Holy shit, you have to pay $995 to attend Friedmanpalooza and learn about the “new world order” (I thought that phrase had been officially retired in the late 90s):
The New York Times Global Forum: Thomas L. Friedman’s The Next New World, scheduled for June 20, promises to “explore the complex dynamics of new-world infrastructure, especially the transformative electronic, digital and mobile environment,” impart “invaluable insights into strategies for success in today’s new world order,” and answer the question: “What World Are You Living In?” Invitees can attend the one-day forum for the early-bird price of $995.
I realize there are people who see Glenn Beck or reality tv or teh kids with teh texting as conclusive evidence that we’re nearing the end of civilization. For me, the best evidence is the continued popularity (and influence, like it or not) of Tom Friedman and David Brooks.
some guy
maybe Tom has some insights into the strength of Al qaeda in Syria, and who, exactly, forced them to release the 2 Christian Bishops they had kidnapped? Saudi Arabia? Qatar? France and England? the CIA?
which of the above does Al Qaeda in Syria fear the most, or is most loyal to?
RaflW
A fool and his money, soon parted.
I like, though, that it still sounds tentative “scheduled for June 20th” as if it might be rescheduled if they dont get enough
marks$995 attendees.jake the snake
He was on totebagger radio (NPR) yesterday. As always I was disappointed that anyone would take him seriously.
At this point Friedman should be considered a master of the long con.
BGinCHI
Or you could come to the Newberry Library this fall and hear me talk about Shakespeare at one of the Teachers’ Consortium seminars. I could get you in for free and you might actually learn something. Taxi drivers welcome.
Certified Mutant Enemy
I want to see a list of people willing to pay $995 for something this lame…
Higgs Boson's Mate
Anyone who needs Tom Friedman to tell them what world they’re living in doesn’t have $995 to spare.
RaflW
Oh, and at least when conservatives do this, in stead of fapping centrist moustachios, you get a cruise thrown in for that kind of cash.
I mean, for $995 there should at least be an overnight run to Kennebunkport on the Queen Mary II. Amirite?
Omnes Omnibus
Friedman, Brooks, and Beck do not constitute a Bizarre Love Triangle; grotesque or obscene would be better descriptors.
biff diggerence
Friedman is starting to sound like fucking Carl Benson from Handy World (Garden State):
“I’d like to talk to you about an opportunity . . . that people are talking about . . . “
Xenos
Can we add Malcolm Gladwell to Brooks and Friedman? I used to think he was pretty clever until I realized that nothing he was saying is original, and found out that much of it is wrong.
He’s on my mind because I was helping my daughter research colleges, and he is right at the front of the U of Toronto website as a famous public intellectual / honored alum. Yikes! Has U of T turned into a giant TED seminar?
El Caganer
We should give it up for the young guns, too.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/04/24/its-matthew-yglesias-world-we-just-get-blown-up-in-it/
Schlemizel
@El Caganer:
Following on from the thread below I may have this tattooed on my chest:
raven
STEEL PULSE – NEW WORLD ORDER
schrodinger's cat
Friedman and Bobo satisfy the same niche for totebaggers that Beck and Limbaugh do for the teabaggers. Basically telling them what they want to hear.
Older_Wiser
For the price of a movie, you might get a better perspective here:
Manufactured Landscapes http://www.headbutler.com/movies/documentary/manufactured-landscapes
If you’re environmentally conscious, always wondering how you can do better short of becoming a total ascetic, consume less without totally going off the grid as I try to do, and worried about what kind of planet we’re leaving future generations, this movie might set your teeth on edge, but it sounds as though it asks profound, fundamental questions that aren’t easily answered.
“Burtynsky’s conclusion — not shared in the documentary — may come to be yours: ”I feel like I’m living in contradiction with myself. But I don’t know any other alternative to how I live…. It’s a dilemma of our times, in that there’s no easy prescription for our ailment.” His solution, however tentative, is to “look at the world straight on, in a way that won’t let us immediately turn our eyes away.”
It’s also why we should pay attention to yesterday’s news of the collapse of a building in Bangladesh that killed over 100 people, people trying to make a few dollars a month to lift themselves out of grinding poverty, who make the clothes so many buy for a few dollars in vast quantities. Just imagine those 2 or maybe 3 shirts you bought represent 3 different sets, and types, of people: The ones who made the garments, working under horrible conditions just trying to keep body and soul alive; the sellers of those garments whose wealth is so obscenely large they could provide entire countries with basic foodstuffs; and the buyers, people like us, whose consumerist dilemma between the 2 groups continues to be ignored by far too many. including those struggling with the loss of jobs now performed by those in the first group, people whose own govt crafted this turn of events and yet continue to neglect preparing us for these great shifts in cultural and economic well-being.
Aimai
@BGinCHI: I love the newberry library. My cousin works there and discovered on her own (like, lunch hours) that they have an extensive and centuries old collection of children’s literature. She curated a show on it years ago. It’s an amazing place. Wish I could come hear you read.
Morzer
So, to sum up, little Tommy Friedman has discovered that kids like the internet and iPhones. What insight and vision that man has!
BGinCHI
@Aimai: They also have an amazing collection of Americana. Just endless. It’s also just a terrific place to spend time working and thinking.
Tom Friedman would have no idea what to do there.
Amir Khalid
@Xenos:
Malcolm Gladwell is a magazine writer, and a pretty good one. But he has no training in science as such. Our buddy Tom Levenson has a far better grasp of the sciences, and is every bit as good at writing prose. Gladwell is more famous only because he works harder at marketing himself.
aimai
I also think its hysterical that someone who has a thousand dollars to spend listening to Thomas Friedman tell him something incredibly obvious and simultaneously totally false–is apparently lured in by the mysterious glamor of being able to keep that extra five dollars in his pocket. 995.00? Really? Shows what a terrible businessman TF is–what? they couldn’t offer it at 999.99? There’s that extra 4.99 just laying there.
aimai
@BGinCHI:
The Head librarian took us back to the vault years ago and showed us his personal favorite: a merchant’s journal of a plague year in Italy. It was indescribably moving to hold it in your hand and reflect on what he saw and what he recorded before he, too, died of plague. And they put on an incredible show of books relating to Christian views of Judaism covering the middle ages at one point. I wish I’d spent more time there when I was in Chicago.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@aimai:
Setting the price at $995 instead of the more majestic $1000 struck me as cheesy. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the phrase “Act now and we’ll send you a second forum for just the cost of shipping and handling.”
Bruce S
For me the best evidence our country is being flushed down the toilet is fifteen hours a week of Joe & Mika apparently capturing the attention of Very Serious People of the Beltway persuasion. I can’t remember a worse piece of crap that wasn’t confined to FOX or talk radio.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@jake the snake:
Just another reason why Totebagger Radio will never see a dime of my money.
RSA
Holy crap. That one-day forum costs $181,587 per Friedman unit.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Even at $135, it would be better value than the MoU’s talk.
Deb T
So is the ‘at the door’ ticket price an even $1000 or does it depend on how many tickets or sold. Maybe you can get them on the cheap. Of course for Friedman, any price would be too high. He’d have to pay me $995.
Amir Khalid
@aimai:
As I understand the psychology of it, people seize on that trivial saving as a matter of visual reflex rather than conscious thought: $995 looks hella cheaper than $1,000 because it’s three figures instead of four, rather than because it’s five whole dollars less. I guess they reckon $999.99 looks enough like a five-figure number to put people off.
Did you also notice how the ad tells you to contact the organisers to “request an invitation”? ‘Cause the Really Important People don’t ask to come to these things, ya know; people have to invite them to come.
Deb T
@Aimai:
Hence, the Newberry Award in children’s literature.
Seanly
FTFY
My wife was watching some history show about the 80’s. I was thinking of watching it with her, but just then David Brooks came on. I tried to quickly explain who he was & then left the room.
jamick6000
can we raise money to send DougJ to this “The Next New World” bullshit, like how people raised money to send ABL and John Cole to the Democratic convention?
i’ve been pawning my vast collection of hand crank radios and “All Things Considered” ceramic mugs, so I have a boatload of cash on hand at the moment.
jamick6000
great takedown of Matt Yglesias over at Mr. Destructo
Tokyokie
I might consider spending $9.95 to see him, if admission afforded me the opportunity to pelt him with fetid agricultural products, ask him embarrassing questions or just corner him with a large number of similarly disgruntled proles and ask him to “suck on this.”
Fanshawe
It’s probably a better value to take 60 or 70 cab rides.
jamick6000
@Fanshawe: lmao
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: You know I bring the value!
Plus free cycling tips. Example: don’t use Pledge on your saddle. Also: after applying embrocation, wash your hands before you pee.
Marmot
I’m kind of a jerk, but know that I love you guys. Where else would I regularly find Friedman and fucking Brooks getting that so-deserved ridicule? And near the top of the comments, one of y’all adds Gladwell, completely unbidden! I’m so tired of sparing the middlebrows’ feelings, and I’m glad it’s not just me.
scav
@BGinCHI: seriously? that could be a dangerous temptation.
danielx
Actually I believe that one of the harbingers of civilization’s end was the whole concept of David Brooks teaching a course on humility. Ranks right up there with Donald Trump teaching a course on humility.
gogol's wife
This thread is cheering me up during brief break from work.
Betsy
I’d love to see the Things You Will Take Away From This Seminar listicles on the marketing brochure:
— TWELVE ways to glean valuable market info on world trends from your cabdriver!
— LEARN how to predict stock market fluctuations from looking out the airplane window during your descent!
— AMAZE your friends by reading the sizzle marks on your meat at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in any one of these noted hub cities!
— EIGHT things you can predict by analyzing the Applebee’s salad bar!
… help me out here …
Betsy
@jamick6000: LOVE IT — I’m in for ten bucks
— match my pledge!(and get a free totebag)
Maude
Someone once told me that stupid people understand each other. This proves it.
Jay in Oregon
@Omnes Omnibus:
I saw what you did there.
Also, kudos to DougJ for the twin references in the post title.
Mike E
$995, Jesus…thatsa alota cream pies.
DougJ
@Xenos:
I’m not a Gladwell fan but he’s not as bad as Friedman and Brooks.
liberal
“The Datsun and the Shoe Tree” is still the best parody of TF ever.
SiubhanDuinne
@BGinCHI:
Depending on when it is, I may very well take you up on that! I’m retiring in a couple of months and am planning on doing a lot of traveling once my time is my own, including a trip back to my home town of Chicago (Oak Park). I love the Newberry and would really enjoy attending one of your Shakespeare presentations.
NotMax
Well, the prospectus can fit on an index card.
1) Listen to Friedman
2) Wait 6 months
3) Victory!
(At bottom, in the smallest print possible: YMMV)
SiubhanDuinne
@Tokyokie: I heard/saw him speak years ago when he was the guest celebrity luncheon speaker of the Atlanta Press Club. My employer probably parted with about $30 for me to attend. My takeaway was that his “speech” was nothing but extended readings from whatever his latest book was, and his latest book, in turn, was nothing but a collection of his (then-free) NYT columns.
Bruce S
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hey – recycling is integral to the “complex dynamics of new-world infrastructure.”
Quicksand
Friedman, Brooks, Beck, and (Alex) Jones are all exactly the same thing. Just comforting, authoritative-sounding voices that their audiences can listen to and nod along with, without actually thinking. They assuage their listeners’ insecurities by filling in gaps in their worldviews in some remotely plausible way — plausible to them, at least.
I can respect them as entrepreneurs, I guess.
See also, TED talks.
aimai
@Deb T:
No, actually–the Award is quite old. The existence of this collection was hidden within the general collection. My cousin was working with the collection, cataloguing books, and on her own time discovered many books that had simply been catalogued and understood to be part of other collections (Middle Ages, Religion, Geography) etc… but they turned out, on inspection, to have been written for children’s instruction. This is quite a different thing from the Newberry award for modern children’s literature.
Ivan X
Triple extra bonus points for clever post title, Doug. Saw them this weekend at Coachella, though now, without Peter Hook playing those iconic bass parts, they’re kind of a cover band of their own music. Still awesome though.
Trollhattan
Because the OP notes Beck, I wanted to share a (new to me) Pierceism: “Glennbeckystanstan.”
Steeplejack
@Deb T, @aimai:
Different spelling, different things.
The Newberry Library was founded with a bequest from the will of Chicago businessman Walter L. Newberry (1804-68).
The Newbery Medal, given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, was named for 18th-century British bookseller John Newbery.
Trollhattan
@Betsy:
—SURRENDER all hope American airports will ever be as nice as Asian airports!
—ADMIT to yourself you’re going to end up working at Foxconn.
RaflW
@danielx:
FTFY.
Tonal Crow
Friedman is not in the same class as Bobo. At least Friedman gets climate change, and the need to do something big about it — like enacting a substantial carbon tax. Bobo, on the other hand, is 99 44/100% pure Republican propagandist.
gogol's wife
@Tonal Crow:
I agree that Brooks is far more loathsome than Friedman.
slag
Agreed. Plus, Sullivan.
Min
$995?
OIC, they left out the decimal point. ;)