Tales of The Normalizing: The many moods of Thomas L. Friedman

Image by Apolonis at DeviantArt.

Cynicism (last week, "Why is Trump Fighting ISIS in Syria?", when he was arguing that the Assad regime ought to be left to destroy ISIS on its own, as if Assad hadn't been cheerfully supporting ISIS all along with his purchase of their petroleum products) :

I don’t get it. President Trump is offering to defeat ISIS in Syria for free — and then pivot to strengthening the moderate anti-Assad rebels. Why? When was the last time Trump did anything for free? When was the last real estate deal Trump did where he volunteered to clean up a toxic waste dump — for free — before he negotiated with the owner on the price of the golf course next door?

Tom, Tom, when will you learn? He does things for free all the time, when he's doing it with other people's money. That was the whole principle of the Trump Foundation, enabling him to give to charity without going to his own bank account.


Optimism (yesterday, "Coal Museum Sees the Future; Trump Doesn't", recommending that Trump should emulate the The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, owned by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, and go for solar power because it's more practical):

Since Trump seems to be pivoting from some of his campaign nonsense, one can only hope he will do the same on these issues. If Trump is looking for a blueprint, he could not do better than to read a smart new book, “Climate of Hope,” by a most unlikely duo: former Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I can just see the president: "For fuck's sake I ask you to bring me a blueprint, you bring me a blueprint! Not a fucking book!"