Browsing through the local bookstore here is Sao Paulo today and randomly came across Michael Ignatieff’s Blood and Belonging. Looked for Stephen Harper’s book…..
I bought it. I didn’t have much interest in the past but figured this was some kind of ‘moment’.
I read the few 20 pages or so. I have to say I am starting to understand why he has become such a parser of words. When you have written thousands of pages in books and articles – much of it on fairly controversial topics – as a politician you have to run every comment through this massive library in your mind to make sure you aren’t serving up some contradictory statement to a position you held 15-25 years ago. It must be tiring.
I talked with a guy one tim who was conducting a fairly detailed search to try and find PM Harper’s graduate thesis to try and figure out the non-political person.
I am sure that all of Ignatieff’s writings will be cut up and served up in bite sized, out of context pieces to shock the populace come election time.
I don’t care too much for that stuff. I have over 3,500 pages of my writing into this blog on a vast list of topics. It is likely I have changed my mind on certain issues 3-4 times. People that think tend to be those that have the ability to change their mind in light of new information.
But that seems to be a bit of a liability in politics.
I’ll let you know if I like the book.