In which Tom Friedman mixes up his sports iconography while insisting that we're the stupidest, laziest bastards on the planet

In his latest column, "Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?," Friedman scolds us for being the economic equivalent of indulged special ed students, you know, a bunch of retards. Okay, he puts it a little more diplomatically:

America today reminds me of our last Olympic basketball team - that lackadaisical group that brought home the bronze medal. We think that all we need to do is show up and everyone else will fold - because, after all, we're just competing with ourselves.

What's interesting to me is that analogy applies to our pundit class as well. They just show up. They only have each other to compete against. Seriously, when was the last time you saw some new faces enter into the pundit class. It's the same old ossified beings day in and day out.

Anyway -- check out The American Mastodon's rollicking response to the lamentable Friedman's lament.

See, TF, we're a rich country. And when you're rich, you do what you want. Have you ever seen a CEO's son enroll at Devry to get his electrical engineering degree? Didn't think so. He's off getting a double major in music theory and sociology at Florida State. He's also getting his pole smooched on a weekly basis. You think the Chinese guy at Devry with the Huffy bike is getting his pole smooched? Puh-leaze. Rich people do cool stuff. Poor people who work too hard for too little credit go to Devry. This is the crux of your column. The only thing is, you're not satisfied until you've guilt-tripped us all into thinking that our economy is doomed because we'd rather do something cool than chill with our Texas Instruments all day.

And Tom, believe me, I've got room to talk. As a matter of fact, I'd go toe to toe with any one of you assholes when it comes to pure natural mathematical ability. And guess what? I've squandered it all completely. I've actively and completely atrophied that half of my brain into a raisin-sized nugget of improperly calculated geometric proofs and senseless algorithms. Why? Cause fuck math. That's why. Maybe you don't understand that, Tom, but there it is. Fuck math. Fuck you, fuck Devry, fuck sin waves, and fuck math. You really think the kids of today are going to choose to study math when they could possibly get an internship at Comedy Central or work as a lackey in advertising? Tom, you're more out of touch than I thought.

Oh, there's much, much more. Go visit The American Mastodon.