Humor Spotlight: Betinna's latest reflections on her husband Thomas Friedman

Besides filling in for Rebecca, Betty found time to write another chapter at her own site. She's not thrilled with this chapter but we love it.

Thomas Friedman says, "Drop the five on the dresser before moving to the bed"
There were two not so surprising conclusions to a news-bit in my husband Thomas Friedman's Friday column "Order vs. Disorder." The news-bit was that "Israeli telephone company, Bezeq, was installing high-speed Internet lines in bomb shelters". The not so surprising conclusions of Thomas Friedman?


His first snap conclusion was that this was "no ordinary war." I read that and thought, "Blow, blowhard, blow." It never is for Thomas Friedman who gets giddy from watching Hogan's Heroes. It's a mini-catch phrase for him and it all happened when he decided to listen to my "The Best of Sade" CD. I tried to correct him, to tell him Sade was singing "love" not "war" -- "This is no ordinary love, no ordinary love . . ." But with a War Hawk is there really a difference?

In better times, Thomas Friedman would leave me little notes: "Betinna we are out of Nutter Butters and canned cheese." He'd draw a frownie face and then write "I" and "you" with a little mushroom cloud in between. I took offense at that before realizing that "I NUKE YOU" is a War Hawk mating call.

So "war" for "love" was not a surprising substitute.

His second snap conclusion was that is was a sign "of Israeli resilence, a boundless ability to adapt to any kind of warfare." "That they start" was left unsaid. As was the fact that, if Palestinians controlled the traffic to their own land, if their borders and traffic weren't controlled by Israel even during what passes for "normal" in the continued occupation of their land by Israel, they might have the money to show some of that "resilence" because, let's be honest, the sign that Thomas Friedman misses is the very real one: money. Money as power.

Israel always has that.

And like a hooker two Johns short of a night, Thomas Friedman has to cozy up yet again for fear of getting pimp-slapped by his employers, the "New York Times".

Which had me wondering if he had a list with prices?

For one hundred bucks he'll sell your war one time.

For daily payments of one hundred dollars, he'll sell it repeatedly.

For a thousand, he'll piss off half the world while selling your war.

For two thousand, he'll stroke you war while you stroke his.

That sort of thing. Of course, all money must be provided up front and there's probably some disclaimer at the bottom of the list which reads: "I don't kiss on the lips." Which would be no surprise to anyone who knows his work since, it's obvious, he prefers to kiss ass.

The real difference between a sex worker and Thomas Friedman is that a sex worker doesn't keep a body count of fatalities.

With the continuous daily chaos and violence in Iraq, you might think Thomas Friedman would feel some shame? However, professional War Hawk traffic in the loss of lives so who has time for shame?