http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=9065
The New York Observer May 19, 2004|8:05 PM
Write your own Thomas Friedman column!
1. Choose your title to intrigue the reader through its internal conflict:
a. War and Peas b. Osama, Boulevardier c. Big Problems, Little Women
2. Include a dateline from a remote location, preferably dangerous, unmistakably Muslim:
a. Mecca, Saudi Arabia b. Islamabad, Pakistan c. Mohammedville, Trinidad
3. Begin your first paragraph with a grandiose sentence and end with a terse, startlingly unexpected contradiction:
a. The future of civilization depends upon open communication between Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon. If the two don't speak to each other, the world edges closer to the precipice of total war. If, on the other hand, they manage to engage in open conversation and resolve their differences, Israelis could soon be celebrating Seders in Saudi Arabia. But for now, the two men can't speak. Why? You can't make a collect call from Bethlehem.
4. Use the next few paragraphs to further define the contradiction stated above, peppered with little questions making it look like you're having a conversation with the reader. Feel free to use the first person:
a. My first thought was to ask: Why no collect calls from Bethlehem? It's easy to call collect from Bosnia, Kosovo, even Uzbekistan. Am I sure? Of course I'm sure. I was in each of those places just a few weeks ago, making collect calls all over the world. No problem. So why can't Arafat call collect from Bethlehem?
5. Name-drop heavily, particularly describing intimate situations involving hard-to-reach people:
a. The Jacuzzi was nearly full when Ayman al-Zawahiri, former surgeon and now Al Qaeda's head of operations, slid in. b. It was Thomas Pynchon on the phone. "Tommy," he said, probably aware we share that name. c. Despite the bumpy flight, I felt comfortable in the hands of a pilot as experienced as Amelia Earhart.
6. Include unknowns from hostile places who have come to espouse rational Western thought and culture:
a. I visited Mohammed bin Faisal Al-Hijazi, former top aide to Ayatollah Khomeini, now a reformer and graduate of the Wharton Business School. b. Last year Nura bin Saleh Al-Fulani worked in Gaza sewing C4 plastic explosives into suicide bombers' vests. I caught up with Nura last week in Paw Paw, Mich., where she sews activity patches on the uniforms of Cub Scout Pack 34.
7. Make use of homey anecdotes about your daughters, Natalie and Orly, enrolled in Eastern Middle School, Silver Spring, Md.:
a. My daughter Natalie, a student at Eastern Middle School, a public school in Silver Spring, Md., asked me at breakfast: "Daddy, if my school has students who are Muslims and Jews and Christians and Buddhists all working together, why can't the rest of the world be that way?" There was something in the innocence of her question that made me stop and think: Maybe she has a point.
8. Quote a little-known Middle East authority at least once in every column:
a. Stephen P. Cohen b. Stephen P. Cohen c. Stephen P. Cohen
9. Conclude your column with a suggestion referring back to the opening contradiction, but with an ironic twist. Make sure the suggestion you proffer sounds plausible, but in fact has no chance of happening:
a. Driving into Bethlehem in the back of a pickup, I wonder: What if Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon sit down and play a game of poker? And what if the stakes are these: If Sharon wins, the Intifada is over. If Arafat wins, Palestine gains statehood. One game of no-limit Texas hold 'em, and the Middle East crisis is resolved. Just like that. Yasir and Ariel, deal 'em out.
-- Michael Kubin