Quickie reading check

Last week read Chris Buckley's Thank You For Smoking, as a tip of the hat toward his Obama endorsement and all that followed it. Thanks, again, Mr. B.

And the last few days I have been reading my next president's first autobiographical book, Dreams from My Father. It's quite something to hear the young man Obama speak frankly about sex and drugs and rock and roll and race.

As I was looking for links to include in this post, I came across a number of sites claiming Obama did not write his book, etc. Reminded me a great deal of when I was in Hebrew school, must have been 1967 or 1968, and I had a music teacher who claimed and and demanded and railed on about the fact that the Beatles could not have written their songs. The music was too good, too prolific, for these yong, long haired goys to have written. It was a deeply racist, paranoid, generational claim, not based on any demonstrable fact. (The Gershwins? Of Course. The Beatles? Absurd.) Even at the age of 11 or 12 it was clear to me that this man (to whom my religious instruction was being entrusted) was mad. I hope that most people who read the trash thrown at Obama's book see things as clearly. (And, uh, I hope they read the book. )