The Mail

Friedman Follies

Re: "Flathead: The Peculiar Genius of Thomas L. Friedman" (4/20) by Matt Taibbi: I'm assuming the author had just been dumped by his girlfriend and was suffering from another hangover when he wrote his review of Tom Friedman's book. Ê

I haven't read the book yet, and thankfully not a bit of it was ruined, because that review didn't have a shred of substance. If you're going to nit-pick at a person's prose and metaphors, perhaps you should be more careful. For example, the distance on a flat world and globe are the same, because you can't travel through the center of the Earth. Duh!

Zachary Stern, Manhattan Matt Taibbi replies: Zachary: you're wrong. Regardless of the projection, if the world were flat, there would always be one end that would be 24,901.55 miles away from its opposite end. On a round planet, no place is more than half that distance away from any other place. Remember, you can travel in the opposite direction. Have you considered a career in journalism?

What a marvelous piece of criticism. Minutes before I read it, a friend and I (who had attended a funeral of another friend yesterday) were having a discussion about life after death, the triumph of the faith-based community, and our commitment to the reality-based community. The last line of the review was a perfect cap to both the review and our discussion.

Joan Van Tassel, Los Angeles

Matt Taibbi would be advised to avoid Jon Stewart's interview with Friedman, in which Friedman uses the expression "plug and play" to describe acting in the new world with total, dead-fucking seriousness. As in, new technologies are letting people "plug and play" into the world "like never before."

The hilarious thing is that what the term actually refers to is something completely different, i.e., when you plug a device into an existing operating system, the computer can read and use that device. Of course, when you apply that to globalization, it means that anyone plugging into the global system is apt to be used and discarded by whoever's in charge of the system.

Jeremy Mesiano-Crookston, Queens

I applaud New York Press for having the nerve to attack Tom Friedman.ÊFriedman loves to go on tv and radio to pontificate about the Middle East. Friedman is extremely self-confident and loves to hear the sound of his own voice. On these programs nobody ever challenges Friedman because he has won three Pulitzer Prizes and writes for the Times. I, however, regard Friedman as a buffoon, especially when he fantasizes about democracy spreading throughout the Middle East. Nobody should take this idiot seriously.

Reba Shimansky, Manhattan

Best book review ever.Milk-snorting-through-the-nose funny.

Jeff Strunk, Toronto

This review is one of the funniest and wittiest things I've read not in the Onion in a long time. Thank you for brightening my day.

Andrew Piper, Manhattan

"I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins."-Taibbi quoting Friedman

"Forget the Cinnabon. Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one."-Taibbi

Taibbi's complaints about Friedman's use of metaphors is like a goat standing in the cabbage patch preaching vegetarianism.

Elihu M. Gerson, Brooklyn

This is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Thank you.

Kevin Quinn, Brooklyn

Funny You Should Ask. Page 26.

I read your paper each week and enjoy it very much. I've noticed that the horoscopes ("Sign Language") have not been there for the last few weeks. Is this a permanent change?

Caron Passmore, Jersey City

All The News That's Fit for a PG-rating

Re: Russ Smith's "Purity in Midtown" (4/20): I was on the staff of the Chicago Seven Trial back in 1969-1970. Toward the end of the affair, aging defendant Dave Dellinger, whose pacifism was so strong he served time for refusing Army induction during World War II, got so frustrated with the proceedings he uttered the word "bullshit" in court. In those thrilling days of yesteryear, that was a news story. People did not say "bullshit" in a court of law, not even in Julius J. Hoffman's Mies van der Rohe designed neon oven. It was worth six months of Dave's freedom, 25 weeks of which were later suspended by the Federal Court of Appeals. It was so extreme in its day that many newspapers reported it-albeit with spoiler warnings.

No need to hide the children from the New York Times. They referred to it as a barnyard epithet, confirming the feeling that their editors had never been out on the farm. I suspect they would not have employed the phrase "chickenshit," either.

Mike Gold, Norwalk, CT

This is an excellent column, one I fully agree with. You could have strengthened your argument about the Times' refusal to print ordinary Anglo-Saxon "obscenities," however, with an example from the Book Review. Princeton has published a fine book, On Bullshit, by Harry G. Frankfurt, a retired philosopher, and this title is in the #6 spot among nonfiction bestsellers in today's Book Review. But the Times carefully lists this title as On Bull-, as if impressionable kiddies are carefully examining and scanning the Book Review for forbidden language.

Paul Schlueter, Easton, PA

Delayed Reaction

I was just reading Mark Ames' piece on Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman ("The All-Annoying Eye of Chuck Klosterman," 8/27/03), and now I find myself absolutely baffled and put off. Why is he so enraged? The thing about writing like Ames' is that it makes him sound like a vindictive and jealous fool. And his underlying tone contradicts his overt message. Ames insists that Klosterman's work is trashy, but isn't his irate attitude indicating the opposite? I think it was Oscar Wilde who once said that books that provoke a negative reaction are the ones that are important, whereas the works that everybody accepts and praises and approves are rarely interesting.

Melanie Parker, Boston

Double Dog Dare?

I wrote a letter a couple of weeks ago regarding J.R. Taylor's column about the Blood Axis show ("Nazi Folki Gothi Punks Fuck Off," 4/6). I know many other people have also written to tell you that he was lying about the show and about the people there. He obviously had nothing to write about and wanted an easy assignment. He heard that Blood Axis has been at the center of some controversy in their career (as have many many bands and singers and artists), so he went to the show as an easy assignment, and with an agenda. And with the stroke of a few keys on his laptop, he has sullied the reputations of some very decent people in the NYC music scene, as well as accusing fans and attendees like myself of being white supremacists.

You have printed no letters, no comments or retractions regarding this matter. He lied in his article. He did not even mention Blood Axis' performance. He went home to watch a show that airs at 10 p.m. on HBO. He left before the headliner even went on! Didn't he want to hear the racist lyrics? See the Nazis stomping around and heil-fiving each other? Have something to write about? No? Because this never happened.

It's wrong and a disgrace that the column he wrote was printed. Shame on you, New York Press, and shame on J.R. Taylor as well. He should write a retraction at the very least, be exposed as a fraud and probably fired. And you, as a responsible news outlet should print the truth, and not be like these other so-called news agencies that print propaganda to serve their own needs and bring in readers. "Alternative" indeed.

You are officially dared to print anything about the other (correct) side of this issue! Letters from fans, band members, organizers, or this letter.

Robin Groves, Brooklyn

On Staying Clean

Re: Russ Smith's "Purity in Midtown" (4/20): It seems to me that you are saying that The New York Times should not clean up the language when reporting on a person or an event. If the person in question used profanity, the Times should say whatever he or she actually said. I disagree with you. Being over 50, I can remember coming home from the army and being reminded by my mother to not swear in her presence. Many people do not use profanity in their speech and would be turned off by it. If it is the goal of the Times to have as many people as possible read their paper, it seems to me that their being sensitive to this area is just common sense. I also read the section of your article entitled, "Public Hedonism and Private Restraint." I agree with you that his conclusions seem unrealistic. You can see by my e-mail address that I am a pastor. I believe in the biblical standards of morality, but I understand that it is unreasonable to expect non-christians to hold to those same standards in their private lives. But I do not believe that it is unreasonable for us to have an expectation of common decency in the public arena. I am not talking about political correctness, I am talking about mutual respect. Thank you for having the courage of your convictions. It is one of the things that makes America great.

Pastor Marc CurryLima, OH

Friedman Follies, Part II

Silly me, here I thought I'd be reading a detailed analysis of the content of the book-it may have escaped the reviewer that this is a book about ideas. Instead, I got a pedantic four-page rant and critique of Friedman's "horrifying" use of mixed metaphors and his cliche-ridden prose style. Matt Taibbi carries snarkiness to a whole new level. Could it be New York Times byline envy?

Gloria Sens, Platteville, WI

For those readers who are not particularly bothered by the extent to which Thomas Freidman mixes metaphors, or (to resort to the kind of rhetoric that apparently distinguishes the New York Press as "New York's Premier Alternative Newspaper") who could give a fuck about Matt Taibbi's struggle to endure Friedmanese, some substantive commentary about the reviewee's thesis would have been necessary to make this an actual review and not just a lame humor piece. I wonder which Taibbi intended?

What do we learn about Friedman's ideas? Friedman's book is "[ideologically], the worst, most boring kind of middlebrow horseshit" and is "no more than an unusually long pamphlet replete with the kind of plug-filled, free-trader leg-humping that passes for thought in this country."

"Horseshit" and "leg-humping?" Come on, "folks" (as Taibbi refers to the readers in an last-ditch effort to appear sympathetic, since he could not muster the effort to be persuasive), you can do better than that.

But, regardless of Taibbi's poor attempts to be engaging in that profanity-laced, colloquial style that reveals his inner sophmore, the best intellectual critique we get comes in a paragraph beginning "It's impossible to divorce The World Is Flat from its rhetorical approach." Sounds like another cop-out to me. If indeed Friedman really just "observes the wonders of capitalism," then, Taibbi should present adequate evidence that this is so, rather than rely on phrases like "already the premise is totally fucked" to undermine Friedman's points.

And, as a result, did any editors notice how close Taibbi comes to employing the very strategy he attributes to Bush and Friedman (whom you can hardly consider allies): "you no longer have to worry about actually convincing anyone: the process ends when you make the case. Things are true because you say they are. The only thing that matters is how sure you sound when you say it."

Hmmm. Emperor's New Clothes horseshit and anti-authoritarian leg-humping, anyone?

Will Orzo, Albany, NY

Re: "Flathead," 4/20: What a silly review. Friedman's book is fun reading. Taibbi needs to loosen up!

Joan Shady, Miami

My compliments to Matt Taibbi on his review of Tom Friedman's new book.

"Because he sees a Pizza Hut ad on the way to a golf course, something that could never happen in America, Friedman concludes: 'No, this definitely wasn't Kansas.'"

I live in Kansas. Hard as this might be for Friedman to believe, Kansas has golf courses and Pizza Huts.

Hampton Stevens, Kansas City

Not everyone can use phrases like "horseshit" and "how the fuck" without sounding lame or coming off as gratuitous. Very funny column.

Michael Presley, Brooklyn

Please tell Matt Taibbi that if he is ever in Seoul, I would like to buy him a drink. Terrific demolition job.

Terry Murphy, Seoul, South Korea

I agree with and enjoyed the review, but it was stretching a bit at the end with,"the walls had fallen down and the Windows had opened."ÊThe capitalized 'Windows' is clearly the product, not a real window. Does this save the imagery? Of course not, but it opens the review's author to undeserved criticism as a humorless right-wing conspirator.

Gordon Stewart, Sante Fe

Your review makes me want to read the book for the same reasons P.J. O'Rourke read the Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter tome.ÊI can't wait for it to hit the $5 rack at Barnes & Noble. Next week. That was great writing/reviewing, Matt.

NAME WITHHELD, Manhattan

Outstanding! Laughed out loud! Taibbi nails it in style.

Thomas Chatel, Portland, ME

As usual, Taibbi is tilted in his rant on Friedman ("Flathead," 4/20). Obviously, Taibbi has penis envy. Or Taibbi needs better reefer.

Les Bridges, Manhattan

I agree: Thomas Friedman is a boob, and his writing sucks-I'm surprised your reviewer didn't contemplate suicide. Still, I wonder if a couple things have been misunderstood:

1) Is the theme of the book "global interconnectedness" or "the equality of nations" (or at least nationals)? The metaphor sort of works if you think, "Well, the world used to be (thought) flat, and when it was, everyone in Europe was pretty much equal in their little tiny European ways. Then they found out it wasn't flat, and all hell broke loose. Now it's working in reverse-all this technology is making everyone equal again." So it's not that we're interconnected, though we are. It's that anyone can do the same stuff, which was the case when the world was flat.

2) When the reviewer writes, "He is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius," I read it, well, in reverse, the first time-that he can't render the smallest details without genius as meaning the details had genius (he was incapable of doing it any other way). I read it again and saw how it works verbally, but syntactically it can go both ways. A small error, but a central feature of the essay was how confusing Friedman is.

3) Would the wall thing have worked if it was switched: "The Windows were opened and the Walls fell down, making the world much flatter"? You could at least possibly open a window and have a wall fall down (because of what was let in? Because it the room wasn't built well in the first place? I.E. not built to the truth of this age?or something). It also suggests more of a connection between technology and the end of ancient regimes. Just wondering about this one.

All this is probably Friedman's fault. His metaphors are so mixed, and his allusions either so obvious or obscure, that a reader can be forgiven for missing what passes for the point.

Paul Hughes, Orange, CA

Do you think that Matt Taibbi will marry me? Because he just made me the happiest woman on earth ("Flathead," 4/20).

I hate Tom Friedman. I cannot believe he has a job with a reputable fish-wrap organization. You should see the letters I send to the New York Times (they never print 'em-never)! A common element in my analyses of Friedman's editorials usually includes a question about how the Times could possibly employ a man who was so obviously coddled by his mother, with her greatest crime being that she continuously told him how much smarter and more clever and intelligently superior he was and that he would just have to manage to find a way to be happy living amongst the imbeciles that makes up the world's population. I wonder how long she breast-fed him?

I will be framing Matt Taibbi's review and hanging it on the wall to enjoy.

I can hear the real writers at the Times laughing now. And thanking the dear Lord for Taibbi's review of what is really Thomas Friedman's entire life. So, to answer Taibbi's question, "Is there a God?", you bet there is. Or millions of smart Americans would have had to have missed the best damn review ever.

NAME WITHHELD, Bend, OR