suburban book club update for WE...

[Lauri]

so tonight, the ladies are coming to my house (since I picked the book, Charlie Wilson's War) and at last count, almost nobody has finished it. 

young hippie mom across the street had a physical reaction to reading about Dems being so blatantly war mongering (Charlie is a ferocious Dem, who hates Communists and wants them all dead, yesterday) and then the kids had a week off school for mid winter break.. and that only left most of us 3 weeks to read over 500 pages.

i figure if i ply them with enough wine, i can plant some seeds for them to think about..

my young neighbors from San Fran who are leaning towards Obama, are taking my ribbing of their candidate with good humor. they are both originally from Nebraska and were both shocked to learn that their state is indeed quite Red.

they were stunned.. stunned enough by my declaring their home state "red" that they pulled out the laptop to look it up.

I was right  the last four election cycles, Nebraska has turned out the GOP vote for the president quite handily.

Should be a fun night; me against the left coast 

[asdf2231]

Keep up the good fight.

Winning Hearts and Minds doncha know, lol!

[Wretched Excess]

so tonight, the ladies are coming to my house (since I picked the book, Charlie Wilson's War) and at last count, almost nobody has finished it. 

young hippie mom across the street had a physical reaction to reading about Dems being so blatantly war mongering (Charlie is a ferocious Dem, who hates Communists and wants them all dead, yesterday) and then the kids had a week off school for mid winter break.. and that only left most of us 3 weeks to read over 500 pages.

i figure if i ply them with enough wine, i can plant some seeds for them to think about..

my young neighbors from San Fran who are leaning towards Obama, are taking my ribbing of their candidate with good humor. they are both originally from Nebraska and were both shocked to learn that their state is indeed quite Red.

they were stunned.. stunned enough by my declaring their home state "red" that they pulled out the laptop to look it up.

I was right  the last four election cycles, Nebraska has turned out the GOP vote for the president quite handily.

Should be a fun night; me against the left coast 

thanks for the update.  nebraska?  red?  who'da thunk it?

and you are really mean when properly motivated, lauri.

[Lauri]

I am not mean... I have just taken to being this eccentric southern lady, who is older than most of our cul de sac neighbors. although there is an elderly couple  that also lives here so I am NOT the 'old lady' of the circle..

So, I am able to say things that the young people arent... cause i'm not expected to be 'hip' or 'cool' ...

Charlie Wilson's War has covered a broad range of politics for me. On the one hand, Charlie is a drunk and a coke snorter, who is single and loves the ladies. But he is also on this moral mission to keep Soviet Russia from taking over and expanding their grip.

Him and this character Gust, who does indeed look like Phillip Seymore Hoffman, almost single handedly push the Soviet Army  backwards and make them flee.. granted, they funnel money and guns and all kinds of anti aircraft type stuff to the mujihadeen. But then those some mujihadeen didnt know the US was their main supporter, and they turned on us 10 years later.

The whole thing has me aghast at how Congress people have so much power.. and now I want to read about the Contras, cause the book talks about Oliver North and some other 80s characters that I have actually heard of, and it is not kind to them.

I find the whole thing fascinating and wish I'd paid closer attention back then. I was still in high school, but my dad talked incessantly about this stuff and I thought he was a bit odd.

Now I do that around my neighbors and kids... and they also think I'm odd ..

[Lauri]

Keep up the good fight.

Winning Hearts and Minds doncha know, lol!

Mr Johnson, who is about 80something.. walks his two blonde labs every day. He always stops at the mail boxes to yell at us, "did you hear what new immoral crap they're talking about now on the news!"

he's fun.. 

[bijou]

I am not mean... I have just taken to being this eccentric southern lady, who is older than most of our cul de sac neighbors. although there is an elderly couple  that also lives here so I am NOT the 'old lady' of the circle..

So, I am able to say things that the young people arent... cause i'm not expected to be 'hip' or 'cool' ...

Charlie Wilson's War has covered a broad range of politics for me. On the one hand, Charlie is a drunk and a coke snorter, who is single and loves the ladies. But he is also on this moral mission to keep Soviet Russia from taking over and expanding their grip.

Him and this character Gust, who does indeed look like Phillip Seymore Hoffman, almost single handedly push the Soviet Army  backwards and make them flee.. granted, they funnel money and guns and all kinds of anti aircraft type stuff to the mujihadeen. But then those some mujihadeen didnt know the US was their main supporter, and they turned on us 10 years later.

The whole thing has me aghast at how Congress people have so much power.. and now I want to read about the Contras, cause the book talks about Oliver North and some other 80s characters that I have actually heard of, and it is not kind to them.

I find the whole thing fascinating and wish I'd paid closer attention back then. I was still in high school, but my dad talked incessantly about this stuff and I thought he was a bit odd.

Now I do that around my neighbors and kids... and they also think I'm odd ..

That is by far the best thing about getting older, being able to say what you want without worrying about the 'cool kids'. 

[Lauri]

[/quote]

That is by far the best thing about getting older, being able to say what you want without worrying about the 'cool kids'. 
[/quote]

it is definitely a nice benefit to being 44 now... people actually think i know some stuff


as for the evening.. three new people showed up that hadnt read the book and it was a free for all, with the South and the Midwest vying for 'biggest redneck responses' to almost anything that was said..

and the west coasters were pretty darn good sports with the other southerners that continually bashed Carter and Clinton for getting us into the Middle East messes that we found ourselves in.

I got to throw out some pearls of wisdom that the lefties hadnt really thought about before, such as "we sold the Afghans and Pakistanis, Iraqis and Iranians a whole ocean of WMDs, we know they are there somewhere... so when you hear the media screaming about how there were NO weapons in Iraq, think again."

I also got to make some good points about leaving Iraq and how, in this book, when we left Afghanistan, the Taliban moved in and we had to go back and start that war up again. It makes far more sense to stay and finish the job right this time, than to let these soldiers die in vain, only to go back later ... yet again.

It was actually a really, really robust and interesting discussion... I think everyone enjoyed it, but the book left us with as many questions as it answered. So, now I feel compelled to read about the Conras because that was a parallel issue going on during Reagan's terms as well. But the Contras were de-funded, in order to whip the Soviet Army in Afghanistan...

One new fact I did learn about Charlie Wilson's War was that the author spent over 15 years researching all the characters. So, it's a phenominal history lesson..