Mo’ Mo

It looks like it is going to be Maureen Dowd week here at 11D.

Husband just sent me the link to this seething review in Slate.

And then yesterday, while at the town library, I accidentally stumbled upon her book, Are Men Necessary?, and I’ve been glued to it ever since. Excellent blog fodder for next week. But one quick note right now.

I’m about 100 pages into the book, and it’s extraordinary how every article and study that she refers to has been discussed on this blog or other women blogs. Even minor little movie reviews that caught my attention are in the book. The Times article on the Yale Mommies. Judith Warner’s book. The Stepford Wives, Where are the women columnists? Every Caitlin Flanagan article. It’s uncanny.

Girlfriend, if you are reading the blogs, then you have to gush about us in the acknowledgments along with all influential friends.

Actually, I’m quite certain that Dowd isn’t pilfering ideas from this blog and others. What is probably more likely is that bloggers are really part of the same “chattering class” as the main news media. We pretend that we’re the average Joe taking on the media establishment, when we’re really all part of the same group. We’re reading the same articles and earmarking them for future reference. We’re all talking about the same thing at the same time, and it’s not clear who is originating the conversation. We’re all part of the same, overeducated minority that is trading ideas in the boardroom, through the broadband, and on board the Metroliner. All one big incestuous mess.

So, book club next week. Skim Dowd’s book in Barnes and Noble or at the library and we’ll chat next week.