horrible things happen when you start reading thomas friedman. you find yourself absolutely condemning things like local autonomy.  you start thinking to yourself: how will our little johnny compete with chinese children in the idiot world of the twenty second century? you start condemning no child left behind on the grounds that it does not assert sufficient centralized bureaucratic control of american children. but you will die, a victim of chaos and the beautiful strange fact of human eccentricity. i hope it's soon.