Thomas Friedman Gets A Pie In The Face During Speech At Brown

Watch the video of Friedman getting a pie in the face here.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was attacked with pies in the face by environmental activists during a speech about energy at Brown University yesterday.

The Providence Journal reports that Friedman's message — that responding to climate change will make America "stronger, more innovative, [and] more energy secure" — was greeted by protesters:

Not everyone agrees with Friedman's vision that innovation is the path to climate and energy salvation. Just seconds into his speech, he was interrupted by two environmental activists, who stormed the stage shortly after Friedman stepped up to the microphone, tossing two paper plates loaded with shamrock-colored whipped cream at him.

Friedman ducked, and was left with only minor streams of the sugary green goo on his black pants and turtleneck.

He stood in bewilderment and mild disgust as the young man and woman bolted from the stage and out the side door, throwing a handful of fliers into the air to relay the message they apparently were not going to deliver personally.

"Thomas Friedman deserves a pie in the face...," the flier said, "because of his sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism's conquest of the planet, for telling the world that the free market and techno fixes can save us from climate change. From carbon trading to biofuels, these distractions are dangerous in and of themselves, while encouraging inaction with respect to the true problems at hand..."

After five minutes, Friedman returned to the stage undeterred, with only faint traces of the green cream on his clothing.

The Brown Daily Herald reports that the students involved have been apprehended but charges are not likely to be brought against them:

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.

"One of the offenders was apprehended, placed in the custody of the Brown Department of Public Safety and identified as a Brown student," University spokesman Michael Chapman said in a statement released Tuesday night. "The University will review this incident through its non-academic disciplinary system to determine the appropriate response."

DPS Lt. Rick Lombardi told The Herald that no party wishes to press charges. Lombardi would not confirm the student's identity.

Pictures, hopefully, to come...

Related: FNC's Courtney Friel Gets A Pie In The Face

Comments

[Lazslo]

I wish I had a job where I could be consistently wrong on just about everything. Friedman is a joke.

[BPCentrisAmerican]

Was it humble pie, this neocon-artist needs a big slice of it.

[biwee]

Only if the "innards" of the pie came from the horse stall.......

[jsarets]

Friedman probably won't write the obvious sequel to "The World is Flat", entitled "The World Is Full". Economists must face the fact that managing a global human population well above the Earth's environmental saturation point (probably 1-2 billion people) requires a shift from market capitalism to market "resourcism". The challenge of the 21st century is not so much about how to allocate capital efficiently as it is about how to allocate resources efficiently.

[philipwitak]

Re: "... The challenge of the 21st century is not so much about how to allocate capital efficiently as it is about how to allocate resources efficiently."

I tend to agree, but would amend your final sentence to say, '...how to allocate resources responsibly.'

The sooner people realize that we must make the essential shift from an economy based on consumption to one based on conservation, the better.

Obviously, many elements within big business will not be pleased - even though there will be plenty of money to be made throughout the conversion process and beyond.

[happytrails]

Would somebody please tell the Pope?

[bookerone]

Now if someone would only do it to Matthews and Oblerman

[Bulbul]

good idea...

[RobertaInCT]

Any volunteers?...........................:)

[NotBeatenYet]

Wait a minute. NOT OLBERMANN! He's one of the last good guys LEFT!

[JuanRamirez]

Attacking speakers on a college stage is wrong. Colleges once were bastions of free speech; they now are too often breeding grounds for political thugs.

[paulfromportland]

Yeah, such as the University of Mississippi, or was that the second part>

Good thing that he wasn't hit with Humble Pie - That he would not have tolerated.

[bar1ed]

at one time this was true - but now the audotoriums are filled with lies, influence peddling and book hawkers - your better off staying home and baking a pie !!!!!!

[JuanRamirez]

I can tell by your comment that you never went to college.

[Counterglow]

It could be argued that a cream pie IS free speech (though a concrete pie is not). Certainly it's one of the better means of deflating the pompous and self-important.

I've always thought that to deliver a cream pie in a truly classy manner, one should include a cheque to cover the cost of the dry cleaner.

[RedDogBear]

Right on Juan. Emotionally its gratifying to imagine this phony intellectual with pie on his face but doing this is childish and stupid. There are so many facts and arguments one can use to make Friedman look like the corporate shill that he is. Its counterproductive to stoop to this.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

"Attacking speakers on a college stage is wrong. Colleges once were bastions of free speech; they now are too often breeding grounds for political thugs."

Then I hope you would agree that among the breeding grounds of thuggery are such colleges as Pat Robertson's Regents University: "Monica Goodling, the graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University law school who played a major role in the Justice Department's firing of U.S. attorneys, also reportedly used her own political and moral criteria in hiring civil service attorneys for the Justice Department, according to the New York Times."

What would be good for the goose, would be good for the gander, aye?

[marignymitch]

Nice target. Too bad the pie missed.

This guy, another NYT Zionist tool and neocon (I know that's redundant but what the heck), brought us the Iraq war and the Friedman unit. And that's the truth! as Edith Ann would say. If you don't like it, hit me with a pie. But make it banana cream or lemon merengue. My favorites!

[NicoleAnonymous]

I'm amazed at the way ecohypocrites act. They're nothing but self-righteous bullies who can't seem to understand that throwing pies at people is not the way adults make their point. I actually don't read Friedman that much anymore but he deserves the same respect as anyone else.

The ecohypocrites don't actually do much of anything - their lives are empty and they need power over people so they act like bullies and use global warming as an excuse. I think Rove is a horrible person but if you have an argument with him, you would think that the main issue would be the war in Iraq and all the people who have suffered or been killed and you would still approach him in a respectful way. But the ecohypocrites Sheryl "I need the publicity so you buy my cds" Crow and Laurie "I fly in private planes everywhere and live in a mansion in the Hamptons that could fit half the population of China" David decide that global warming is the most important thing to fight with him about. When he tried to walk away, they grabbed his arm to stop him because they're bullies who care more about getting attention than our environment.

And they also hurt their cause more than help it - they're such horrible, self-righteous, narcissistic bullies that lots of people don't take global warming seriously anymore.

[alkamm]

Pie throwing is not bullying. Pie throwing tells these self-appointed MSM pundits that their clever triangulating columns and positions are simply wrong, and not at all wise.

The bullies are on the other side of the equation. They squelch scientists reports for political favor. They disbelieve in evolution, photosynthesis, geological time, and whatever else their hillbilly Christians want them to disbelieve.

They are criminal, and the least we can do (absent tar and feathering) is pie them.

[NicoleAnonymous]

I think throwing a pie in the face of someone giving a speech is meant to disrupt them, make them uncomfortable, make them hesitate before giving speeches in public again, cause them anxiety when they worry they will be attacked at the next speech - those all common ways to intimidate someone and it is bullying - it's not any different than PETA throwing red ink on women's fur coats and it's not the way adults make their point.

It's the way privileged people who can afford the tuition at Brown and probably don't have to work during college make their point because all their life they've been taught that acting like brats will get them what they want. I would bet you anything those students are not at Brown on a scholarship and they're paying their own tuition. They're just brats and bullies.

[JulieSA]

"Pie throwing tells these self-appointed MSM pundits that their clever triangulating columns and positions are simply wrong, and not at all wise."

No. Anyone who's raised a toddler knows that you have to teach them to use their "words", instead of throwing food to make a point. Apparently these Ivy League geniuses never learned that.

[JulieSA]

"They are criminal, and the least we can do (absent tar and feathering) is pie them."

Really? What law did they break? They disagree with you on policy--off to the gulag with them, right?

[truthiness]

Suck. On. This.

(to quote Friedman in his famous post-9/11 warmongeringer interview with Charlie Rose.)

[bar1ed]

Nicole - some people go to war to make their point - I'll take a pie anytime !

[racom]

How's the world view from your sophisticated, superior, elevated above the disgusting masses, perch? Just how many ways are left for the common, left behind people to protest their sorrowful plight? The Friedmans of this corrupted world deserve far more than a pie in the face. They should have to daily face living on $1 a day, watch their children go hungry and sick without any form of health aid. Are you even aware of the thousands that sell their children in an effort to provide for the rest of the family? Are you aware of the thousands that sell their own body organs to feed their families? If his kind just lived in his world and did not intervene in the economies of other countries and communities I would not take issue. But he/they insist on exploiting others for their own greedy benefit. If you can take the time from your snobish affairs read 'The Shock Doctrine' then see if the protesters are really so out of line!!!

[NicoleAnonymous]

I'm not sophisticated or superior or even really very smart but that doesn't mean my opinion that they're acting like spoiled brats is wrong.

[geobushono]

-Nicole just wrote a respectful letter to rove, requesting a civilized sophisticated discussion..............she doesn't understand she'll die from old age before *that* everyman responds............."musta been the hippie mail carriers stealing his mail".....
Karl-Nicole-Tom................now *that's* a sandwich.

[speakeasy]

Heres a challenge to your smug little ways. Get an interview with Rove and ask him some of your "tough" questions and see what response you get. Or better yet, since you are an smugocrit and most likely will never do anything, watch him in an interview and see how he handles tough questions. He handles it the only way someone who has no empathy, soul or feelings will handle it and that is ignore it or blame it on someone else. He needs to feel pain or embarrasment so he understands that what he dishes out has consequences beyond his pocket book.

Same for Friedman. vive la revolution....

[LivingStardust]

Friedman is just another "free markets can fix everything" moron just like his idiot hero, Greenspan. FREE MARKETS ARE WHAT GOT US INTO THIS MESS.

[quovadiszero]

Free markets gave you this coumputer and ability to use it.

[racom]

Pure bull feathers!!

[Boobaloo]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer Zionist NeoCon.

Next time hopefully it'll be a plate of whipped fecal matter.

[bobo209]

This short little fraudster is a known zionist traitor like pollard loves killing arabs.he is a war criminal and the blood of iraqi civilians is on FILTHY LITTLE HANDS.

[lowry99]

hate speech.

[Boobaloo]

You're right bobo209.

lowry99: the truth is hate speech to you? Well then, too bad.

[robotfog]

a cow pie might have been more appropriate.

[IowaGirl]

Good. The master propagandist deserves no less. Too bad their aim was so poor--sounds like the pies missed hitting him in the kisser, whence stream the lies.

[helloworld2008]

Intolerant and anti-free speech.

[Ajita]

true, but still well deserved.

[GQB]

I don't see where he was prevented from speaking.

[Boobaloo]

Much like Friedman himself.

[nyboomer]

Like the current administration? Surely you jest if you mean to imply that only conservatives should ever oppose speech and make noise at public gatherings? I know that Bush's security detail would never permit anyone who might disagree with him to enetr any loaction where Bush would be speaking. Now, there is the height of toleranace and free speech. Al protesters may congregate where Bush will not see or hear them and if they gain entrance into a hall they are to be arrested. Just some more tolerance and free speech from America's arbiter of law and order. Our current uberleader, our favorite dunce who is unfettered by any law according to that legal genius John Yoo who has decreed that the framers of the constitution really wanted a dictator anytime Dick Cheney decided we should have one.

I just love intolerance and lack of free speech, assuming the current administration is a proponent of both tolerance and free speech. I know I am getting silly but it ticks me off when anyone protests a GOP lackey's speeches it is somehow a bad thing.

[alkamm]

Those who are intolerant and anti-free speech are those that do not allow anybody to their rallies who do not sign loyalty to Republican oaths and refuse to address the general public.

Bush and Cheney set their speeches on stages that are as effectively anti-democratic as those the Russians and Chinese arrange for themselves.

[Tubby]

The female pie thrower could have tossed a grenade or pulled the string on a suicide bomb just as easily. What is troubling is Friedman (or whomever) wasn't shot dead in a hail of defensive bullets.

These days, NOBODY should play silly games in a crowd.

9/11 changed everything, fools!

[godlessclif]

Imagine is had only thrown pies at the Nazi's how we would have changed history.

The left is rather silly, but like a Nazi master race advocate Friedman needs to be discredited
and not just pied.

His books are propaganda and do a lot of damage to the economy
while justifying undeserved, unearned wealth for his wealthy patrons.

[NicoleAnonymous]

I read the book before The World is flat and I liked it - he made some really good points except for the part where he said if they continue fighting in Israel and the West Bank, they would have to "transfer" all the Arabs to Jordan...gosh that sounds like ethnic cleansing to me...but what do I know.

But I tried to read The World is flat and couldn't get past the first chapter.

[Boobaloo]

Right, except for his passionate and ardent support for ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Arabs, Friedman is a swell guy.

That right there is why I find him to be one smarmy piece of filth because he cloaks his extremism, hate and Zionism in lies and flimsy 'intellectualism' ... he counts on his readers being stupid and uninformed so they'll buy his lies and nazi philosophies; these sheep will read whatever the NYT tells them to read which is almost always some warmongering, Islamophobe, Arab hater Zionist Neocon.