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"Myelin," I said. "It's a substance that coasts nerve cells and palys a role in logical procesing. ..."

I dunno. It's also what is attacked in MS and I've never found that role mentioned in any of my reading about MS or myelin--and that includes a lot of reading.

I'll bring the book over when I see you Friday -- not for you to read, just to check out the author's credentials. I was going to give it to my housekeeper tomorrow, not keep it. I had never thought of the connection to MS. Are you a person that writes letters to authors' or their web sites? This might be a letter you should write.

Kathy

PS "Pillars of the Earth" is Oprah's Book Club Selection. She interviewed Follett this week. I had TiVo'd the show when I saw his name. First time I've ever agreed with her about a book -- well maybe that Walmart one, maybe.....

Anyone who has enjoyed Ken Follett's books, I encourage to try to find (perhaps on the internet) his interview with Oprah. I'm watching it now. It seems I mis-spoke the other day when I said he first big successful book was "Key to Rebecca." It was "Eye of the Needle." It was the eleventh book he had written. I promise you will enjoy that book. I think it was made into a TV movie which was not as good as the book.

Kathy

I had high hopes for Scott Smith's A Simple Plan. I'd read and liked his second book, The Ruins, a lot—particularly a really cool ending. Now I'll admit Simple Plan had potential; I was especially taken with some strangely behaving crows outside a crashed plane, but they did their bit and faded into the woodwork. Plan then quickly dwindled into your standard man-finds-money-man-kills-a-lot-of-people-to-keep-money-man's-daughter-is-retarded-after-a-swimming-accident tale. I remained unimpressed.

For about forty pages past the middle of Lee Jackson's Redemption, I really thought I'd be giving it an absolutely rave review. The story starts out tame. The protagonist, Ben Trinity, comes to live in Redemption, a small town in Montana. (Writing that sentence, it dawns on me I'm supposed to be getting some salvation theme, but I'll choose not to go there because it moves the book into being pretentious way before the book itself becomes so.)

Anyway, Ben is part of some Homeland Security program designed to ease suspected terrorists back into society. But no big deal is made of this fact. He takes a menial job in a diner out on the highway and becomes part of the community. So far the story is classic plot line #42. Mary Richards moves to Minneapolis, finds an apartment and lands a job in the newsroom. A Stephen King character moves into 'Salem's Lot, which appears to be a pretty ordinary town. Likewise, it's all pretty much normal in Redemption until Ben's fellow townspeople learn he's been imprisoned for terrorism and they begin to prosecute him. Immediately we move into plot line #42, subcategory D: the newcomer has trouble with the old-timers. But so far, it's all pretty predictable.

And then the story makes a hairpin turn. (SPOILER ALERT!! I wasn't going to be specific here, but Jackson was unable to maintain the level of suspense and IMHO the book crashed. Disappointed, I no longer feel compelled to protect the surprise, but if you want to read a book that twists into the horrible and unexpected, stop reading here. Really.)

Ben, a woman he has made friends with, and her daughter go into "downtown" Redemption. Ben is kidnapped, forced into a government car and taken away. Is he again in the clutches of Homeland Security? Or might these people be saving him from Homeland Security? I don't know. Ben doesn't know. It's up fpr grabs.

Meanwhile the woman and her daughter try to find out what has happened to Ben. They enter a government building, and the reader sees the characters are living a completely state controlled existence. IDs are required for everything, all belongings must be left at the door, "service" is slow and sullen, and ultimately no one is required to tell them anything. They return home to find their house being ransacked. Of course, no warrant is needed. The Patriot Act had taken care of that. Finally the run of action-packed pages stops, and sadly the book moves into straight propaganda as plot lines are resolved into a happy ending.

(END OF SPOILER INFO)

So, do I recommend the book or not? Tough call. Those forty pages grabbed me like only my first reading Heinlein's The Puppet Masters and an action section in Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full were able to do. If you do read Redemption , expect to be messaged to death by the end. BTW, there's nothing about the message with which I disagree. It's just that a slump into the didactic after such an amazing twist was truly disappointing.

Two nights ago I finished reading Gary Aldrich's Unlimited Access: An FBI Agent Inside the Clinton White House. Two nights ago? That means about 36 hours of mulling time. And I did mull. Actually I started mulling earlier than that. Sometime ago, probably towards the end of 2007, I first heard of the book. A tell-all about the Clintons in office? Sounded good. But I wasn't sure. I looked it up on barnesandnoble.com and read the first chapter. Cool. I ordered it, and it went on the shelf. Sometime last week it came off the shelf, and I took my first look at the physical book. Oops. I realized that if I had looked at the book in a real bookstore instead of a virtual one, I wouldn't have bought it. Why? The two glowing sound bytes on the back cover were by Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. What had I gotten myself into? Still, I'd paid my money; it was time to take my chances.

Turned out the chances weren't that bad. A lot of the book was fun. It's always fun to read stuff that turns people one doesn't particularly like into stark, raving jerks. Of course, disliking the Clintons didn’t translate into liking Gary Aldrich. By book's end, I disliked almost everyone touched by the book. But let's do it with specifics.

1) In a foreward … (Gee, Word doesn't know that word. Interesting.) Anyway in whatever the introduction to a book can be called, Michael Reagan carries on about the great and noble thing Aldrich has done by writing this book. "He knew that the vast machinery of a corrupted government and a co-opted press would be unleashed against him if he told the truth. But that didn't stop him. … That kind of courage is the mark of a great American," (page xvi) Oh, barf! Gag me with a spoon. I'll make up my own mind about Aldrich, thank-you-very-much!

2) Actually the book did lead me to change my opinion of one Clinton. I've always thought Chelsea seemed to be a pretty all-right kid, but Aldrich tells a tale of her, in conversation with a friend, referring to her security guard as a "trained pig." The friend leaves and the security man explains his job is to give up his life for her father—if need ever be. He goes on to say that her father probably would dislike her referring to the guards as "trained pigs." She answers, "I don't think so. That's what my parents call you." (page 90) So much for the Clinton for whom I had hopes.

3) Quite often, after Aldrich discusses horrible, job-related, security things the Clinton administration kept him from doing, he attempts to sum up the new folk in the White House. One comparison he made with the Bush I and Clinton administrations amused me. Maybe it represents the old give-enough-monkeys-enough-typewriters-and-one-of-them-will-write-a-Shakespearean-play theory Anyway, here's a comparison of Bush I staffers with Clinton staffers: "It was Norman Rockwell on the one hand and Berkeley, California, with an Appalachian twist on the other." (page 93) Damn! Cheney couldn't have said it better.

4) Of course in the paperback edition of Unlimited, the reader hears stories of how the librul (thanks, Steve) media controlled sales and publicity of the book in order to protect the Clintons. All right, lots of people still believe in the liberal-media myth, but Aldrich's one face-to-face encounter with that liberal media was when he appeared on This Week with David Brinkley. There Aldrich was questioned by the show's three liberals—Brinkley, Sam Donaldson and George Will. Say what? And you know what that liberal George Will dared to ask? "The heart of your book and what makes you think it's important—the security provisions at the White House—but before people can get to that, they have to answer a threshold question of 'Can you be believed?'" (page 198) How dare that liberal Will question the credentials of any author of any controversial book? Bad George! Bad liberal!

5) A final reaction to a specific: (page 205)
Think they wear white sheets to meetings?

I'd love to hear Aldrich's take on the Bush II administration where, even if all rules of protocol are followed, the Constitution has been shredded.

Martha, I read the Adrich book when it first came out. I knew it was biased and meant to "shock and awe."

I don't remember the negative comments about Chelsea. Some of the claims of Aldrich have been substantiated: "Hillary having such a bad temper. Hillary throwing a White House lamp at Bill."

The Clinton's scorn of the protocols necessary to protect government classified information was noted in the book, and has been proven several times; once right after the election when some of their "wonks" visited Redstone Arsenal and were angered that they were not given unlimited access.

I know a lot of information is "classified" in order to keep it out of the public eye. I worked in the field. I know. BUT, I also know that dates of tests, dealings with programs in cooperation with Israel -- these sorts of things don't need to be revealed without "vetting" who sees it. Who was that jerk that tried to take out classified information in his underwear briefs? Enough verification for me.

What has never been verified was Aldrich's claim that one of the White House Christmas trees had drug paraphenilia (sp) hanging as ornaments. I know I'm shallow, but I'd love to hear more about THAT. Maybe, just maybe the Clinton's had those bubbling lights on the tree and Aldrich thought they were bongs!!!

Was that the book where they said the Clinton's actually got on the historic beds and jumped up and down?

I felt like washing my hands after reading the book, but I also didn't feel enough respect of Bill and Hillary to have them send my mother a 90th birthday greeting as I had done when Reagan was in office for my father.

Time will tell if he was a good President. I don't think he was a good man.

Kathy

“But one had to be careful," Mma Ramotswe reminded herself: "one should not ask for too many things in this life, especially when one already had so much.” Pg 214

“There had been a miracle at Speedy Motors while he (Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni) was away.” Pg. 210

Anyone who has not read Alexander McCall Smith’s series of novels, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, has missed a treat that can uplift beyond measure.

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And so the book, The Miracle at Speedy Motors ends.

Precious Ramotswe, a woman who is traditionally built, moved from her village into the town of Gaborone, Botswana. She purchased a tiny white van from the sale of some of her late father’s cattle and after reading a single book about detection work by Clovis Anderson, hung out a sign: The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.

Mma Ramotswe is as much an oracle as Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard.” The author of the series, Alexander McCall Smith, has created stories that are so descriptive one can feel the dry dust of the bush country, and then glory in the rare rains that bring forth the melons that are so enjoyed and treasured.

His books in this series, now numbering nine, tell stories as full of twists and turns as any modern mystery while imparting the wisdom of a James Herriott.

I think The Miracle At Speedy Motors is one of the best of these books. It can stand alone but to appreciate the weaving of the tapestry that is the beauty of these books, one should start from the beginning. Oddly in quoting the tidbits that I marked that touched my soul, I started from the back of this book.

These quotes from the book are listed below with pages noted.



“You get used to it. You can get used to anything. She had not intended to say that and was only afterwards that she realized that Motholei ….might have taken it badly.” Pg 212

“And across which a bird of prey was describing huge, lazy circles, she thought it was strange that at a moment like this one should notice such things.” Pg 206

“Yes, there is something that made her do it.” Mma Ramotswe said, “It is called envy, and it can make people do very strange things………And that is why we must answer her hatred with love. I can’t say whether it will change her in her heart – it probably won’t. But if it makes her feel even just a little bit better about herself, she will be less envious.”

“I think you’re probably right, Mma…..You usually are in these matters….But I wish that you were wrong. Which you aren’t. But I still wish it.” Pg 204-205

“The seed of the lie had sprouted quickly, like a ground vine suddenly sending out its shoots after the first rain. So untruth grows, thought Mma ramotswe; so easily, so easily.” Pg 142

“There were so many decisions we made that at the time seemed very minor matters, but that could change the whole shape of our lives.” Pg 102

We do make decisions in haste on minor matters that can change our whole lives. Seeds of a lie sprout quickly and envy does cause people to perform in odd ways, but the answer is always to respond with love; love not to be confused with justice. And we can get used to almost anything, sometimes we don’t want to do it, but it is possible, and one should not ask for too many things in this life, especially when one already had so much.

George Will a LIBERAL? Oh my, I think I've landed on the wrong planet.

EmmaG

Martha had her tongue firmly in her cheek!

Kathy