BOOKS: A Woman In Charge by Carl Bernstein (on Hillary Clinton)

A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Carl Bernstein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars





This was a fascinating look at Hillary Clinton.  The book did a great job of showing her intelligence and strength.   It also showed how her arrogance, mistakes and stubbornness hurt her husband's presidency.  It also showed how she changed over time. She learned from her mistakes.  She grew to appreciate the value of having a favorable relationship with the media.  It's too bad she didn't learn that one earlier.  She offended them so badly and they never really forgave her for it.  They were really quite brutal to her for a long time.  She also learned how to play the Washington Game instead trying to succeed as a pushy outsider. Once again, it was another lesson that was learned too late in her husband's presidency.   Her health care plan may have had better success if she'd had more political savvy back then and been willing to work with people outside the White House.  I also admire her for keeping her religious beliefs private.  She met regularly with a prayer group for support and comfort but didn't try to use that for political gain.     

The book spent a lot of time discussing how she dealt with her husband's womanizing.   She was publicly humiliated for years and still stood by him.  Was that good or bad?  Who knows?  It was her business.  I personally didn't care about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing other than being annoyed by all the fuss over it.   Powerful men are in a setting where it's easy to cheat.  It seems fairly common.  It's not that big a deal to me.  While I don't approve of adultery and would have left his cheating arse in Arkansas, it wasn't my marriage.   She was also from a different generation than me.  It's too bad the country didn't hear more about her fairly traditional values at the time.  The public probably wouldn't have been so harsh on her.  Of course, I think a lot of that came from the media's vicious treatment of her.

It's a bit disturbing how powerful our media is in this country.  I'm all for the freedom of the press. But, it's a little frightening how they can exploit some issues to stir up a public frenzy and yet basically ignore other equally ( or even more) important issues.   I don't like the way they turn on some people and do everything they can to ruin and destroy their lives.   They can turn a minor inquiry into a witchhunt and nobody seems to care.  




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BOOKS: Going Rogue by Sarah Palin

Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This was a fascinating look at a strong lady who has endured a tremendous amount of undeserved bashing from the media. While I disagree with many of her political ideas, I am disappointed that this country's feminists did not stand up and defend her and her daughters against some very vicious sexist attacks. Her personal stories were engaging and sometimes surprising. It was an enjoyable read and I believe it gave me some perspective on a strong and unfortunately polarizing political figure. She has earned my respect and I hope that she keeps on fighting.

Don't get me wrong. I have no desire to see her run for president. We disagree on too many issues. However, I am appalled at the level of poisonous garbage that she was treated with in an effort to utterly destroy her. Why attack her shoes and clothes? Would a male politician be attacked for the type of suit he was wearing? Why put a picture of her in running shorts on the cover of Newsweek? Would they make a male politician resemble a bimbo cheerleader? Why attack her kids, especially her baby with Down Syndrome? Don't make her out to be stupid. She's not. She's bright, witty and obviously connects well with a lot of American conservative women. The attacks were offensive, base, senseless and wrong.

There are plenty of legitimate issues to attack her on. The media doesn't have to go insane and create false or unnecessarily cruel ones. She has little high-level political experience (none at the national level) and probably destroyed any reasonable chance of running for president when she resigned as Alaska's governor. Sure, she had good reasons on why she quit her only major political office. She and her family have my sympathy. I think it's great that she put her family before her job. That doesn't mean I would support her to run for an office I don't believe she could handle. She doesn't have the experience.  She also doesn't seem to have the willingness to set her families' needs aside to accomplish her political goals (not necessarily a bad thing-----I admire her for doing that). I just don't agree with how the media has treated her or her family.



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MOVIES: Freedom Writers

Average of 1,684,428 ratings:

4 stars 

 

This was an inspiring story and an awesome movie. I loved the part where Mrs. Grewell tells Andre "You're not failing.  I see you!"  That reminded me of some stuff from Martin Buber. She didn't see them as dangerous, troubled losers or as lost causes. She also didn't just see them as a group of students in her class. She saw them individually.   She did more than just try to teach a class. She interacted with them as people she liked and respected.   She engaged herself with them and ended up bringing a little bit of healing to a broken part of the world.  That was an amazing thing.

I do wish the movie had done one thing differently though. I wish they wouldn't have portrayed her fellow teachers as as horrible, selfish, hardened people who didn't care about their students. Maybe they were more calloused from teaching there for so long (who wouldn't be?). Yet, they stayed on teaching there while the heroine of the movie leaves after a few years to follow her students to college. It was awesome that she was able to connect with her students like she did. It just seems that the other teachers, especially the long-term ones, deserved more respect than the movie showed. They have a tough job in an environment that I can't even begin to fathom. Wouldn't you have to have some element of caring to stay on in those positions for so long?

Of course these kids deserve more than what they're getting. Every American child should have adequate educational supplies, proper books and a safe school environment that actively encourages them to succeed. We are failing to provide that. There are too many areas of our country where our children are suffering and are being destroyed by their environment. The level of need is so incredibly great that it seems hopeless. But, is that the fault of the teachers who are working in an almost impossible situation? No, it is more than that. It's also more than the system. The sad truth is that it is us. We should care more. Every one of us should be so outraged that we should be demanding more from our government for our children. But we're not. Maybe we're just as indifferent as the teachers they portrayed in the movie. And in the meantime we are failing our kids miserably.

There is a comic strip by Jim Borgman:
It takes a whole village to raise a child.
But the village is on crack.
The village is ruled by gangs.
The village doesn't know it's a village.
And the children aren't children anymore.

QUOTE: Humankind

Humankind: Be Both

This was an awesome bumper sticker quote! I had to get it for my car.