White House refused to extend.



"It was surely no accident"? Doesn't saying "It was no accident" make the same point? He's like a starlet determined never to roll on a bed half-naked again. I suspect it won't be long before he's wearing his glasses in public to look like an intellectual. In his final paragraph, he asks, "Why waste the gas?" That's a question I can get behind and wish he'd ask it of himself each time he thinks he needs to write another column.



I had a party planned. Really more of a gathering. And seeing that it was almost time for that to begin, I pretended to like the column to avoid him pulling out his notebook full of laminated "Best Of Thomas Friedman" columns. (If you guessed the notebook contains every column he's ever written, you'd be guessing right. Well, every writer needs at least one fan, right?)



"You really think it was wonderful?" he asked. "Which parts? I think I was most 'on' in the third paragraph. 'On' throughout, but I'm really impressed with that third paragraph. That's not to take anything away from paragraphs four or five, which are also quite impressive . . ."



"Uh-huh," I added every few seconds to make him think I was listening and, most important, agreeing as I set out trays of snacks.



I caught something about "sense-memory," on the third trip from the kitchen and figured A&E must have aired a bio on Marilyn this month.



The doorbell rang and pretty soon, there was Wally, Rebecca, Jess, Ty, Cedric, Elaine, Mike & Nina, Kat, Ava and C.I. Trina came in with some wonderful dishes.



So we spent the evening listening to music and discussing a number of topics. Primarily what to do about a certain situation in a certain nation.




Most of the evening, Thomas Friedman spent with his back turned to everyone.


Wally pointed to Thomas Friedman and asked me if he was having trouble with his bowel movements?


No, I explained that Thomas Friedman was merely trying to flex his buttucks because he's convinced Wally thinks he's attractive. All the straining and grunting came from the fact that the butt is pure flab.



"Ignore him," I advised, "life's so much nicer when you do."



Which is pretty much what we did even when he asked Wally if he wanted to feel his "quads." Bored, he offered to let people do canned cheese shots off his body.



"Any takers? No? Wally? No? Oh. Okay."



As soon as everyone left, he trashed them all. Ava and C.I. were nothing but TV critics, he said haughtily. Elaine was a bad influence me, he declared.



As I rinsed off the trays, I told him it was too bad he felt that way because I'd be joining them all for the big march Saturday, April 29th.



"So! So!" he screamed. "You're all so boring! Even Wally thought so. You all intimidate that poor farm boy. He wanted to feel my quads but the way you all rolled your eyes, he decided not to."



"Yeah, that's it," I said turning off the faucet.



Walking past him, I headed for the bedroom.



I woke up a few hours later and he wasn't in bed. Thinking he might be brooding and do something foolish, like last week when he attempted suicide by injesting a box full of laxitives (which, if you think about it, really was an "inner" suicide for him), I grabbed my robe, non-shorty robe, and walked through the apartment.



He was at the computer. I started to head back to the bedroom when I realized that wasn't a fake nude of Zach or Slater or any of the "Saved By the Bell" boys he usually looks at, it was text. Reading over his shoulder, I saw: "Here's The Plan The World Needs."



"Thomas Friedman, you are not stealing their idea!" I snapped causing him to lurch in his chair, fall and hit the ground with a mighty thud.



He was about to argue when he must have seen how serious I was. Since he has only two speeds and argue was eliminated, he fell back on whine.



"Please, please," he cried sounding like an adenoidal teenager. "It would really chafe Nicky's K rear if I got this into print! You have no idea how prissy he's been since he won the Pulitzer! John Tierney told me he's insisted that the paper furnish him with a padded toilet seat and his own stall. They're calling it 'Nicky's Throne!' "



He begged. He pleaded. He said if he'd stolen "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" two years ago, he would be considered "the prophet of the paper!"



"As opposed to?" I asked.



"The blonde bombshell that I am," he replied full of defiance.



"Well, you can't be a blonde bombshell and smart," I said turning off the computer and walking out of the room.



"Jayne Mansfield was!" he hollered rushing after me. "She had a genius I.Q.!"



So far, he's avoided the topic. But he refuses to let me see his column for tomorrow so I am suspicious. Trash Dump Psuedo Politics is all that Thomas Friedman has to offer and even that's no longer cutting it. I'm concerned that all the attention Kaavya Viswanathan has recently received may be giving Thomas Friedman the wrong ideas.



















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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Thomas Friedman is the Meanest Generation

Yesterday, we had friends over. Or rather, I had friends over. Thomas Friedman appears to have burned every bridge and tunnel he had. (Bridge and tunnel? I've ghost written too many columns for my husband.) Jane Fonda was going to be the guest on Cover to Cover with Denny Smithson and we would listen at six p.m. and then have dinner.

I think it was probably an interesting interview. I can't tell you that it was because neither I nor my guests could hear most of it. That was due to Thomas Friedman continuing his grudge against Jane Fonda.

"Why doesn't Danny interview me!"

He meant Denny.

"I'm twice as interesting. He wants protest? When I was removed as class treasurer, they accused me of taking the missing funds! Me!, I staged a protest. It lasted two weeks. They reinstated me. They said, 'Friedman, anything to stop the whining and tears.' But that was just there way of saving face!"

Saving face?

I called Mrs. K last Thursday to see how she was handling the news about Nicky K's Pulitzer win. She was thrilled. We spoke about how great it was for Nicky and then, near the end of the conversation, she raised an issue.

Someone had been leaving nasty notes on Nicky K's desk.

"Death to Kristof!" read one. "You are nothing! You will die a nothing! I am rooting for your death! In death, you may remember who your friends were and who the smiley faces who rooted for your crash-burn-smoke were!"

Uh-oh.

"It's just so strange, Betinna," Mrs. K said. "I mean, the win's good for everyone at the paper. It's free publicity and all."

"Uh-huh," I replied, sweating bullets ("and grenades," if I wanted to write like Thomas Friedman).

"You don't know anything about it, do you? I keep trying to figure out who would leave such things."

"No, this is the first I've heard of it," I said honestly.

"It's just so strange. And they're on 'Saved By The Bell' stationary."

Did she know.

"Oh, gotta' go," I said nervously. "Something's about to burn in the oven."

"Sure," Mrs. K said. "By the way, they had smears on them, the notes did."

She knew. She knew.

"It appeared to be some form of cheese."

Damn him and his fanny pack! He carried that canned cheese everywhere.

"Oh, I see smoke, gotta' run," I said nervously.

"Betinna, Nicky and I both know that Thomas has been leaving the notes."

Busted.

I apologized, explained that Thomas Friedman was . . . well Thomas Friedman. And that they weren't threats, just "wishes."

She made it clear that she didn't blame me but that before she and Nicky would visit again, Thomas Friedman would have to apologize. An occurence as rare as him airing out his shorty robe.

Which he wore to my party. Jelly stains and all. His consolation to me, what passes for dressing for company in his mind, was to wear mesh boxers instead of a g-string. I know he thinks he's hot, but looking at him, I was reminded of the song in "Pillow Talk" that goes, "He's a rolly-polly . . ."

But how could I be embarrassed by what he was wearing? I was too busy being shamed by what he was saying.

He was full of bluster about his column from last Friday, "The Greenest Generation." He cornered Jess and asked if he'd read it? Jess made the mistake of saying "no." Honesty is never always the last policy with Thomas Friedman. He whipped a copy out of his shorty robe and insisted that Jess read it then and there.

Jess did so and handed it back silently.

Thomas Friedman wasn't going for that. Like Gail Collins mooning over Davy Brooks, Thomas Friedman feels that a compliment and himself must be merged. I could see the car speeding up the ramp, headed for the highway and the 16 wheeler that wasn't going to yield.

"Smell the C20?" Jess asked. "I guess you thought it was funny."

"It was funny!" Thomas Friedman yelled with so much rage that his body shook sending tiny ripples through both his shorty robe and his ass fat.

Jess joined Rebecca, Elaine and Cedric at the table I'd set up buffet style and Thomas Friedman turned bright red.

The doorbell rang and I was thinking, "Saved by the Bell!"

Then, remembering those pictures of Screech and Slater that Thomas Friedman keeps under his pillow, I wiped that thought from my brain. He's taken a photo of Screech with his mouth open and one of Slater standing to make it look as though Screech is before Slater's crouch with his mouth open. When I found it, he was humilated and pouted for a good half hour before assuring me that it was an art project he was working on, a collage when it was completed, and attempted to turn the topic to Gail Collins whose new office nickname is "Ecquine."

I opened the door and there was our new neighbor Wally. I was just about to warn him to stay away from my husband, the second-rate, if not third, Thomas Friedman when suddenly he was upon us, squirting canned cheese in his mouth and extending a hand.

"You read?" Thomas Friedman said through a mouth filled with cheese.

"Lou Reed's here?" Wally asked.

"No," I explained, "he's asking if you read -- and he means his column,"

Wally looked the portly vision, clad in silk shorty robe, up and down before asking if Thomas Friedman wrote for some gay weekly out of Key West?

"The New York Times," Thomas Friedman replied.

"Oh, I hate that rag. Nothing but distortions on battles, distortions on Iraq and war pornography?"

I expected Thomas Friedman to explode but, for once, he surprised me. Which surprised me as well because I feel like I've logged enough miles with Friedman to be an expert and able to point out all the histrionic markers as well as points of intensity.

"See, I do dress snazzy," Thomas Friedman said to me, "He thinks I'm gay. Everyone knows gay men are the best dressers."

"Yeah," I said grabbing Wally's arm and leading him into the apartment, "you're right up there with the Village People."

"They were not gay, Betinna!" Thomas Friedman erupted. "They were not gay!"

Thomas Friedman got over his outrage quickly and was soon sling sass and his ass as he strutted around the room.

Pointing to Wally, Thomas Friedman told everyone, "He wants to Brokeback my Mountain!"

Which was followed, always with, "How about you?"

What initially was greeted with curious stares and the occasional polite laughter (it was a joke, wasn't it?) quickly became a never ending embarrassing moment.

I felt as though I were six inches tall and wished I could hop into his fanny pack, zip it up and disappear.

But I couldn't and, apparently, he couldn't stop shoving his column at people.

We'd missed most of Jane Fonda's interview and I was getting ticked off.

By the time he'd cornered Rebecca and was reading his column, aloud, to her, I'd had enough.

"Thomas Friedman, you have destroyed my party!" I yelled.

He attempted to ignore me and continue reading while Rebecca had that "What Am I? An Asshole Magnet?" look on her face.

"No one wants to read your lazy ass column!" I shouted across the room. "No one cares what you think and they certainly don't care for your shoving your own responsibility off on college students. Save the eco-system? Why don't you think about what you can do instead of telling colleges what to do? Or is this like every other column and our life, or lack of it, in the bedroom? When there's something that needs to be done, you'll just wait to see if anyone else will."

"How dare you!" Thomas Friedman screamed. Tearing himself away from Rebecca's cleavage, he faced me.

"I am a sensitive man! I am touchy-feely! I am a kind hearted soul! That's why, next year, it will be me and not Nicky the K winning the Pulitzer!"

"Not, if you keep writing this crap!" I shot back. "What's up with telling colleges what to do? Have you told the Times how they could be more energy effcient? No. You just want to push the burden off on others yet again."

He called me a few unmentionable names, insisted he was the most sensitive, most caring man alive and turned on Cedric for eating a Ritz Cracker.

"Mine!" he hollered, grabbing the roll of crackers and storming off to the bedroom.

"Was that a floor show or a freak show?" Cedric wondered.

Me? I don't wonder. Every day living with The Meanest Generation is a freak show.















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Thursday, April 20, 2006

When friends are awarded, Thomas Friedman goes fugue

It was shaping up to be a peaceful period. I'm nervous about starting classes in June so I've already bought my books and started reading one, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, which is wonderful. I've been reading a little, stopping to think. All that went out the window when my husband Thomas Friedman had a crying jag/fugue state that was so bad, I had to write a few of the columns.

That, itself, wasn't a problem. All I had to do was sit at the computer and ask myself, "WWID?"
(What Would Idiot Do?) I got to work in a reference to Riverbend of Baghad Burning. Otherwise, I just acted the stooge. (P.S. Even Gail Collins didn't notice that Thomas Friedman wasn't writing the columns.)

What caused the fugue? What caused my pleasant ride to screech to a halt?

At first I thought he might have ripped his silk shorty robe. He'd tossed it to the floor and collapsed next to it. I picked it up. It was dirty but otherwise, no problem. Okay, it was going to be hard getting the foundation off the neck. When did he start wearing foundation?

I asked myself that and then remembered the Friday night he spent peering the mirror examing his pores and not-so-fine lines. All that thinking must have tired him out because he stumbled to the bed and fell asleep face down. Since then, he sneaks a little on here and there. When Showtime aired "Liza With A Z!", he was in evening make up including mascara. He complained it was hard to hear "Miss M." over my laughing.

So it wasn't the shorty robe. Had we run out of canned cheese and Ritz crackers? No, that couldn't be it. The pantry was stocked with both. Had someone gotten possed on "Passions"? He's obsessed with that show lately. You can't call it a soap opera because he claims it has "global implications." He's obsessed with Whitney and the monk and torn over Sherridan's choice of Chris instead of Luis. Sounds like a soap opera to me.

So he's flat on the floor and I point out that if he were really hurting he would be curled into a ball.

He opens one eye and glares at me.

Then he snaps, "Like a ball? Like a globe? "The World Is Flat," Betinna, flat!"

Even at high drama, he has to plug his crappy book.

Bored, I sit on the couch and turn from "Saved By The Bell" which causes him to struggle to get up from the floor. When you're soft, flabby and large, it's not easy to go from prone to upright. It is, however, amusing to watch.

Thomas Friedman blamed it on his hot pink thong which he claimed was riding up.

Turning back to Screech and Slater, Thomas Friedman told me that the worst thing in the world had just happened.

"Oh my God," I think out loud, "we just nuked Iran."

"Worse, Betinna, far worse."

I'm trying not to picture doomsday scenarios and remember that this might have to do with his soap opera -- like Sherridan finally made a decision and stuck to it -- when he blurts it out.

"Nicky won the Pulitzer!"

"Well, good for him."

"Betinna, you are not grasping the situation. He won!"

"I'll call his wife and we'll have them over for dinner. But you are wearing more than a thong and short robe, no one needs your full moon every time you bend over in the middle of dinner."

He grabs me roughly by the shoulders and presses his face into mine. He's so close I can see the bags under his eyes that the foundation doesn't cover. I'm smelling the canned cheese on his breath and wondering if I need to give him make up lessons.

Hygene never took but maybe make up lessons will?

"He won! That means I lost!"

"Oh, Thomas Friedman," I sigh. "It's not a competition."

"It is! It is! It's a competion and I lost!"

Then he collapses to the floor for real, curls into a ball and doesn't speak for days.

Those were some of the best days of my life.

Then, Tuesday night, he snapped out of it.

He sprung from the floor with a speed and agility not characteristic of his girth.

Immediately, he began spinning a yarn of how he had lobbied the Pulitizer committee on Nicky K's behalf. He felt it was the least he could do for his protege. As his fantasy world unfolded, I started thinking, "My life is a really bad soap opera. With no sex and no hot guys taking off their shirts. Just a fat ass with both cheeks flapping in the wind, curtain cheeks that drape all over everything."

He sat down to write his column for Thursday (without thanking me for covering for him).
But nothing came. I figured this was like when we are bed and I know how that limp story ends, so I headed to the bedroom and went to sleep.

I awoke the next morning to find him in full crisis mode. He was puffing away on an unlit cigarette. A 100 so he wasn't exactly butching it up.

I could tell he'd been crying from the mascara patterns that had dried on his face. Very Tammy Faye despite what he was saying.

"I've come to a conclusion, Betinna. The world doesn't like manly men!" he shrieked, pacing back and forth, shorty robe flying in the wind.

"The world has turned agains the Bully Boy and now me!" he continued.

I tried picturing the two "manly men" in a mano-mano fight but all I could picture was him getting to third base with Bully Boy and I loathe Bully Boy but . . . I mean Thomas Friedman is kind of like the death penalty -- you don't wish him on your worst enemy.

This hatred of manly men was all the doing of the nonstop critiques by the likes of Gloria Steinem and two TV critics named Ava and C.I. It was a plot to destroy the last of the manly men, Thomas Friedman.

Well he would not be destroyed! No, he would beat them at their game. They wanted wimpy? He'd give them that. On the last point, we were finally in agreement. Which led to Thursday's column which is kind of anti-war in a sort of cover your own ass way -- which may be the only way he can write. Fine, but if he's going to cover his own ass in print, who's stopping him from doing the same in real life? (I know I'm not.)

Having finished it, all was good in the world again and he was ready for me to play Peggy Noonan (I hate the wig!) and him to play William Safire. I spent about two hours diapering him and rediapering him.

And that has been pretty much the last few days. If William Safire requires Depends, if -- big if, I find it hard to believe he'd greet Noonan with, "Peggy, Willie made boom-boom. Change my nappy." But every time I turned around, that's what I heard. That and how his no-war-on-Iran made him the sensitive type (among the neocons?) and he just knew the Pulitzer committee would now pull Nicky K's award and give it to "the great Thomas Friedman."

I'm waiting for the explosion that's sure to follow when another of his fantasies implodes. It won't be pretty. Things seldom are with Thomas Friedman.






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Monday, April 10, 2006

My 'caring' husband Thomas Friedman worries I don't have time to appreciate his 'genius'

It's been a busy period and I haven't had time to record my thoughts in this computer journal. I've decided I'm just going to sit down and take some time this evening and what makes it up, makes it up. To make sure I wasn't bothered, I grabbed a big serving tree, sprayed the can cheese all over it and handed it to Thomas Friedman. He complained that I should make "such a delicious meal" when Gilmore Girls is on but I think he's fine with watching Tyra Banks as he laps at the cheese. (We're out of crackers, not that my husband Thomas Friedman noticed.)

So I was speaking to Elaine about wanting to get some college courses under my belt awhile back because, let's face it, this marriage isn't going to last and, if it does, reading Thomas Friedman's columns indicate that it's only a matter of time before he moves into a suite at Bellevue.

She has a friend at The New School and could get me in despite the fact that I have no school records. So I'm enrolled for the summer session (starts June 5th).

Of course Thomas Friedman hit the roof. Money was the chief concern until he learned I actually had some financial assistance. Then he started in on, "How will you have time for school and to cook my meals, to clean my clothes, to clean our home and to appreciate my genius?"

I assured him that appreciating his genius never took any time on my part.

Then I buttered him up and said, "Thomas Friedman, I just want to be an iota, a smidge as smart as you. I know that I, being from a backwater village, could never be as talented as you, but I would lilke to do this to honor you."

The way his chest puffed out and his ego swelled, it was surprising there was room for me in our living room. But it did the trick. He relented.

It was easier convincing him to let me go than my actual interview with Elaine's friend. He wanted to address the issue of my husband's columns. This was on March 31st and Thomas Friedman's "Iraq At the 11th Hour" had just been printed in that day's paper.

"I know you're a friend of Elaine's and I understand you're difficult situation," Prof said, "but I'm honestly concerned that you might not be able to keep up."

I was thinking he meant due to my lack of transcripts (or any knowledge of my past before 2005). He didn't. He was concerned about my knowledge base "since you are married to, forgive me for being blunt, the global idiot."

He began tentatively noting that Thomas Friedman began his column praising himself. His column, try his day? He delivers speeches to himself for thirty minutes each morning and claims they are morning affirmations but they sound to me like self-praise.

"Who's the sexiest? No, not Orlando Bloom. No, not Angelina Jolie. It's you! Thomas Friedman, you, I, are, am, the sexiest in the world. You have the body of a Dega. The mind of Einstein. And if there's only one thing more impressive than your studly body, it's your humility. Yes, it is. You know it is. Thomas Friedman, you are a god."

The Prof burst out laughing as I recited that in my cruelest impersonation of Thomas Friedman. Still I felt it lacked something because a stocky man in a shorty robe can never be fully conveyed by a woman of my size fully dressed.

I then ripped the column apart.

He writes about the tensions between Shi'ites and Sunnis that are escalating and offers, "One embedded, this cycle of fear and revenge is almost impossible to break." Now? Now, he's noting that. Three years plus of occupation and he thinks only now that fear and revenge are effecting Iraq?

He then went on to write that "Donald Rumsfeld's criminally negligent decision not to deploy troops in Iraq to begin with created this security vacuum." I offered, "Kind of thought the invasion might have helped. No illegal invasion, no security vaccum."

I noted that he wrote of "happy talk" and explained that he'd been rejected by the right as not sufficiently macho (well there's the shorty robe issue again) and was now attempting to get some "props from this online site called The Common Ills. He's obsessed with being mentioned there because they cover the New York Times and he believes that he is that paper of record. C.I.'s been using 'Operation Happy Talk' to denote each wave of propaganda and he thought by using 'happy talk,' he could get a shout out from The Common Ills."

Finally, I noted his closing sentence: "It is five minutes to midnight." If Thomas Friedman's not watching his own Saved By The Bell marathon, he's in bed long before nine. The only reason he gets up is to fix a snack (he says he has a thyroid condition and if he doesn't eat 4 meals a day with frequent snacks, he'll be a rail) is when he has a nasty gas attack.

I was really glad that Prof was laughing throughout my commentary and nodding his head in agreement. He asked if I'd read "Should This Marriage Be Saved?"

"Read it?" I replied. "I live it."

Telling me I'd done well, he officially welcomed me to the campus and asked me to do something about Thomas Friedman quoting right-wing bloggers. You better believe I did. I lectured him about Riverbend of Baghdad Burning. I was aided by the fact that she was noted Sunday, April 2nd at The Common Ills.

"Oh, Betinna!" Thomas Friedman squealed as he worked on his April 7th column, "I'm finally going to get my just praise at The Common Ills!"

But I'm getting ahead of myself.






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Thursday, March 30, 2006

Thomas Friedman's Frostings and Facials

"I'm not sleeping with him," that's how Rebecca greeted me when I bumped into her at the lobby.

"Oh, hon, no one wants to sleep with him," I said sadly because I knew the one who always had to was me.

But Thomas Friedman is still on his education kick in an attempt to impress Rebecca. Or to impress her breasts.

But I did enroll in some courses this week. I'm not going to wait for the paper of misrecord to realize how unliked Thomas Friedman is. While the money's there, I need to make sure I'm employable after my post-Friedman period. It will come.

I'm not sure whether I'll drop Thomas Friedman before the paper does, but I think he will get droppsed by both of us.

Why?

Did you not read "Facts and Folly"? Despite quoting from a study that mentions that the nation used to be able to provide "high wages," Thomas Friedman never talks about that in his latest "I'm an education time columnist!" op-ed. He whines about the fact that we're so far behind in the use of cell phones but never stops to think that the economy might have some impact there.
Or with broad band access.

It's all about education, which is pre-bubble bust thinking, if you ask me. Since the stock market bubble burst under Bully Boy's watch, an education hasn't meant all that much. His paper's focused on the high end wage earners who've had trouble getting hired. But that's true of the low-end as well. It's just that the paper isn't keen to write up silly Sunday magazine profiles on them.

Teaching does need to be appreciated more and it also needs to provide higher wages. Thomas Friedman, neoliberal that he is, can't come out and with concrete examples on that. It's a "free market" and it's gone global, to hear Thomas Friedman preach it.

But what's really gone global has been poverty. It's even gone domestic.

A point he misses, so naturally Gail Collins loved it.

Thomas Friedman asked me what I thought of his column and I lied. I said it was "beautiful."
Thomas Friedman started crying.

"Oh, Betinna, you don't know how long I've waited to hear that."

But what about all the cab drivers and other ficitional people who populate his column everytime a word of praise to him is uttered?

"It's not the same," he whined. "I'm not putting words into their mouths."

"So you do admit that you make them up!" I exclamined.

Suddenly, Thomas Friedman's mood changed. It was like watching Shirley Temple turn into an ogre before your eyes. He did everything but snarl, "Tina! Bring me the axe!"

When he finally calmed down, he insisted that it wasn't "lying." It was p.r., it was getting the ball rolling. It was "conditioning the people" to accept his greatness.

Still struck me as lying.

Like when he gave details about his mythic proportions to his "trip" at the start of the column. For the record, there was no plane trip. He did catch the Subway (and complain the whole way). And he wasn't reading through reports. He had a copy of Maxim, a copy of Jugs and a copy of Playboy.

Now he did read Teen People this week while he was waiting for the stylist to free up and touch up his highlights.

He tipped the woman a buck. Said that was the "free market" at work as well. Me, I thought it was just another example of how cheap he is.

Which may be why he insists upon doing his own highglights and touch ups "down there" while he gives himself a skin care treatment. "Facts and Follies"? Try"Frostings and Facials." As he was attempting to make himself "pretty" (what is it about the big wimps like my husband and Eric Alterman that always allows them to self-delude about the state of their own masculinty?), I put on some Etta James, cooked some Mexican rice, and wondered if Angelina Jolie had to spend many nights at home while Brad Pitt finished "coloring" his pubes?










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Saturday, March 25, 2006

The Big Boob likes big boobs

So Rebecca is our blonde neighbor with the big boobs. They are nice boobs. I don't give them a great deal of thought but my husband Thomas Friedman does. He's fixated on them. Everytime we bump into her, his tongue is hanging out and drool's dripping from his mouth. They are nice boobs, but they are just breasts. And, point of fact, with all the canned cheese Thomas Friedman's consumed in the last year, his own boobs are almost as big. Give him another year and he may be able to fit into one of Rebecca's bras.

But Thomas Friedman is obsessed with her breasts and I say all that to say, Thomas Friedman is so obsessed with her breasts that he's now attempting to impress her. Now, if you're married to a man on the edge of middle age who's gone from stocky to portly and now beyond, a man who thinks "highlights" in his hair make up for the lack of regular bathing, you learn not to get jealous. Truth is, outside of a few airheads like Patti, there's not much chance that any woman will come along to take Thomas Friedman off my hands.

But Friday, Thomas Friedman's latest made it into print. "Worried About India's and China's Booms? So Are They" probably confused many readers. What, some may have wondered, is Thomas Friedman doing writing that "every country thinks it behind" and that the United States thinks it behind in math and science after Thomas Friedman made a point of screaming, a few months back, that we were behind in math and science?

The answer lies with Rebecca. Large breasts can inspire him more than even illegal wars. See, Rebecca wrote, back when Thomas Friedman and others were screaming for rote education, "more dreamers not just fact checkers" contained the following:

the 60s had street theater. we could use some more of that today. we could use some more art and some more thought that breaks out of the box. and that's where elaine came in on the third estate sunday review discussion. she and c.i. were talking about how we need new ways of seeing things. as u2 once sang, in better days, 'we need new dreams tonight.' or as carly simon aptly put it, 'let all the dreamers wake the nation.'
i hope educators get that. i hope they get that far behind how well some 1 can spit out a fact they've had drilled into them, it matters that children can think and can think beyond the obvious. that's really the future of any nation and how progress can comes about. you have to go beyond the obvious and beyond the same though pattern.
most of the people i know who are creative or think outside the box are music listeners or actually have musical training. i wonder how worried we are that the cuts to music in school continue and that 'leave every child behind' is set on turning every 1 into robots because the testing and the teaching for the test leaves no time for creativity and really doesn't leave time for thought.

If that seems vaugely familiar to you, it may be because Thomas Friedman took Rebecca's points and put them into the mouth of a corporate businessman. It's why suddenly Thomas Friedman is acting like he wasn't running through the neighborhood, naked, screaming, "More science and math, we're being destroyed by other countries!" (He actually did do that. I heard about it from the building manager who says one more nude outburst from "Thomas Flab-man" and we're out.)

He wants Rebecca to like him. More likely, he just wants her to show him her big breasts.

You and I look at Thomas Friedman and see Norma Desmond with more girth. Thomas Friedman looks in the mirror and sees a desirable reflection. It's the sort of delusion that's allowed him to cheerlead an illegal war. It's the sort of delusion that finds him stocking up on General Tao's chicken instead of heading to a gym. It's the kind of delusion that lets him think he learned anything in college. Most of all, it's the kind of delusion that makes him think he has something to say that people need to hear.

Wednesday, he wrote about "A New Grip On 'Reality.'" That came along as a result of Rebecca's mid-winter tan and plunging neckline when she stopped me at the mailboxes to ask me if I'd read the current Mother Jones article about the environment. I thought he was merely staring at her breasts while he licked his lips, but apparently Thomas Friedman was at least partially listening as Rebecca went into how our dependence on fossil fuel has destroyed the environment.

His new grip was the same as his old grip: a grip on Republicans. He can't hand jerk without wrapping his hand around a Republican apparently. Which is why in a column on the environment he had nothing to say about environmentalists who had long argued that we needed to break our oil dependency. He could, however, name check any and every Republican who has begun to think that maybe we might be better off developing alternative fuels. He wrote about "smart conservatives."

That's Thomas Friedman for you, always in denial and with very limited vision. Add "bad breath" and you'll practically be repeating what our "waitress" told him Friday night. She was counter-help at McDonalds, but Thomas Friedman insisted upon calling her "waitress."

"Waitress," he said drawing out both syllables in an annoying whine, "I believe I'd like you to carry our trays to the table."

"Doesn't work that way, Grandpa," said the woman who couldn't have been more than eighteen.

"Do you realize that in India, people would kill for your job!" Thomas Friedman demanded. "You don't know how good you have it!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Children are starving in India, I've heard it all my life."

"No, you stateside twit, in India they are competative!"

"Are you saying India's better than America?" the woman demanded. "Rob, Vernon, this guy hates America."

They come up to the counter wiping their aprons and asking "What guy?"

"This one," she said pointing at Thomas Friedman, "This idiot in denial with the bad vision and bad breath."

Checking out Rob and Vernon, especially Rob who looked a bit like Slater on Saved by the Bell (we all know how obsessed with that show and the male cast Thomas Friedman is), he began to stammer out a response.

"No, no, I love, I love America."

They stared at him, he averted his eyes. Finally, they walked away from the counter as Thomas Friedman attempted to wipe away his flop sweat.

"My, oh my," Thomas Friedman sighed. "That was almost as dangerous as the Green Zone. I wish they would put me in the Green Zone, then I could really teach them something about inventing stories."







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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Thomas Friedman got ready for his close up

If there's one thing worse than his writing, it's a photo of my husband Thomas Friedman.

Mrs. K called yesterday to ask me about it. Seems Nicky K couldn't stop laughing.

"Betinna, what look is he going for?"

"What look do you see?"

"Well, honestly, he looks like Angela Landsbury in the midst of dance rehearsal for a road tour of Gypsy."

That's exactly the look I was going for.

I didn't sell Thomas Friedman on it that way.

But I told him his blonde highlights would really be set off by a simple black jersey. I explained that it was "very Audrey Hepburn" and that's really all it took. After an hour of listening to him speak of his own understanding of "empathy."

He claims it was Funny Face that set him on his current course. He was a young 12 year-old boy who happened to come across Funny Face late one night and decided that he too was an empathatic. Or at least that he wanted to be someone "who the whole world wanted."

He can dream, right?

I told him I was just glad that was his first Audrey Hepburn film. Imagine what would have happened if he'd seen Roman Holiday first?

He got very nervous and told me "someday" he'd tell me all about his initial encounters with William Safire.

So what did the New York Times' "empathatic" write about most recently?

Staying the course in Iraq?

It's an unpopular position so it's a natural for Thomas Friedman.

Or as I put it, "People will love your brave voice."

Flattery gets you everywhere with Thomas Friedman.

So he heaped hate on Iran and urged staying in Iraq.

Except for correcting his repeated use of the term "Iranese," I just hailed it as "brilliant."

He wasn't going to praise fellow war pornographer Michael Gordon but I convinced that the paper would keep presenting his underwhelming The World Is Flat as the second best selling book regardless of how Gordon's pornography sold.

He's really scared Gail Collins pretty good if she keeps arguing for it be at number two despite the fact that it's not selling. Or maybe it's just her own little joke: saying his book is a "number two."

It does tend to stink up a room.

"Is it really brilliant?" Thomas Friedman asked of "America's Iran Policy: Iraq."

"It's as brilliant as your carefully manicured nails," I offered. "And as needed."

"Oh, Betinna," Thomas Friedman smiled, clasping his hands together in such a manner as to show off his carefully groomed and clear-polished nails, "You're too good to me."

I truly am.

That's why I didn't even point out, as he twirled around the room singing, that "I'm the Greatest Star" is from the film Funny Girl, not Funny Face.









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