Friedman is an idiot, but people listen to him. That's the only reason I read his column. I assumed his shallow analysis was a ruse to strike an "everyman" pose and make his column more palatable to a wider audience. Then I thumbed through his book and realized there's no depth.

FYI: the staggering number of engineers and scientists in India is not real. Below the top schools, they are just handing out degrees for a fee. The quality of those engineers is very low. Therefore, most of those guys will lose their jobs to cheaper labor anywhere else in the world, and to IT automation. Every year we can do more IT work with fewer and fewer people.

There was a hugely funny parody of Friedman's Lexus in the Boston Phoenix, I think it was, that mocked his style perfectly. If I have time later today, I'll try to track down a link, or one of the other commenters may know of it.

Noone -- that's the first I've heard of that. Do you think that's also the case for China and Japan? (that's a question, not a challenge.)

I think what's weird about Friedman is insistence on using his self-made terms constantly when he's on TV. I don't know how many times I've heard 'flat world' come out of his mouth. Doesn't he know about overexposure? He also has that odd Don LaPre-like enthusiasm/crazed look that also makes him a little 'special.'

What makes a good pundit? I agree with you that Friedman’s popularity is undeserved. He's a mediocre thinker and writer. I think that the NYT likes him because he supports many, not all of the President’s policies and the NYT knows full well that they are listed as assistant antichrists in The Dobson Analysis. Most of us would first say that a good pundit sees something that other media people can’t see. In the final analysis, however,we value a pundit who agrees with us. I say that a good pundit is someone who surprises us, even his/her admirers. Michael Kinsley fits this bill although his recent surprises were praising President Bush for honesty on Social Security, which I see as wide of the mark.

We all see that newspapers are sinking. They won’t disappear, but they’ll have to find new tricks to survive. One such trick would be to have longer pieces, not on today’s news, but analysing last month’s news, accessed for a fee from the Internet. God knows that the US has many dreadful problems and most of us hope that they will be addressed. Splenetic columnists like Charles Krauthammer may please the theocrats but few sane people would pay money to read their opinions. The WSJ writers are also too predictable.

There are many areas which are poorly understood. I’d pay to read a good 1500 word essay on the question, “If there is no such thing as race, why is it that so many marathon winners come from Kenya and environs?”

I'm still waiting for Freidman to provide any insights into global capitalism that I didn't get at the first Indian-American wedding that I went to 15 years ago. In the backward midwestern flatlands, no less.

Wanna have fun? Pick a Freidman column and rewrite it with no personal pronouns and summarizing the anecdotes succintly. Without leaving out a single fact or insight it will be only be half as long (or less!) than the original.

Actually, when you stop and think about NY Times columnists in general, there seems to be something of a surfeit of banality: after all, the NYT editorial page has not only Friedman, but also Maureen Dowd and David Brooks.

Hmm... How *is* it that such a good paper can have such crap columnists?

Insight and accesibility are not necesarily antagonistic qualities, but producing work that is superior on both counts requires a high level of skill on the part of the editors as well as the authors, and good editing has been lacking at Times for decades.

someone asked:

"Hmm... How *is* it that such a good paper
can have such crap columnists?"

Maybe you shou re-evaluate your opinion
of the paper. Every since it went from
8 columns-per-page down to 6, the writing
and editing has deteriorated.

These days only the sports writers are
any good.

OK, the Vows column in Sunday Styles is
a fun read. And the Crossword in the
magazine is still a fun way to spend
an hour or so.

When both liberals and conservatives are agreeing that Friedman's work is full of horseshit..maybe it's time for Friedman to hang it up.

This was a tolerable essay turned into a 470 page book.

Does any editor use a red pencil these days? Do writers get paid by the word?

Writers should consider the audience and keep the books in a size real people can read.

Try again.

Writers, keep it brief!

See, brevity is easy.

If you are an overrated blowhard, you write for The New York Times. Blowhards no one would think to overrate write for Slate.

I did what I suggested above and rewrote Freidman's column by cutting out the filler, puff, and chatter. The word count dropped from 828 words to 491, a 40% reduction, and I could have cut a LOT more but I wanted to be as faithful to the original as possible.

Read it below and see if its as bad as the original published in the Times.

"Many educated people seem to be getting their news from Jon Stewart's truly funny news satire, "The Daily Show." A lot, lot more than you think.

There's a huge undertow of worry out in the country about how our kids are being educated and whether they'll be able to find jobs in [when] more Chinese, Indians and Russians than ever can connect, collaborate and compete with us.

The most important thing you can learn in this era of heightened global competition is how to learn. Being really good at "learning how to learn," will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.

The best way to learn how to learn is to go ask your friends: "Who are the best teachers?" Then - no matter the subject - take their courses. When I think back on my favorite teachers, I don't remember anymore much of what they taught me, but I sure remember being excited about learning it.

What has stayed with me are not the facts they imparted, but the excitement about learning they inspired. To learn how to learn, you have to love learning - while some people are born with that gene, many others can develop it with the right teacher (or parent).

Britney Schmidt, a student at the University of Arizona who was bored with her courses. "I was getting A's in all my classes, but I wasn't being challenged, and I wasn't thinking about new things," she said.

[But] a great professor and teaching assistants inspired her. "I was lucky," she said. "I took a class from somebody who really cared." The result: a scientist was born. Ms. Schmidt has since been accepted to graduate school at U.C.L.A. in planetary physics and the University of Chicago in cosmo-chemistry.

Craig Barrett [is] the chief executive of Intel, which has invested millions of dollars in trying to improve the way science is taught in U.S. schools. (The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday that China is graduating four times the number of engineers as the U.S.; Japan, with less than half our population, graduates double the number.)

Mr. Barrett said, Intel can be a totally successful company without ever hiring another American. That is not its desire or intention, he said, but the fact is that it can now hire the best brain talent "wherever it resides."

Intel is making its new engineering investments today, he said, in China, India, Russia, Poland and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia and Israel. American [are] not enough for Intel's needs, and not enough is being done in U.S. public schools.

Look at the attention Congress has focused on steroids in Major League Baseball, Mr. Barrett mused. And then look at the attention it has focused on science education in minor-league American schools.

That's the real news out there, folks. And it's not funny."

And here's the really short version that actually contains all of the meat of Friedman's article. It's 209 words, a 75% reduction in length. And there's STILL stuff to cut in it ...

"There's worry about how our kids are being educated and whether they'll be able to find jobs [when] more Chinese, Indians and Russians than ever can connect, collaborate and compete with us.

The most important thing you can learn is how to learn. Being really good at "learning how to learn," will be an enormous asset in an era of rapid change and innovation, when new jobs will be phased in and old ones phased out faster than ever.

To learn how to learn, you have to love learning.

Craig Barrett [is] the chief executive of Intel, which has invested millions of dollars in trying to improve the way science is taught in U.S. schools.

Mr. Barrett said Intel can be successful without ever hiring another American. That is not its desire or intention, he said, but the fact is that it can now hire the best talent in China, India, Russia, Poland and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia and Israel. Not enough is being done in U.S. public schools.

Look at the attention Congress has focused on steroids in Major League Baseball, Mr. Barrett mused. And then look at the attention it has focused on science education in minor-league American schools.

That's the real news out there, folks."

When both liberals and conservatives are agreeing that Friedman's work is full of horseshit..maybe it's time for Friedman to hang it up.

Trouble is, he sees that as a badge of honour, and a sign that he's "saying the right things."

I've got friends in what would generally be considered both the "far left" and "far right" camps, and both sides have hated the NYT with a passion for years.

As far as I'm concerned, the best things about the NYT are the business writing, the magazine and the crossword. Even the sportswriters are too bombastic too frequently.

Though the canonical "Shorter Tom Friedman" and similar efforts are found at

http://www.busybusybusy.com

Ahem, The Economist and as I recall, The Financial Times both panned Friedman's latest book as utterly worthless.

American navel gazing and all that.