Predictably, Friedman spends the rest of his huge book piling one insane image on top of the other, so that by the end—and I’m not joking here—we are meant to understand that the flat world is a giant ice-cream sundae that is more beef than sizzle, in which everyone can fit his hose into his fire hydrant, and in which most but not all of us are covered with a mostly good special sauce. Moreover, Friedman’s book is the first I have encountered, anywhere, in which the reader needs a calculator to figure the value of the author’s metaphors.

There is much more.

I also want to find out which elevator I take to rise to the level where I can share the pie. I’m afraid if I use the stairs, it’ll be gone before I get there.

Back to pie—it starts out like on of those McDonald’s Apple Pies which are really turnovers. But in time the pie actually becomes more pie like a Sara Lee frozen pie. And there was much rejoicing as we slip in teh names of two large conglomerates. And in the end it becomes a really big Shepard’s Pie which a whole bunch of stuff left over from Friedman’s refirgerator of moldy ideas just thrown together.