Brown Revolutionaries Pie Tom Friedman in the Face
Brown students really are the Ivy League's revolutionary vanguard. Yesterday, at a guest lecture by New York Times pseudo-journalist Thomas Friedman, two students accomplished their revolutionary duty: they pied Friedman in the face. One woman was caught by an intrepid professor, even as her male accomplice got away.
The Brown Daily Herald with the scoop:
At the same time the woman threw the pie, a male accomplice seated a few rows back ran down the aisle and onto the stage, throwing small pamphlets explaining the actions into the crowd. After the pie hit Friedman and splattered on his face and torso, the two jumped offstage and ran out of the southeast exit of the building, followed closely by a man trying to catch them. A police officer also ran toward the exit but stayed inside. The thrower was eventually caught by police, who detained her in Salomon's lobby before moving her elsewhere.
According to our commenters, "the pie thrower was Margaree Little '08, a transfer from Colby who is responsible for much of the pro-Palestinian activism at Brown." Pro-Palestinian views or not, the pamphlet thrown on the floor by the would-be revolutionaries does a pretty good job of justifying the pie-throwing, accusing Friedman of a "sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism's conquest of the planet" and "for helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged."
After the jump: the aftermath, sort of.
Thomas Friedman, who once was a respected journalist, totally deserved the pie-in-the-face treatment. He lives in a twelve thousand square foot mansion in Maryland with his heiress wife and spends most of his time on business class flying to far-off places to receive large honorariums to wax poetic about globalization and pretend that he invented environmentalism (his basic spiel: "I bought a hot dog from a vendor in Dubai. I asked him: 'where did you get the bun?' He told me the bun had been mad in Calcutta. And then I realized, as I always do, that globalization is not only inexorable but also fucking awesome").
Friedman, gentleman that he is, doesn't plan on pressing charges against our two heroes. Unfazed, the Times columnist cleaned himself up and returned ten minutes later to finish the lecture. What does this mean? Basically that hack journalism and globalization already rule the world.
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April 23rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm
all and all, a pretty stupid attack against friedman, both at brown and on ivygate.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I entirely disagree. Well done on all counts. The only mistake was Margeree’s getting detained by the cop.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
that’s a great way to encourage free speech! we can all learn something from this courageous brown student–how to silence displeasing views with immature stunts.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
j, are you jacob? are you posting to compliment yourself?
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
nope, “j” is just a fan.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Cream pies aren’t art.
Couldn’t they have smeared something else all over his face? I have a few ideas.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
You just know that people are right when they have to resort to violence and rude behavior to try and prove someone else wrong!
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Yes, people deserve being physically attacked for their political opinions.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
look: for the record, i’m not in favor of physical attacks, even one so silly as a pie to a face. but let’s be real: a pie in the face is more political protest than “physical attack.”
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Friedman’s a Grade-A twatwaffle, but I don’t think the man deserved a pie to the face. A gym sock full of horse manure would have been much more fitting.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Retarded.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
“sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism’s conquest of the planet” and “for helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged.”
oh please, you go to brown. you’re SOOOO not part of the privileged, obvie.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:59 pm
And she transferred from Colby, which is even more white and elite. According to my friend who goes there now, at his freshman year convocation, out of a class of 400 students, he counted 4 black people.
Oh elitist angst.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Seriously? Friedman may tend to flaunt unseemly personal extravagence, but he also happens to be the leading chronicler of some of the most important phenomena of our time, perhaps of world history.
How is everyone so lefty-loosy that they are defending the cowardly pie-throwing act. The writer of this article must come from Columbia.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
i transferred to Brown this year. Great way to represent! I actually don’t mind Friedman.But people at Brown find better ways to protest speakers all the time. But maybe a pie-in-the-face will get Friedman into the NY Times for something other than his writing.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:35 pm
brown, you kids are fucking idiots. Almost even worse than columbia loons.
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:49 pm
ps: probable antisemitism
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I’m pretty sure it can be considered assault since I recall Coulter getting pied a while back.
But regardless. It reeks of intimidation and an attempt to humiliate a decent (if not boring) writer. Plus, the context makes it seem like anti-semitic proto-Marxism.
Sorry, not buying it. Friedman and Coulter might have odious/boring/weird views, but no one deserves a pie in their face for their freely-exercised speech.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I think we’ve heard enough about your creampies already.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
But did they pie him QUIETLY?
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 pm
@Aliza Shvarts: If only…
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:50 pm
@Aliza Shvarts: If only…
April 24th, 2008 at 12:48 am
Never have I been more happy that I do not go to Brown.
Wait, no. I was even happier I didn’t go when I was visiting.
April 24th, 2008 at 3:27 am
I would have liked to have seen them throw a pie at David Mamet. Motherfucker would have thrown it back and eaten it afterwards.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:29 am
This would have been much funnier if security guards started chasing the pie-thrower in circles while the Benny Hill theme was played…
April 28th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Not only do I disagree with the politics, opinions, and decency of all the people involved sans Friedman (the two culprits and the author of this piece), but I am sickened that people support such flagrant irresponsibility and flaunt it as free speech while they deprive it of others.
April 28th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Brown students are truly the revolutionary vanguard. May their heroic act be the inception of a new age of Marxist-Leninist utopia. Slava! Slava!
April 29th, 2008 at 10:24 am
So which is worse his advocacy of the Iraq war which given his position & avowed “progressive views” influenced our intervention or the pie. Who caused more suffering?
April 29th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
That pie was an obvious weapon of mass destruction, you terrorists!
April 30th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Some things never change .. when I attended Brown, these same type of known nothing leftists who cannot countenance that there are smart people who do not group think like them unplugged microphones of invited TV journalists, harassed Arthur Schlesinger Jr, tried to get people who did not toe the line kicked out of dorms the very first week, crucified an innocent man in the papers for a rape he did not commit, tried to silence and harass US Marine recruiters and the students wanting to attend.. and that is just what I remember in ten seconds. I attended two more Ivies after Brown for M and PhD, and it just rammed home the point how spoiled, dumb and illiberal (Marcuse repressive tolerance) these so-called ‘liberal’ ‘activist’ ‘elite’ students are. Pathetic, but sadly representative of Brown activist students,in my experience.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I will stay politically indifferent on my comment here. What I find amazingly naive among some of the posts here is the idea that a pie attack is not an act of violence and terror. You don’t have to have seen as much blood and brains as I have to know that when an unknown person is running towards you with an unknown object that is aimed at your head, it is a terrifying event. While I have never seen a pie injury, I have seen plenty of people “brained” with “unknown objects”. The person being attacked has no idea what the outcome of the attack will bring. The fact that it may have only been a pie does not reduce the fear and intimidation that is caused by striking someone in face with any object. Violence, even of the pie type, is sickening and not a valid method of persuasion or statement in a country that promotes the idea of free speech. It is not even sophomoric, it is a frightening prelude to other forms of violence.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I will stay politically indifferent on my comment here. What I find amazingly naive among some of the posts here is the idea that a pie attack is not an act of violence and terror. You don’t have to have seen as much blood and brains as I have to know that when an unknown person is running towards you with an unknown object that is aimed at your head, it is a terrifying event. While I have never seen a pie injury, I have seen plenty of people “brained” with “unknown objects”. The person being attacked has no idea what the outcome of the attack will bring. The fact that it may have only been a pie does not reduce the fear and intimidation that is caused by striking someone in face with any object. Violence, even of the pie type, is sickening and not a valid method of persuasion or statement in a country that promotes the idea of free speech. It is not even sophomoric, it is a frightening prelude to other forms of violence.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Sorry for the double post. I fear I will now be devoured on that mistake rather than the content of my comment.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Sorry for the double post. I fear I will now be devoured on that mistake rather than the content of my comment.
May 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
i heard the pies were made in Pawtucket, by a Hatian baker, using Canadian ingredients and Chinese-made utensils. They were delivered to the Brown Campus by a Pakistani cabbie in a Japanese car, while burning gasoline from Saudi Arabia.
May 25th, 2008 at 11:25 am
molly little is no doubt pleased that she was caught post-pie throw. anyone who knows her history knows that her “revolutionary”activism is pure self indulgence. smile pretty for the camera molly- your pending expulsion will certainly give you all of the attention you’ve been begging for