In all my life.
In ALL my life, through reading thousands of books, fiction and nonfiction, I had never freely marked passages in books. Sure there were plenty of marks and yellow highlights when I had to force memorization and comprehension under the threat of later testing. Yet, I had never done it because I was so impressed with what I was reading. I had done it at times in all schools including graduate school but never because I really wanted to.
Until this:
As it seems most politicians do, along with those most closely connected with them, the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama wrote a book. It's title "A Promised Land." It is clearly written, humble and somewhat long at slightly over 700 pages. It is a fine, educational read, even for those who have no particular interest in how our government operates...kind of like me for most of my adult life.
Using yellow stickies, I marked nine passages I wanted to commemorate for later reading and reflection. Rather than include the complete passages here, I am going to list their beginning page, topics and add my 'two cents' as I go:
- 243 - The Filibuster - Our ability to vote and to have it count (Democracy) is hanging by a thread today. The Freedom to Vote Act will not pass unless we circumvent the filibuster. It's that simple. The fact that almost half our Senators will vote against it is a damn shame.
- 275 - The Social Contract - Many politicians and most of the wealthy who take pride in avoiding taxes fail to consider that all government services, right down to the very highways they travel on are a collective financial responsibility. We are all in this...except them.
- 374 - Universal Healthcare - At some point we all pay anyway - in indigent care, in Medicaid, in Medicare and so on. If we had this, our poor and uninsured would not delay needed care and would have a lot fewer chronic or intensive care (read more costly) conditions. There are tons of sensible arguments in favor and none of those opposed make sense. It's a humanitarian, AND a financial thing comprende'?
- 424 - The Affordable Care Act - All opposed said; "At 20,000 pages it's wrong." As it turned out, it was and is right. Sure there were things that had to be fixed but in the end, it is right.
- 446 - "Whatever you do..." - "Whatever you do won't be enough. Try Anyway." This is Barack's quote and he kept after it in spite of Mitch's chronic obstructionism. Remarkable.
- 496 - Cost-benefit Analysis - Yes, in politics this fundamental process is too often overlooked - the example I appreciated most was the reduction in costly trucker regulations.
- 534 - Management - Management by walking around. He loved it and I love it. It should be emphasized in Management 101 at every college.
- 638 - Samantha Power - I'm a huge fan of her intellect and beliefs, as is our former President.
- 698 - Geronimo - Osama bin Laden. Sure we got him under Obama's watch. But early on we lost our way in some respects. We started our longest war. We started an Orwellian Department of Homeland Security. We drove moderates to hard-line immigration resistance. We stimulated general hatred of Muslims. This list is not complete and we are definitely not a better nation for it.
Now there. American non-fiction at its finest. If you have read it, you know what I mean. If you haven't read it but will, you will be on a great adventure. If you never do read it, that will be your loss and I am sorry.
