Review - Alan Alda, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed"

I hope Alan Alda’s character is elected president on “The West Wing.”
Hawkeye Pierce in the White House. Bring in Loretta Swit to play the first lady.
Only, it wouldn’t be Hawkeye, of course.
Hawkeye Pierce is a character Alan Alda played for 11 years on “MASH”. Now, he plays a different character on “The West Wing,” someone named Arnold Vinnick.
Still, I hope Alan Alda is the next TV president.
I just finished reading his autobiography, “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I’ve learned.”
I learned that Alan Alda is a very pleasant person. Even more pleasant than Hawkeye Pierce (if Pierce were real).
I think I would enjoy sitting down to talk with Alan Alda even more than spending time with Hawkeye and B.J. in their “MASH” tent.
The book is entertaining on many levels.
There is the eternal truth about fathers and sons level.
It is interesting that Alan loved his father, Robert Alda, so much and yet felt it necessary to compete with him. But, that’s typical of fathers and sons.
I always thought it would have been great to have Robert play an older Hawkeye to Pernell Roberts’ older Trapper on “Trapper John, M.D.” I always thought I should write a letter to someone and suggest it, but never did.
It is interesting that Alan took so long to be the hit he was on “MASH.” I knew he acted, wrote and directed for the show, but somehow had the idea he was just enough of an egoist to force his way into all those roles. After reading his book, I don’t think so. I think Alan is the antithesis of Hawkeye in many ways. Who could picture Hawkeye Pierce married 40 years? Remember the show with Blythe Danner, playing Hawkeye’s former college sweetheart? He kept backing himself into a corner while trying to convince her they could make their relationship work. Classic TV scene! But Alan and Arlene have been married at least 40 years.
The book is encouraging. Not in the you-too-can-do-anything-you-set-your-mind-to way of the modern hucksters; but in the you-too-can-learn-to-live-and-treasure-each-moment way.
Celebrate life is the message I take from the book, the antithesis of having your dog stuffed to get a few extra miles of love from him.

Review - Bob Woodward, "The Secret Man"

Bob Woodward's book, "The Secret Man," revealing how W. Mark Felt came to be his Watergate muse known as Deep Throat, is satisfying.
Many of us came to understand the place of journalism inour society through Woodward and Bernstein's book, "All the President's Men."
I read it (and a few other volumes on various subjects) during a vacation spent in seclusion during one summer in the mid'70s.
I had published a couple articles and "All the President's Men" really inspired me and helped form the focus of my career over the next few decades. Even when involved in the ministry, I found time to write as much as I could and was published in several more journals. I even have a sermon outline (funeral sermon!) in "The Christian Minister's Manual" published by Standard Publishing Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. Eventually, I became a newspaper reporter and editor.
All that might have happened without "All the President's Men" but who knows? That vacation in seclusion was certainly a watershed time for me.
So, "The Secret Man," revealing Woodward's parking garage confidant, is satisfying, but it also leaves the reader hungry for more -- more information that may not "come out" for more decades to come.
If "All the President's Men" is an outline of dirty tricks and cover-ups in the Nixon White House, and the reporting that went into uncovering it, "The Secret Man" is the flesh over the skeleton.
I mean, if the Watergate break-in and cover-up was bizarre, as a skeleton is is bizarre and shocking, then "The Secret Man" puts a human form on the incident.
Mark Felt is human. He had motives that are common to man.
He was passed over for the top job in the FBI when Pat Gray was made chief. Felt did not like the way the President and the CIA tried to shut down the FBI investigation of Watergate.
Felt later participated in break-ins of families of criminals known as "The Weathermen" during the Vietnam War.
Felt guided Woodward in Watergate and was a willing participant in The Weathermen break-ins because he loved America.
After reading "The Secret Men," I believe Felt should be remembered as an American patriot who risked all for his country.
But there seems to be more to the story.
Richard Nixon remains a cartoon character in popular history. Certainly the movie, "Nixon," did nothing to clarify him to the world.
Perhaps all of Felt's story has been told, but I have to believe there is much more to learn about the U.S. government during the 1960s and '70s; and, no, I don't think it will be told in the short term. But I have to believe the truth will be known, eventually.