Two Brief Poems
Last modified on 2009-01-05 16:48:21 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
The following are two poems written in mid-late 2008 in a style somewhat emulative of the poetry of Raymond Carver and Richard Brautigan, both of whom I was reading heavily at the time. Brevity was the order of the day, and my emphasis was placed most heavily on establishing a meter that was reflective of the idea I was getting at.
Growing Up
I used to think I had a lot in common with Holden Caulfield.
I don’t think I have anything in common with him anymore.
Go fuck yourself, Holden Caulfield.
The Goddamn Truth
There’s a storm coming tonight.
You’d have to be a goddamn idiot
not to know that. And not to be happy
for the clouds. They’re going to have company,
and they’ve got so much to drink.
A Very Spiteful Review of “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”
Last modified on 2008-10-17 02:44:13 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
For reasons I cannot understand, this book is treated as canonical in high school economics classrooms across the country. Friedman presents an argument that is not only exceedingly hypocritical but asserted almost entirely through a jungle of personal anecdotes. The Lexus and the Olive Tree is not so much an explanation of globalization as it is a laundry list of interesting people that Friedman knows and you do not. Methodology aside, the arguments Friedman makes are more often than not deeply flawed.
Many of the ideas Friedman babbles about are considered debatable (the “Electronic Herd”) at best, or flat-out absurd (the “Golden Straitjacket”) at worst. This “straitjacket” is the focal point of his argument, and it takes him a few hundred pages to get around to the crux of it. To summarize: Having spoken to 50 or 60 of his friends, Friedman declares that economic growth, specifically in emerging markets, demands a paring down of any form of social safety net, open arms to foreign investment, and a deregulatory fiscal policy on the part of the government in question. Friedman disregards the fact that heavily subsidized agricultural exports from the United States, for example, undercut domestic prices in many of these emerging markets and bankrupt local agricultural industries. The United States’ own tariffs and quotas were what allowed U.S. industry and agriculture to flourish in the first place, but present-day emerging markets are somehow expected to open their borders and allow their markets to be flooded with development-stifling imports from first world economies and subsidy driven low prices.
All of this aside, perhaps the most grating element of The Lexus and the Olive Tree is Friedman’s penchant for creating ridiculous names for existing and well-defined economic and political phenomena. The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention stands in as the fat sister of Democratic Peace Theory (Heard of Israel and Lebanon, Thomas? Give Russia and Georgia a few more months, perhaps.). DOScapital (a witticism perhaps overheard in a middle-school remedial English program) is a ridiculous way of describing what most have deemed the global economy; i.e. capitalism. The Electronic Herd? Capitol investors. Microchip Immune Deficiency? Insufficient decentralization and technophobia. In summation, The Lexus and the Olive Tree attempts to explain the nature and processes of globalization by combining a long list of people with whom Thomas Friedman has had lunch, kitschy jargon, five or six thousand poorly-chosen metaphors, a smattering of jingoism, a dedication to the unregulated free market that would make Lady Thatcher blush, and no formal education in economics whatsoever. I would highly recommend this book to aspiring Robber Barons, but for anyone else it’s only good for a laugh or two.
