THE MIDDLE PLACE * RENDITION * CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR

I just finished a book this morning because it's due today, and we've got negative high temperatures and a blizzard scheduled for the next few days, so I want to make my library run today. Oh, and did I mention the plumbing problem? We have water, but it can't run down the drain. Think about it.

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan: Someone forwarded me a youtube email of a woman reading an essay about women in "the middle place" between their parents and children. It used to be called the sandwich generation by my mom when she was caring for her elderly parents while raising her own three children. Kelly's book and Kelly's middle place involved her diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, at the same time her Dad was being diagnosed and treated for bladder cancer. Except the cancer is like a bit part in the story for me, because her book is really about family relationships, and about being the loved daughter and loved sister in her family. So many people will relate to her relationship with her father, a gregarious positive happy family man who loves people and lives life with a flourish. Check out the Kelly Corrigan Video.
The Middle Place is a lovely valentine to Kelly's parents.

Rendition - An old friend called last week to chat and catch up, and it turns out that even though our views are similar, our politics are different. She suggested that I watch Rendition and Charlie Wilson's War, and I had been passing them both up on the On Demand menu for weeks. Rendition is a political thriller about torture, not too graphic not to watch, and it's very watchable. Some people might watch this and come away with the opinion that torture is justified. I watch this and think that torture is wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right and I wish there didn't have to be a saying about turning the other cheek and an eye for an eye is more crime and more pain. How can the bad things end if they continue? How can permanent peace come out of the violence of war?

Charlie Wilson's War - Tom Hanks as a partying congressman from Texas who has a spot and clout on the house appropriations committee. This movie would have you believe that he and a cia agent, with Julia Roberts' (she plays Texas' sixth wealthiest woman, a former Miss Cotton Bowl with political interests that weren't made clear in the movie) encouragement were responsible for funding the secret 1980s and 1990s war in Afghanistan. This is the one where the Soviets were trying to take over Afghanistan, but eventually retreated. Then the Taliban took over. You know the rest.
It was better watching than I thought it would be. Thanks Tom and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I'm off to see what's doing with the plumbing on the home front and the movie shelf at the library. The library. Always the same and always different.
For some reason, blogger isn't letting the paragraphs of this blog snap into perfect shape today. But I think I like it. After a year, we are making some cosmetic changes here at herheartonhersleeve.blogspot.com. Just like the Tribune. Cosmetic changes are OK with me; it's the content changes I can't stand. I want Gasoline Alley, Hi and Lois, Beetle Baily, BC, and some other old friends back on my comics page along with Dear Abby. And I want the TV guide in the paper every day. That's all. And it's too much to ask.