I’ve been sleeping at 3am the past few nights reading Michael Moore’s “Dude Where’s My Country?” It’s moderately entertaining; his writing style is pretty pedestrian, but there’s enough interesting info to keep me reading, if only for purely academic reasons.
My book selection for June has been pretty non sequitur. My last book before “Dude” was “The Manitou” by Graham Masteron, a rather unimaginative horror story that can best be described as Cthulhu with Indians. Ridiculous first-person narration on that one.
The book before that was Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five” which was a wonderfully disjointed narrative about (among other things) the author’s experiences during the 2nd World War.
And the book before that was William Gibson’s astounding “Count Zero,” which is quite possibly the best cyberpunk I’ve ever read. I really enjoyed “Neuromancer” also, but “Count” is slightly less ambiguous, not to mention noticeably thicker plot-wise.
But back to Michael Moore and “Dude.”
Although I don’t believe that Moore’s major contentions are false (”There are no connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda”, “There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”, etc.), I do think that he’s the sort of guy that doesn’t hesitate to embellish his facts when he’s trying to make a point. A quick look around the net proves this theory to be true: Spinsanity’s commentary is particularly telling. (A full list of “Dude”’s factual errors can be viewed here.)
The lesson here is that even pundits need to be policed. “Dude” is generally true, just don’t let yourself get suckered into thinking it’s gospel.