Just a gigilo in a flat world...

When I read the book "The World Is Flat", by Thomas Friedman, I found some very interesting ideas that I tend to agree with. I have touted various ideas from that book here and other blogs over the past few years. One thing that we all must become more aware of is the implications to which a writer is giving and where the writer's thoughts are based from. Perhaps, within a byline of an institution such as the NY Times, it should be made aware that someone, such as Thomas Friedman, is an heir to one of the wealthiest families in the world. This may just change how the readers will view the information that he is delivering.

The July edition of the Washingtonian Magazine of 2006 discusses how Friedman lives in "a palatial 11,400-square-foot house, now valued at $9.3 million, on a 7½-acre parcel just blocks from I-495 and Bethesda Country Club." He "married into one of the 100 richest families in the country" - the Bucksbaums, whose real-estate Empire is valued at $2.7 billion. That was then, it may be sold now, I don't know this answer. Neither here nor there...right?

It is our responsibility as enlightened and informed people of our time to educate ourselves more with the information and technology that we have available at our fingertips today. So, when someone like Thomas Friedman, the prolific writer for the NY Times, and international best selling author, gives his "two cents" people will be able to sit with the information that he is delivering and begin to see just why he might be positing some of his ideas in the way he is.

I agree that the world has become a very small place with the advent of the Internet, global business and financial institutions, international corporate laws, various tax implications by locale, all help create a smaller global playing field. As a global traveler, I am still amazed with the fact that people can get on a plane and in less than 12 hours be on the other side of the world participating in a drastically different society and set of rules than where they originally live and participate. This kind of travel gave personal and business opportunities to the planet's wealthier crowd that didn't exist only a handful of decades ago. Today, the playing field has become even smaller due to the advent of the Internet, and much of the developing world, like India, China and others are able to outsource their labor force, ideas and technological prowess without the need to spend the money to travel allowing to become more strategic in their business.

None of this personal information I know about Friedman changes the fact that some of the ideas that I took away from his book are not valid or that I no longer agree or disagree with them. But, it does shed new light on the way that I might reflect over his ideas that I read. Knowing a bit about the writer allows the reader a bit more room to see where the writer is getting their viewpoints and/or why they may be stating a position one way or the other. So, when he touts the good that comes out of international business practices of outsourcing jobs that will help create global economic expansion, I can look at that statement from various angles now that I know with who and what is being discussed over his dinner table.

I originally pictured a flat in NY, a type of Woody Allen existence that Friedman had. Or even perhaps lazying around the summer home in Cuba or the Keys like Hemmingway, continually trying to analyze the world through his own books, sources and friends. I am sure I am still correct in much of this, it is just that the world I now know is much different than the more normal world I was envisioning to which his information was coming from.

Friedman leads not what most people who reflect the life as a writer would lead. His normal crowd is the world elite and not the Harvard literary professor. I am not against people making money. This is what makes this world go around. I don't think that will change, and certainly not in my lifetime. As altruistic or nirvana-esque I might want the world to be more like, it is what it is. I feel it is just responsible journalism to let the reader know a bit about where one's ideas are coming from. In the back of a book, on the fold, it will discuss a writer's education, other books written, how many kids or a marriage or partner...not politics, not wealth, not religion, much of what will enlighten the reader to where the views so powerfully generate from.

When Friedman is someone who generally writes about economic and political topics perhaps it should be known to the readers that his viewpoints are coming from an elite side of global society. Although, he married into his wealth, he lives a very different writer's life. He is surrounded by the world's elite, always. Therefore, when he posits his views as if he is a normal kind of citizen, one must understand that he is delivering the message of the global elite in a pill that is to be swallowed by the average of society in order to allow the world elite their way while we all smile along.


I will close with some relevant lyrics:

Just a gigolo
everywhere I go
people know the part
I'm playing

Paid for every dance
selling each romance
every night some heart
betraying

There will come a day
youth will pass away
then what will they say
about me

When the end comes I know
they'll say just a gigolo
as life goes on
without me

'Cause I aint got nobody
nobody nobody cares for me
I'm so sad and lonely
sad and lonely sad and lonely
Won't some sweet mama
come and take a chance with me
cause I aint so bad