I just want to suggest a couple of things to check out when you need a break from obsessively following storm news and campaign updates.

The Washington Post has issued an ebook, The Original Watergate Stories. It’s a no-frills book lacking such niceties as a table of contents, but with the original reporting arranged chronologically. It’s interesting to start at the beginning of the Post’s investigation and following it as it lurched ahead, step by step, with all the twists, turns, and deadends along the way.

The book’s problem is that although it promises “the original” stories, it neither promises nor delivers the complete Watergate series. Instead, they’ve selected what are considered the key pieces written throughout the investigation.

As one reviewer wrote on Amazon.com, “The title of this publication is very misleading.”

Anyway, it’s just $4.99 and available from Amazon (where I downloaded a copy), and also from other online retailers.

A second recommendation for the morning–Check out Act 4 of the recent episode of NPR’s “This American Life,” titled “Getting away with it.”

Producer Alex Blumberg tells the story of how Oklahoma, against huge odds, came to have the first and best publicly-funded pre-school system in the country, and how one businessman joined the fight because a cardboard box full of evidence convinced him that pre-school was the smartest business decision the state could make.

One of the tricks used to get this bill through the Oklahoma legislature was a lobbyist’s decision to highlight several key provisions likely to appeal to cost-conscious legislators, while failing to mention other more substantive provisions. He relied on the fact that no one reads and digests all these long bills.

In any case, it’s an interesting case study in the legislative process. Well worth the 21 minutes of your time, although I wish there were a transcript available. Perhaps later.