Lapdogs

Let us call it Muse vacation.

Given great new dog addition here, title could be considered false advert. We may get back to that canine business.

I finished off Eric Boehlert's "Lapdogs" this weekend, despite numerous Springtime distractions, inside, outside, around the town (and up and down).

Modest exploration of that Amazon link will lead you to a review by Michael Getler for the Washington Post. I enjoyed that review, but am glad I did not encounter it prior to reading the book. I found Lapdogs much better than Getler would have led me to expect, and tonight offered up my own review to Amazon for consideration to that effect.

While wincing at the concept of self-quoting, what else can a sorry uncredentialed non-journalist do? ;-)

I'm glad I did not see the WaPost review before reading Lapdogs. I felt Boehlert did a great job of placing his punches and making the vivid and very depressing case that the former Mainstream Media have foresaken their role as contrarians, fact-finders, and authority-defiers. As most thinking people, and especially those who no longer settle for the MSM as their news source know full well, almost all of these folks at best are sycophants to the Bush administration these days. The arguably provable fact is that there is a very strong bias for the present administration, yet the outdated and disproven meme of "liberal press bias" still echoes in not a few apparently unoccupied skulls.

So, from me, high marks. The dramatic contrast between the mainstream media handling of "pro-administration" issues like Schiavo and "anti-administration" (okay, more accurately, reporting on administration venality) issues as exemplified by the Downing Street Memo is well-documented.

This is one of the better summaries and encapsulations of our sorry journalistic meltdown that I have read.

Alas, I did have one big problem of my own with the book:

However. I've been praised as part of my job for being a careful reader (job and education as engineer no doubt considerably lower the bar). Boehlert's fine intent here is greatly harmed for those of us still hung up on the niceties of the language by at least mediocre if not absent editing and proofreading. I finally took to underlining in annoyance and grief at the remarkably frequent occurrences of a multitude of errors - missing words, wrong words, extra words seemingly left from waffling as to best choice, etc., etc. Beyond distracting.

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But in the interests of promoting important polemic regarding press meltdown, I will get over it - and you should too.

Track this down and read it. With any luck it will empower and help gird you for the upcoming election storm, which will doubtless feature appalling media nonsense, as they are by now so in the habit.

In the meantime I have moved on in my reading to "A Monstrous Regiment of Women" (L. King). This is the second in a series of mysteries crafted on the premise of young Oxford-educated woman hooking up with Sherlock Holmes (first, greatly enjoyed, is entitled "Beekeeper's Apprentice"). As great fan of Conan Doyle's ouevre (though probably not quite to the level of devotion of college chum Stephen), this is excellent stuff.

Among the scones warming here: Weinreb's "The Kings of New York," Olbermann's "Truth and Consequences," S. Flynn's "The Edge of Disaster," J. Warren's "The Head Trip," Maloy's "Every Last Cuckoo," and De Botton's "How Proust Can Change Your Life." But don't get me started.

And what are you reading these days, pray tell?