gogo

Thank you. I read this quote in Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot yesterday: "While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise, even the justice, of our own country. The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of their birth. And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country." Good quote, right? That's George W., from his first Inaugural address.

This: is not helping with keeping the tone civil around here. The two of you, ignore each other, please.

The moderators (or, me, anyway) don't give a shit about the last page worth of silliness. If you were getting called on something here, I might understand what you're talking about. All I did was clarify a timeline.

That announcement did not even exist at the time. It's new.

This has been mentioned in this thead before. I was OK with most of the Sarah Vowell stuff I'd read previously, and I like hearing her read her stories. But I picked this up from the library yesterday, and finished the whole thing over my lunch hour, and on the bus ride home. There were so many sections that I just wanted to read out loud to whomever was sitting next to me (or some parts, to the whole bus full of people). It was published in 2002, and she covers the 2000 election (and aftermath), 9/11, etc. To be reading it on September 11, in the middle of a contentious election season,

I saw Tom Stoppard's Rock'n'Roll last night. Plastic People of the Universe feature prominently. Don't know much about them, but what I learned of their story just last night was fascinating.

Jen, I moved this over here because it looks like you're looking for the password for the ticketmaster presale for MSG tomorrow. Is that right? If not, let me know and I'll move this back, but since I don't see any musictoday presales tomorrow (and, I'm pretty sure you don't need a password for those anymore), I thought this was a better thread for this request.

I think some of the hold-up in getting started on this was just that, the "getting started" part. I'm thinking now that giving everyone another week for the next hundred pages (approximately) and then another week for the last hundred or so might drag this out (especially since this is such a zippy read). So unless I hear any pleas for more time, I'm going to go ahead and change this to, let's go ahead and start discussing the whole thing next Monday. So much of what we've discussed already covers aspects of the entire book anyway, I think we'd just be dragging this out if we went any long

I agree, I think that would be very cool to see. Just from the moment they started talking about the dates, I couldn't get over how compressed that timeline would have to be. And, sorry for those of you haven't got to this point yet, but I only promised no spoilers for the second half of the book (Parts III and IV), and this was in Part II: How cool was it when he dropped the name "Ferris"?!? I loved that. I was truly clueless up until then, I couldn't imagine how they were going to out-Eiffel Eiffel, and that just blew my mind. It also blew my mind because, until that moment, I had a

Especially since reading this book, I'm a huge fan of Olmstead. The sections about him and Burnham are just so much more fascinating to me than the Holmes stuff. I guess after watching so many seasons of Law & Order, I'm not surprised at one man's capacity for cruelty. But to see what these people accomplished on the positive side, seems like the really amazing thing to me! I can't think of anything that could come together in this way today. I'm also reading a history of the modern Olympics, and there was something in there about Pierre de Coubertin attending the Columbian Expositio

I'm late getting here today, so I was kind of hoping that some of you eager-beavers would have started discussing away without me! OK, let's get to it, people. I don't think this needs to be a structured discussion, necessarily, but here are a few questions/observations to get us started. Everyone should just feel free to dive in what whatever you'd all like to discuss, though. 1. Some friends of mine, history majors, said that they had a hard time taking this book seriously as "real history". The author has obviously documented a lot, but to the extent that he's getting into the mind

Is he saying "What you talkin bout, Willis?" in this one?

I'm so put off by (amongst many other things) those "hand made" signs. Last night's "Hockey Moms 4 Palin" and "The Mavrick" (sic) tonight. Are we really supposed to believe that this convention wasn't fully stage-managed, that these delegates just showed up with those signs all by themselves?

But VA care certainly isn't the best we have to offer. "It Is Just Not Walter Reed"

The shot of the 7 year old licking her hand and smoothing down the baby's hair was pretty damn cute, I must admit. But my favorite line of the night, by far, came from Olbermann: "I've heard it twice tonight, so I have to do this: P-U-N-D-I-T. It's pronounced pundit." The same thing's been bugging me, the number of people who say "pundint". It's getting so that's more grating than than "nucular", for me.

Happy birthday to one of my favorite artists, and one of my favorite people!

President of what? Johnny, that sounds great to me! Definitely keep us posted. As for shirts... I was the only person in my last book club who ever actually finished the book (just one of the reasons that we no longer meet ). For my birthday a few years ago, one of my friends had a shirt made for me that says "Book Club Nerd"; and on the back "or... is that redundant?" Anyway, I'd always be in for another J. Lackey original! I'd love to commission a design; if this thing makes it past another book or two, let's talk turkey. (There's no turkey avatar! How have we made it through

And that seems like as good a place as any to end this one... (closed for being 1000+ posts, time to start a new one)

Happy day, Tracy! You know... Racy.

Yeah, I love that movie. Sad.

Pro-life vs. pro-choice is a big deal (the big deal) for a lot of people.

Nutshell: Either, McCain picks up Clinton voters because he picked a woman, or, Clinton voters are offended that he picked a woman who doesn't support traditional women's issues (whatever that means), so he loses them. Also, either family-values voters appreciate her support of her daughter's decision to keep the baby, or, she loses them based on her inability to control the youngster's teenaged hormones, not to mention that she's not staying home to care for the young'uns. Either her outsider status is refreshing, or, her lack of experience takes away McCain's argument against Obama, ba

Agreed. She's got punchline-for-life written all over her now. This has to be a tough time for her anyway, but to have to go through it in the spotlight of the national media? To potentially be blamed by half the country, if McCain/Palin loses the election? Way too much pressure for a 17-year-old to have to deal with.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear Republicans making the argument that executive experience is more relevant, and Democrats claiming that experience at a national level is what matters.

Bump and reminder, if you haven't got the book yet, now would be a good time to pick it up and get reading!