Cindy nominated this book for us, and she sent links to 2
videos of interviews with O’Rourke. These were like a smoke screen – there was
smoke on the screen from the little cigars (cigar-ettes?) that O’Rourke seemed
to smoke constantly and which are probably responsible for his death at age 74.
‘Nuff said about that. O’Rourke evolved from being a Hippy to being a political
Conservative to being a Libertarian, all the while writing political satire. He
was a well-received and much appreciated writer.
Cindy chose various questions
from the list she had suggested for us. She asked us whether we thought of
ourselves as Coastals or Heartlanders, according to the definitions and a
questionnaire in the book. Flo said she knew she was a Coastal, because in her
20s she first visited the midwestern U.S. from her home in New York and wondered
how the USA could contain such a population that seemed very uninformed and yet
were able to vote for President. Some of us were a mixture of Coastal and
Heartlander. Marcia said her family was divided between Coastals and
Heartlanders, politically. Ken demonstrated that the choices in the
questionnaire were silly BUT were “…just like the ones we get in every
election.” Cindy said her opinions have changed a lot over the years, partly
because of which part of the country she lived in.
We agreed that the political
divisions in our country give the USA a healthy diversity, especially since we
aren’t under a particular threat. A point in favor of this is that Russia’s war
on Ukraine has united us (and our divided Congress) against the enemy, Putin,
whose agenda doesn’t show any specific end goal. Thus, in a serious situation,
we have the potential to be united.
We continued to discuss current and previous
political situations and aspects of our lives. The book and Cindy’s questions
inspired us to lively and inspired conversation!
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