by BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ
In the mid 1990s, before the responsibilities of The New York Times foreign affairs columnist were largely reduced to complaining about the deficiencies of the Arab/Muslim world, Thomas Friedman used to write with more frequency about things like Mexico.
In fact, one of the landmarks of Friedman’s journalism career occurs in a 1995 article that begins with “Ricarda Martinez, a 60-year-old Mexican peasant living in a tumbledown shack on the edge of Mexico City,” whom he describes as “peeling cactus from her garden” while denying awareness of “dollar-linked peso bonds, George Soros or Merrill Lynch’s emerging markets fund.” This is one of the rare historical instances in which Friedman identifies and interacts with someone who is not a CEO, politician, “or accredited expert.” The prompt evolution of Friedman’s investigatory techniques is evident, however, in subsequent dispatches from other Latin American locations in which cactus peels do not figure into the lead:
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