Posted on 02/27/2005 12:13:55 PM PST by blitzgig
The other night on ABC's "Nightline," the host, Ted Koppel, posed an intriguing question to Malcolm Gladwell, the social scientist who wrote the path-breaking book "The Tipping Point," which is about how changes in behavior or perception can reach a critical mass and then suddenly create a whole new reality. Mr. Koppel asked: Can you know you are in the middle of a tipping point, or is it only something you can see in retrospect?
Mr. Gladwell responded that "the most important thing in trying to analyze whether something is at the verge of a tipping point, is whether it - an event - causes people to reframe an issue. ...A dumb example is the Atkins's diet, which reframes dieting from thinking about it in terms of avoiding calories and fat to thinking about it as avoiding carbohydrates, which really changes the way people perceive dieting."
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Mr. Koppel was raising the question because he wanted to explore whether the Iraqi elections marked a tipping point in history. I was on the same show, and in mulling over this question more I think that what's so interesting about the Middle East today is that we're actually witnessing three tipping points at once.
Thanks to eight million Iraqis defying "you vote, you die" terrorist threats, Iraq has been reframed from a story about Iraqi "insurgents" trying to liberate their country from American occupiers and their Iraqi "stooges" to a story of the overwhelming Iraqi majority trying to build a democracy, with U.S. help, against the wishes of Iraqi Baathist-fascists and jihadists.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Another chapter of backfilling and ass covering by fairweather Friedman. What a joke.
If Ted Kennedy were over there having his cocktails, there would be four tipping points.
tipping over, that is
Amazing, this is about the 5th editorial referenced on freerepublic this weekend that discusses how the world has changed and Bush's vision may have been correct (though Friedman would not acknowledge it).
(to a story of the overwhelming Iraqi majority trying to build a democracy, with U.S. help, against the wishes of Iraqi Baathist-fascists and jihadists)
...and New York Times reporters.
Yes. Just amazing.
Who watches "Nightline" anyway? There are paid advertisement programs on late night television that have more viewers than Ted Koppel's liberal biased snorefest.
Friedman wants a middle east transformation but he also wants to carp at the Bush administration, Rumsfeld. He props up the few dems who are really in favor of winning the war and prods the dems to get a foreign policy.
He keeps his lib credentials..and constantly reminds us how we must stay the course..in between criticizing the Bush policies.
I have some here take his support of staying the course in Iraq as being conservative..He is not..He would not have invaded for WMDs..He implies Bush lied (forgetting the whole world believed the same intelligence), and says the war should have been a liberation war in the first place..
...and there's that other "tipping point" Teddy and Chris Dodd famously negotiated with the waitress.
So Friedman watches Nightline? I wonder who the other 100 or so viewers are?
;-)
If Iraq turns into a success story, it will be no thanks to you, Friedman, you big jerk.
I dont want to login. Is there a copy of this somewhere?
There are many images that come to mind when associating Ted Kennedy with tipping, tipping over, tippling...
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