Another day, another Roger Cohen column

I had a terrible nightmare last night, in which I was Emperor of Persia and I compelled a beautiful woman to regale me with 1001 entertaining tales or forfeit her life. Only instead of Scheherazade, it turned out to be Roger Cohen in a veil, and instead of Persian myths, I had to listen to 1001 of his New York Times columns.

One needn’t be Freud to deduce that this column was the impetus for my nightmare. As always, he gets off some howlers:

Beneath the hijab, that is to say beneath the surface of things, frustrations multiply. Women sometimes raise their hands to their necks to express a feeling of suffocation. Hard-pressed men, working 12-hour days to make enough to get by, are prone to hysterical laughter with its hint of desperation.

“…that is to say beneath the surface of things…” Well, thanks for clarifying that metaphor for us. I might have had to get the code-breakers to work on that one. Also, just take a moment to think about that last line (note: this is like kryptonite to a Times oped piece). How in the hell would he know that? How many hard-pressed men had to laugh hysterically before he realized it was a trend?

I was actually for rapprochement with Iran before reading that column. For an antidote a non-stupid take on the country that takes a similar position, see this Peter Hitchens piece in The American Conservative.

(Hat tip: Donadio)