Talk:Thomas Friedman/Archives/2015

Foreign Language

Does anyone know how extensive friedman's foreign language skills are? is he fluent in arabic and/or hebrew? despite the fact that he lived in the middle east for a number of years, i get the distinct impression that he never reached a particularly advanced level in either language.

Is it really accurate to call friedman a liberal? I'm not sure I would label him as such--his enthusiasm for globalization and the Iraq war sets him off from much of the left. I've removed that description. If you disagree, please note here. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 01:03, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

After high school, Friedman went to the University of Minnesota, where he began studying Arabic, an odd choice at the time. Later he spent a semester at Hebrew University and then to Brandeis in Boston, where he studied Arabic and Hebrew intensely. He graduated summa cum laude in 1975 with a degree in Mediterranean studies. RPSM (talk) 03:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Not really, but the meaning, or measure, of the terms liberal and conservative seem to be pretty up for grabs. Maybe "neoliberal", whatever that's sposed to be at any given moment. I prefer "economic imperialist" in regards to Friedman myself. [[User:Chaizzilla|Chaizzilla (talk)]] 20041029 13:56PDT

The impression that I get from this page is that its authors are irritated with Friedman's position on globalization, and otherwise they aren't too interested acknowledging common ground with him. Many of the quotes, both in and out of the quotes section, seem selected to argue against him. For example his column about McDonald's is interpreted as a literal theory which has been contradicted. Friedman never really meant it this way and he discusses the ex post facto "counterexample" to his "theory" at length in his cited book. It is fair enough to still disagree with him. It is not fair to criticize him and ignore his real position, especially if it is explained in a main citation.

More importantly, this snit over globalization has led to many other omissions in this biography. The reader is left wondering how an apparent hack columnist could have won any journalism prizes, much less three Pulitzer Prizes. The either-or discussion about whether he is a journalist or a columnist for the Times is also all wrong -- he has a long career as both. Nor is it any mystery whether or not he is a liberal columnist. Relative to the American political spectrum, he is clearly center-liberal; for example he implied that he was voting for Kerry in a recent column. Maybe relative to Western Europe he is center-conservative; if so that is also fair to mention.

I suppose that I could try to edit the entry myself, and maybe I will, but it would be better if the historical authors of this entry also tried to add balance.

Actually you could do a lot worse than to plagiarize this PBS biography [1].

- Greg Kuperberg 24.59.196.30 21:38, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You make some good points, but on other areas, I'm not clear on what you mean. For example, I don't see a "long back-and-forth" over whether he's a columnist or a journalist (although I will expand on his pre-columnist career, to the extent I'm able). As far as the Golden Arches thing, I haven't read Lexus in years, so I'm afraid I can't help. I will, however, go through and add a few more details. Also, how would you feel about simply removing the quotes section? Oftentimes, these are just places to stick out-of-context, inflammatory remarks; I'm not a huge fan of quote sections in general. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 21:47, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

99.39.185.188 (talk) 14:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC) I tried to access the PBS biography page and is not available. Want to know more about family, father & mother jobs, income status, work during school besides writing on school paper. Lack of this info leads me to suspect his upbringing was more privileged than not. His degree in Med studies & philsophy in my day was considered the easy way out. Does he own foreign language skills? katesisco

---