October book club
Monthly progressive bookclub meeting tonight. We meet at the downtown, 3rd Ave Dunn Bros location, and for some reason I can never find the place coming from the southwest, I always end up overshooting it and having to come around and approach from the east. Very strange. There was a slight mist in the air tonight - just enough to obscure the upper reaches of the downtown skyscrapers, making them like Jack's beanstalk, stretching upwards and disappearing into the clouds. Made for a scenic bike ride to and from. I love urban biking at night. Not sure why - maybe in part because it's tough for a car to sneak up on you with it's headlights on.
Bookclub discussion tonight was very good. There was one guy who described himself as a moderate conservative. He seemed to be enjoying the discussion, and I could tell from his occasional nodding of his head that he agreed with at least some of our points. I actually wish there were more people like him in the club, so we could have a little more debate as opposed to preaching to the choir.
Book for this month was Wellstone's "Conscience of a Liberal". I'm a little embarrassed to admit just how little I really knew about Wellstone. The book starts out with him describing his time spent teaching at Carlton College, almost getting fired due to his activism, and how the students argued on his behalf and pressured the administration to grant him tenure. Pretty powerful stuff. That leads into his description of this first campaign for Senator, and then into discussions of the machinations and process within the Senate. I'm not a process wonk, but it was fascinating to learn a little about just how complicated the law-making process is in the Senate. Especially fascinating was his description of how committees act out of the public eye to modify bills before the final voting before the senate body occurs. Also the difference between a "voice-vote" where the individual senator's votes are not recorded, versus a vote where each senator's vote becomes a matter of record.
Bookclub discussion tonight was very good. There was one guy who described himself as a moderate conservative. He seemed to be enjoying the discussion, and I could tell from his occasional nodding of his head that he agreed with at least some of our points. I actually wish there were more people like him in the club, so we could have a little more debate as opposed to preaching to the choir.
Book for this month was Wellstone's "Conscience of a Liberal". I'm a little embarrassed to admit just how little I really knew about Wellstone. The book starts out with him describing his time spent teaching at Carlton College, almost getting fired due to his activism, and how the students argued on his behalf and pressured the administration to grant him tenure. Pretty powerful stuff. That leads into his description of this first campaign for Senator, and then into discussions of the machinations and process within the Senate. I'm not a process wonk, but it was fascinating to learn a little about just how complicated the law-making process is in the Senate. Especially fascinating was his description of how committees act out of the public eye to modify bills before the final voting before the senate body occurs. Also the difference between a "voice-vote" where the individual senator's votes are not recorded, versus a vote where each senator's vote becomes a matter of record.
posted by equipoise at 4:16 PM
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