I have yet to review the 4th book I read, It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News, written by Fark.com founder and operator Drew Curtis. The title of the book actually does a pretty good job of summarizing things. Curtis has created specific categories of “news” that aren’t news that we are subjected too. Among the categories are things like “advertising masquerading as news” and “article contradicts title”. He runs through the descriptions, provides some examples, and then includes some of the more humorous commentary from fark commenters. It’s a decent but not earth-shattering book. I recommend it as a good bathroom book. The takeaway, is that of course the media has to publish a lot of crap: if they want to be around when the real news happens, they have to fill space and make ends meet in the mean time.
Speaking of filling space. The geniuses at ForbesAUTO (WTF?) via MSNBC bring us How you can ease the pain of car ownership - Ways you can ease driving costs besides downsizing and driving less. Halfway through the article they write,
[b]esides downsizing and driving less, there are other ways to curtail costs, some of which have little to do with prices at the pump.
I only add that quote here because the first half the article explained the cost of car ownership how to ease it by downsizing and driving less. When they finally do get around to their point, all they really suggest is spending less on maintenance, ya know, by doing things like not-fixing things that aren’t broken and finding a mechanic who doesn’t rip you off. That’s it. That’s their advice. And then they spend the last third of the article explaining other costs that drivers can’t really control.
