An Interesting Book

I have just finished reading `The Family' subtitled `The real Story of the Bush Dynasty' by Kitty Kelley. A fascinating read, especially for the insights it gives to the U.S. political system and Ivy League College Culture during the 60's and earlier. For me the standout character was Dorothy Walker Bush, George W Bush's Grandmother. A very strong and very influential woman. From the beginning it had me racing off to Wikipedia to find out what various abbreviations stood for and this certainly helped. For example a search for GOP led to the knowledge that it stands for Grand Old Party which is the traditional nickname for the Repblicans. The official symbol is the Elephant. This certainly helped as Kelley refers to GOP often, without the `dots' which would indicate an abbreviation. Of course everyone in the U.S. would know its meaning but I would have loved a glossary to save me work ( v. lazy I know). I finished up with an 18 page printout of info. on the party. :) This will I think lead me further into U.S. history, a subject which has always fascinated me, especially the Civil War era, but about which I know virtually nothing.

My favourite quote from the book was attributed to Mark Twain who said ` Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves - and how little we think of the other person'