Amusing reflection on 'The Earth is Flat' by, of course, Tom Friedman

From the desk of Jane Galt (see site opposite; bottom of posts, April 22, 2005):


Ain't nothing finer than Matt Taibbi on the subject of Tom Friedman:


Thomas Friedman in possession of 500 pages of ruminations on the metaphorical theme of flatness would be a very dangerous thing indeed. It would be like letting a chimpanzee loose in the NORAD control room; even the best-case scenario is an image that could keep you awake well into your 50s.

So I tried not to think about it. But when I heard the book was actually coming out, I started to worry. Among other things, I knew I would be asked to write the review. The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I'll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here's what he says:

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.

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



For my take on Tom Friedman's abusive, even criminal, deployment of metaphor, click here. Meanwhile, does the man know how many calories there are in a Cinnabon? I mean, seriously, now. What was he thinking?

Posted at 07:01 AM | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0) | Technorati

Sympathy for the devil, the line workers at GM

There has been a lot of disappointment in GM, cf. GlennReynolds.com., which gets directed at the Union, the UAW. I have a patient who served in Cambodia with the Army; then was traumatized by seeing blacks killed in Detroit in suppression of the 'MLK' riots. He was with the Army unit that participated in part in this. I won't go into his righteous heroism there, and the support of his black comrades for him here. He carried this with him into working 'the line at GM.' He was a tough guy, would walk 2 blocks on his hands. He saw a guy have a heart attack, fall out on the line, only to be dragged off, later reported dead; and the line never stopped. 'It would cost them $$$ to stop the line,' he said. His experiences at GM and probably those earlier led him, in my opinion, to feel 'the line' as near almighty and himself as nothing unless he supported 'the line.' By working hard he got himself to a spot on the line that he wanted. One day a cable that attached to a magnet on the vehicle door got wrapped around a fixed object as the line and the cable moved. He didn't run. The cable snapped and whipped him. It gave him spinal injuries. He is in chronic pain. He can no longer display feats of strength, doesn't have it. He can't work. GM is building some good cars; I plan to buy one next time I'm in the market. Maybe management will even let them stop 'the line.'

'Hahaha' as per Pinkie, The idealist Nazi whose parents told him to stay out of Germany, for his own safety, due to his hostility to rude Nazis

A minor tangent in the recent news was the discovery by the Colombian Army of a nearly constructed large submarine for cocaine smuggling. An amusing reflection on this is found in 'Das.. Boot' in www.yuppiesofzion.com .

Some potentially interesting books

Rural insurgency and political integration/dis-integration were both my academic and military specialties. Oddly enough one of the most useful typologies for this kind of activity and the book that first alerted me to the spectrum of criminals/insurgents was Hobsbawm’s, Primitive Rebels, still available in paperback. Old Eric Hobsbawm was a lifelong British Communist, but he understood the political and economic underpinnings of deviant behavior. If you ever want to understand what we will be facing for the next two or three generations, read this book first then get a firm grasp on “amoral familialism” orginated by Edw. Banfield, and finish with studies of middle eastern tribe, clan and families.

Comment by Hungry Valley — 4/20/2005 @ 6:33

Habemus Papam
April 20, 2005; Page A16, the Wall Street Journal.

The world has a new Pope -- Benedict XVI, known until yesterday as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany. It appears inevitable that his election -- by 115 Catholic cardinals convened in the Sistine Chapel for the second day of their conclave -- will be seen as a conservative choice. To the extent that is true, the former Cardinal Ratzinger's critics in the U.S. and Europe can probably take some of the credit for his elevation to the papacy.

Attention is being drawn to a remark made days ago by Cardinal Ratzinger in a pontifical Mass that "we are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism." It may have gotten him elected. For it is not likely that any member of the college of cardinals was willing to allow this brand of relativism to endanger the Church's dynamic gains in Africa, South America or Asia. In his revealing memoir, "Milestones: Memoirs 1927-1977" (Ignatius Press), he describes his early sense, as a young German in the war, of the Church's historic role: "Despite many human failings, the Church was the alternative to the destructive ideology of the Nazis. In the inferno that had swallowed up the powerful, she had stood firm with a force coming to her from eternity. It had been demonstrated: The gates of hell will not prevail against her."

What, then, may we expect of the "conservative" Benedict XVI? We suspect that rather than the suppression feared by Western liberals, this vigorous 78-year-old intellectual, extending the mandate of John Paul, will promote a spiritual revival and evangelization among the strays in his own flock.

It is also widely said that a central challenge for the new Pope will be dealing with the Islamic world, even as much of the world itself strives in the age of Islamic terror to encourage moderate Muslims to join the fight. Cardinal Ratzinger was known as a tough, and sometimes overly blunt, commentator. But let it also be noted that the Benedict XVI who must arbitrate a modus vivendi with Islam on one day and the pressures of modernity on the next has taken his papal name, perhaps as a message to his adversaries, from the founder of the Benedictine order whose motto is pax, or peace. Those willing to meet this new pontiff halfway may find more than they bargained for. (End of WSJ note.)

I found the 'Memoirs' to be a fine read, sort of an intellectual's Huck Finn adventure, not to diminsh Huck Finn who Mr. Twain wouldn't allow to be more self revealing, starting out on a community raft in an administratively Nazi river in a historically Catholic land. He arrives off the danger of the river to a threadbare but traditionally dynamic society which yet has it moral challenges, most prominently in the seduction of Marxism, but also more self made challenges as in the Catholic Church's headlonng rush out of traditional or a culturally accreted liturgy. Similar to but even more than John Roberts, he is remarkable for the bluster he doesn't have. He is inclusive, may this writer add snarkily, catholic, finding refreshment in his Lutheran colleagues and, in one of his intelectual facets, 'personalism' where Martin Buber, a Jew, is given as the best expositor.


Harold Bloom, emeritus prof of Yale, in WSJ, April 20th, 2005
One goes on urging children of all ages to read and reread Hans Christian Andersen and Dickens, Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, rather than Ms. Rowling and Mr. King.

Beween Good Friday and Easter

Laura Ingraham brought us the essential facts of the Terrri Schiavo story this week. Some would say the law is straightforward. Look, when the judges want to find a result they can be artistically creative, for abortion the 'penumbra,' for homosexuality 'evolving standards,' striking down executions where the criminal was a minor, European laws. In Catholic theology, there is the idea of a standard of justice and one of mercy. Under the standard of justice, Michael Schiavo is a bigamist but mercy spares him because, well, you see the situation he is in. Are Judge Grier and the others too obtuse to see this in some framework and so follow the law? No, the robes are obtuse when they want to be. He and the rest could have said that the husband is chosen to represent the wife as, reasonably, the closest to her but his de facto bigamy invalidates that and gives the parents preference. Takes brilliance? No. Then there is the business of the persistent vegetative state, which seems to have been set in stone prematurely or in a slipshod maner. Matters? No.

These events stand in the way of our reviewing in elegance the life of Christ. But at the time of his death that was just as depressing, dare I say, a matter. This outrage which may have made for the mass of the first Christians, Jews. My Catholic forefathers have taught us of 'mysteries,' e.g. the triune G-d. But I believe they were yet more subtle and gave us a rule to apply to other situations in our Bible. Jesus could be harsh. 'It was as difficult for a rich man toget into heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of the needle.' Perhaps even just kidded about how he cast out demons with the comment, 'Why he is the prince of demons,' he said, 'You may criticize me but to abjur the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin.' You lock these away as 'mysteries' and have the soaring 'Blessed are the poor, in spirit, in ability to make attachment to the things of the world, for they shall inherit the earth!' 'I do this for the remission of sins (of Jew and Roman and Greek of all mankind without distinction, one G-d, one people).' Poetry. And then the the ultimate statement of mystery and poetry. "Father forgive them for they know not what they do," and then of humanity, "My God, my god why hast thou forsaken me?" Tyranny, duplicity, and a little help from their mistakes or intentions lead to the deaths of Jesus and Terri.

The Decision of the High Court re: execution of juvenile offenses

For any controversial decison of the court, the psychologically least stressful position for someone neutral on the subject would be to take the decison as received wisdom. This is not my attitude here, and I think there are many who feel intruded on by this decision. The data as I know it is that an armed citizenry reduces crime by increasing the risk to the criminal and that the death penalty, similarly, defers by increasing risk for the murderer. In general, we all have dispositions that are antisocial that may be held in check by countervailing social forces. I can not see the logic of holding as instapundit does that the right to bear arms is good but banning the state from defending you is proper.
In this decison, I am reminded of a former president being quizzed by elite college students in a Communist country who suggested to him that the Supreme court was like their Politburo; so what's the difference in the 2 systems. Indeed. Thus, the rage. We all were reading today of arguments being made re: the Ten Commandments in a public place. Who cares what the Supreme Court says, except that they should allow democracy? You have ony to know, since you don't have any power, as the old show said, "You are there." People oppose tyranny to avoid helplessness. The court most clearly fails here in this test of the apropriateness of their action.

Reflections on an inauguration

The presidency combines the function of royalty and a chief administrative officer for the country. Royalty, especially in modern times, leads by setting an example, enunciating a standard. So the president in his inaugural was giving voice to what are the ideals of his administration, what consequences they have in social developemment, and what are their origins. In so far as people respect him, they will see this as a standard and potentially be accountable, first of all to themselves, if they do not meet it.