Are you suspicious when Xerox uses Dilbert in its employee handbook as an offbeat sugary coating to help the corporate medicine go down?

Are you tired of the sweeping portrayal of office workers as lazy idiots? Of the running gags that stay inside the moat of the corporate castle?

Do you worry when "rebellion" and "revolution" are redefined as the ability to overcome corporate bureaucracy to make more money for your boss?

Do you wonder why Dilbert avoids tackling so many real problems at work?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you'll find Norman Solomon's funny and brazen attack more refreshing than a trip to the water cooler.

*The Orwellian logic behind calling bombings by Third World countries "terrorism," while similar bombings by the US are righteous "strikes against terror"

*"Media Scenes We'd Like to See" -- fantasies as appealing as they are unlikely, which include a vision of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings donating their fortunes to a trust fund for independent journalism and vowing to tell the truth even it gets them fired.

From the relentless pro-corporate spin of daily news to the media's persistent lack of diversity, Solomon covers it all.

Today we are blessed with a couple of young investigative journalists, Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen, who, along with their media watch colleagues at FAIR, are letting in the light. In FAIR's magazine, "Extra!," I am finding all the news that the Respectables find unfit to print. It is great therapy for me; it keeps my blood pressure down and my skull from going numb.

Now, Solomon and Cohen have gathered some of their columns into a lovely compendium, undressing the "liberal media." They call it WIZARDS OF MEDIA OZ: BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF MAINSTREAM NEWS. It is an eye-opener.

Don't leave home without it.

-From the Introduction by Studs Terkel