A Very Interesting Paragraph From …

… today’s Wall Street Journal:

Once upon a time, Americans got dogs for their sheep. Now they get sheep for their dogs. “I never dreamed it would go this far,” says Ms. Foster, 56 years old.

The article, by Michael M. Phillips, is headlined “In a Tale That Wags Dog Owners, They Rent Flocks for Bored Collies,” and is interesting throughout.
Also interesting in today’s Journal is a review of the book Fame by Tom Payne:

He’s interested in stardom’s parabolic trajectory, the tendency of the mass media to elevate certain individuals to the dizzy heights of fame and fortune, only to bring them crashing down to earth at the slightest sign of hubris. “We build ’em up and we knock ’em down,” says the tabloid editor played by Michael Keaton in The Paper. Mr. Payne wants to know why.
His answer is that the brutal treatment meted out to errant starlets like Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse is a form of human sacrifice. Just as the Greeks and Romans would slaughter animals to propitiate the gods – a substitute for more primitive forms of sacrifice, according to the author – so the citizens of modern, democratic societies have an almost insatiable thirst for seeing celebrities devoured by the tabloid wolves.

The review is not overwhelmingly positive; it was written by Toby Young.