I admit. I am guilty. I have--for the record--underestimated the stupidity of Thomas Friedman (people outside the US should know that he is a respected foreign policy analyst here in the US)

Thomas Friedman wrote: "To clear my head, I went for a walk along the Aare River, on Schifflaube Street. Along the way, I found a small grocery shop and stopped to buy some nectarines. As I went to pay, I was looking down, fishing for my Swiss francs, and when I looked up at the cashier, I was taken aback: He had pink hair. A huge shock of neon pink hair — very Euro-punk from the ’90s. While he was ringing me up, a young woman walked by, and he blew her a kiss through the window — not a care in the world. Observing all this joie de vivre, I thought to myself: “Wow, wouldn’t it be nice to be a Swiss? Maybe even to sport some pink hair?”"   Whenever he says something stupid, he says something more stupid few days later. He wants to prove us all wrong: that he is more dumb than we give him credit for.  And does he know that there are cashiers with pink hair here in the US?  What does pink hair have to do with joie de vivre? Doe he know what joie de vivre is?