Movie Monday

I saw Charlie Wilson's War this weekend. Very good movie. Well directed by Mike Nichols, taken from a book by George Crile screenplay byAaron Sorkin. Great cast including Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson. Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Since I am not really very good at explaining the story of a movie I stole this little snipit from a web site I like to visit. It will help to explain things.he Internet Movie Database

"Good-Time Charlie" Wilson, a flawed and fun-loving Congressman from the piney woods of East Texas, deftly operates the levers of power to funnel money and weapons to the Mujahedin of Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of their country in late 1979. Charlie finds assistance in the oddest of places -- a renegade CIA agent whose outsider status and womanizing ways endears him to Wilson; a Houston socialite who leads Wilson to the cause; the willing Pakistani dictator fascinated by the socialite; the Israelis who modify and manufacture Soviet weapons to maintain the wink-and-nudge illusion of American neutrality; and the women -- ooh the women.

Based on the story (and the excellent book of the same name) that is so true and engaging that artistic liberties are not needed, even if they are taken in the film. "

Now that we have gotten all that out of the way. I would like to say the story this is based on was a very political hot potato when it was going on. The Soviet Union was bombing Afghanistan passed the stone age trying to get into Pakistan and the other close lying countries which obviously would have been a tremendous security problems for the whole world. The United States couldn't really do anything to help the Afghans, such as guns, tanks etc. because the Russians would have known where the weapons were coming from and then it would have become as they said in Washington a real war. So in comes Charlie who does a fantastic job of figuring out how to help and ends up bringing down the Soviet Union in the process. The one glitch is, and this is what makes this whole movie so poignant and not so funny, what happens after the Afghans win. Well we all know that, as Gust, the CIA guy tells Charlie after all is over, we have to do something to back up Afghanistan, all the crazies (Taliban) are moving in. The American government does nothing. The Afghans won the war (or we did) so now who cares. There is a very interesting quote from Charlie Wilson at the end of the movie that pretty much sums it all up, I will paraphrase .....It was a great time, wonderful things were done......but we fucked up the end game.......Nothing truer could ever have been said. For those of you out there who don't remember where the beginning of the end (9/11) started, go see this movie.

Enjoy

Susan

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Entry for December 31, 2007/ Movie Monday Charlie Wilson's War

I saw Charlie Wilson's War this weekend. Very good movie. Well directed by Mike Nichols, taken from a book by George Crile screenplay byAaron Sorkin. Great cast including Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson. Julia Roberts and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

Since I am not really very good at explaining the story of a movie I stole this little snipit from a web site I like to visitThe Internet Movie Database . It will help explain things

"Good-Time Charlie" Wilson, a flawed and fun-loving Congressman from the piney woods of East Texas, deftly operates the levers of power to funnel money and weapons to the Mujahedin of Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of their country in late 1979. Charlie finds assistance in the oddest of places -- a renegade CIA agent whose outsider status and womanizing ways endears him to Wilson; a Houston socialite who leads Wilson to the cause; the willing Pakistani dictator fascinated by the socialite; the Israelis who modify and manufacture Soviet weapons to maintain the wink-and-nudge illusion of American neutrality; and the women -- ooh the women.

Based on the story (and the excellent book of the same name) that is so true and engaging that artistic liberties are not needed, even if they are taken in the film. "

Now that we have gotten all that out of the way. I would like to say the story this is based on was a very political hot potato when it was going on. The Soviet Union was bombing Afghanistan passed the stone age trying to get into Pakistan and the other close lying countries which obviously would have been a tremendous security problems for the whole world. The United States couldn't really do anything to help the Afghans, such as guns, tanks etc. because the Russians would have known where the weapons were coming from and then it would have become as they said in Washington a real war. So in comes Charlie who does a fantastic job of figuring out how to help and ends up bringing down the Soviet Union in the process. The one glitch is, and this is what makes this whole movie so poignant and not so funny, what happens after the Afghans win. Well we all know that, as Gust, the CIA guy tells Charlie after all is over, we have to do something to back up Afghanistan, all the crazies (Taliban) are moving in. The American government does nothing. The Afghans won the war (or we did) so now who cares. There is a very interesting quote from Charlie Wilson at the end of the movie that pretty much sums it all up, I will paraphrase .....It was a great time, wonderful things were done......but we fucked up the end game.......Nothing truer could ever have been said. For those of you out there who don't remember where the beginning of the end (9/11) started, go see this movie.

Enjoy

Susan

Friends and Family

Hans and me on the Verde Valley Train ride

Hello

Looks like one of my resolutins for the New Year will have to be getting a little more active on here.  Sure does seem busy around this place.

Hope everyone has had a great Christmas or whatever and that everyone is getting ready for a fun New Years Celebration.  I also hope that everyone has a better time in 2008 than in 07. I know that sounds weird because maybe you had a great 07 but what is wrong with having an even better one in 08.

So best wishes to all.

Enjoy

susan

Entry for December 28, 2007? Friday Five for the end of the year

Copied the whole thing for a change. Haven't played in a while and this looks like fun.

Friday Five: New Year's Resolutions

Entry for December 26, 2007/ the day after Christams

Took the day off thankfully, I was beat.

Had fun with the friends from New York. I usually spend Christmas with one our both of them, if I am here or their here or what ever.

Just did my budget for the rest of the month, a week, and I can't believe it, I have made it through Christmas in tact. did all the things I wanted for the holiday and my birthday, bought things for people and me and the furry ones, had a nice dinner, can pay all the bills I have left and still have money left over. How did that happen? Very good months and my wonderful clients sure do know how to be appreciative for the holidays. Good times.

Now back to reality.

Susan

Merry Christmas, happy solstice song and Happy New Year

Couldn't copy everything so here is where my holiday wishes are to be found.

 

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-MJLGmGI8eqIF6zUsmrWuJPxi8F4qsA--?cq=1

susan

Entry for December 20, 2007

Sure is getting dark and cold around here, can't wait till the sun decides it is time to start making it trip in the sky a little longer.

This time of the year always freaks me out. I just can't get out of bed in the moring. I don't own an alarm clock.

Warm and sunny solstice.

Susan

Solstice

Start:	Dec 21, '07 12:00a
End:	Dec 22, '07

Winter for one half of the world and summer for the other, one longest night and one longest day

Good Monday morning

It is Monday morning and I have decided to start my week off by blogging on Multiply instead of Yahoo. It is too slow over there but I am not going to knock blog sites today.

With everyone gearing up for the holidays I just want you all to remember that unless you live in Floriday where it is raining, then it is cold out there and there are many of our furry friends and feathered ones who are proabably suffering because of it. Keep your furry kids in doors or just the quick walk for the dogs maybe some boots if you have snow and ice and rock salt around your neighborhood, keep the cats indoors, cats do not stay warm in this weather and put out some food for the birds and maybe some suete (sp). you know fat.Look out for strays who might need shelter. Be a good person, we have to watch out for those who can't speak for themselves.

Check out what our friend  A Paw Up Rescue is doing to help the helpless dogs in her neighborhood.

And let us all be happy that the scum Michael Vick is going to jail and I hope there are many animal lovers in there.

So, that is my piece for the day.

Have a good one.

Susan

Birthday Wishes

Hey everybody just got here for the first time in a while and I am so excited, what great birthday wishes. Thank you all so much. What good friends. Looks like I will have to buzz around and visit every one. first I have to fix my christams page as it seems that Multiply has eaten my background.

Thanks again.

susan

Entry for December 15, 2007/ Song Saturday

Now here is something nice I found while looking for some of my favorite Classical Christams Music, Enya singing Silent Night in Galic. Very pretty. Hope you like it too.

Entry for December 14, 2007It's My Birthday

and here is the only too real me, grey hair and all wearing one of the pairs of earrings that my dear friend Lea, otherwise known as Miss Velvet Chord Progression, made for me personnally, aren't I special, for my birthday.

What is really going on is I am sitting here working on my second cup of coffee. It is 7:30 AM in Arizona. I have taken the day off and slept in, this is late for me. I am reading all the wonderful birthday greetings from so many dear friends out there around the world and as close to home as down the road in Arizona.

I have been on this wonderful blog site for over two years now, three birthdays. I came here to meet people and make friends at the behest of my friend Tracey who thought it would be a good way for me to meet men. HA. Well she is hardly on this site any more and I am a fixture. The one thing that did come about is that I have met so many wonderful caring people. The responce to my birthday has shown me that no matter where people are or if you know them face to face or just through words friends are friends. You can become close through words. There are people on this site that I literally know for two years. That is a fairly long time to create a friendship. I speak with them as I would any friend who I see every day. Actually sometime I speak to you all more than I do some of my friends back in New York on the phone.

So ya ya ya, basically what I want to say is thank you all so much for your friendship and caring and birthday wishes. I am off to enjoy the end of this 61st year of my life and move on to enjoying the 62nd. Cna you imagine 61, whew, I was one of the generation that said don't trust any one over thirty. So much for that.

Thanks again you all and check my friend Jay's blog for some great videos. Thanks Jay.

Love you all

Susan

Entry for December 12, 2007/ Poetry Wednesday

Toward the Winter Solstice
byTimothy Steele
Although the roof is just a story high, It dizzies me a little to look down. I lariat-twirl the cord of Christmas lights And cast it to the weeping birch’s crown; A dowel into which I’ve screwed a hook Enables me to reach, lift, drape, and twine The cord among the boughs so that the bulbs Will accent the tree’s elegant design. Friends, passing home from work or shopping, pause And call up commendations or critiques. I make adjustments. Though a potpourri Of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Sikhs, We all are conscious of the time of year; We all enjoy its colorful displays And keep some festival that mitigates The dwindling warmth and compass of the days. Some say that L.A. doesn’t suit the Yule, But UPS vans now like magi make Their present-laden rounds, while fallen leaves Are gaily resurrected in their wake; The desert lifts a full moon from the east And issues a dry Santa Ana breeze, And valets at chic restaurants will soon Be tending flocks of cars and SUVs. And as the neighborhoods sink into dusk The fan palms scattered all across town stand More calmly prominent, and this place seems A vast oasis in the Holy Land. This house might be a caravansary, The tree a kind of cordial fountainhead Of welcome, looped and decked with necklaces And ceintures of green, yellow, blue, and red. Some wonder if the star of Bethlehem Occurred when Jupiter and Saturn crossed; It’s comforting to look up from this roof And feel that, while all changes, nothing’s lost, To recollect that in antiquity The winter solstice fell in Capricorn And that, in the Orion Nebula, From swirling gas, new stars are being born.
"Toward the Winter Solstice" fromToward the Winter Solstice (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2006,www.ohioswallow.com). This poem is dedicated to Miss Trine, who was our origional hostess for Poetry Wednesday and who is back with us now. Welcome back wonderful woman. Susan

Entry for December 11, 2007Ho Ho Ho

I am really getting into the holiday spirit. For the past two days I have been working on getting the Christams cards out in the mail. I just love sending Christmas cards. This is how I keep in touch with people who I don't see regularly, all my friends back in New York etc. This was something my mother did because all our friends were in the army like my dad and people were every where. So I have kept up the tradition.

This past weekend I started bringing in the greens for the celebration of the Solstice. I have pine from my trees on the drive way and desert holly from the land out back and mistletoe from the old ranch were I use to live. Mistletoe for healing, holly and pine for the Lord and Lady of the Greenwood. My Solstice is based on the old English, Celtic traditions. I will try for some Scottish traditions this year. All the candles have been burning every night as it is getting really dark around here, especially with all the rain we have been having. It is just wonderful. Snowed in Sedona this past Saturday while I was up there with a client. So beautiful. I just love snow. Of course I don't have to really deal with it any more, but I think I still miss it alot.

Hope everyone is getting or has gotten ready for the holidays, I know Chanukah is running now and Solstice night will be coming soon and Christmas. I think it is important to look way beyond the crass comercialism of this time of year and keep that Tiny Tim thing alive, lets do peace on earth and even if you don't believe ( like me) God Bless Us Everyone.

Susan

Poetry Wednesday

A little poetry ,actually carols ,for the Solstice and Christmas season.

The holly and the ivy were brought from the old religion with their magic for the solstice and mingled together with the celebration of the birth of Jesus. The rising of the sun referring to the solstice sunrise when the day starts to get longer again.

"During the solstice season make your home a temple to greenness and growing things. To sit in a room, lit only with fire and candlelight, to see the flames reflected in the glossy surfaces of the leaves of holly, ivy or laurel, is to be in a magicl place, where the dreams of our ancestors, and the magical reality of the Solstice, come alive in ways we can scarcely imagine."*

*John Matthews, " The Winter Solstice"

The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown:
O, the rising of the sun,
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.

- Christmas Carol

This doesn't sound very Christmassy to me but back when these were written there was snow everywhere, sort of like this country right now. Christmas white.

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.

- Christmas Carol

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Entry for December 04, 2007/ Astronomy Tuesday

Went back into the past for this one. It is from Christmas eve of 2006. Thought it was sufficiantly cool. Hope you do too.

For all of you who are snowed in, think of it as a Early White Christmas and I hope you don't ;have to go any where.

Enjoy.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2006 December 24

Rumors of a Strange Universe
Credit:High-Z Supernova Search Team,HST,NASA

Explanation:Eight years agoresults werefirst presented indicating that most of the energy in our universe is not in stars or galaxies but is tied to space itself. In the language of cosmologists, a largecosmological constant is directly implied by new distantsupernovae observations. Suggestions of acosmological constant (lambda) arenot new -- they have existed since the advent ofmodern relativistic cosmology. Such claims were not usually popular with astronomers, though, because lambda is so unlike known universe components, because lambda's value appeared limited by other observations, and because less-strange cosmologies without lambda had previously done well in explaining the data. What is noteworthy here is the seemingly direct and reliable method of the observations and the good reputations of thescientists conductingthe investigations. Over the past eight years, independent teams of astronomers have continued to accumulate data that appears to confirm the unsettling result. Theabove picture of a supernova that occurred in1994 on the outskirts of aspiral galaxy was taken by one of these collaborations.

Tomorrow's picture:bigger truss

My Birthday

Start:	Dec 14, '07 12:00a
End:	Dec 15, '07 12:00a