Barack Obama is still a mystery to me. Reading this book really didn’t answer much about the man who will likely be our president for the next 4 years to come. Barack Obama was born and raised in Hawaii with a short spell in Indonesia since his mother married and divorced an exchange student from Kenya and then Indonesia. He never really gets to know his father, a brilliant exchange student sent by the government of Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii and later Harvard. In fact, Barack Obama junior only remembers meeting his father once, when he was 10 and no more.
Even though Hawaii is more racially diverse than most other states, Barack faces difficulties being black and gifted. He is not really African-American in that he doesn’t share the same cultural history of slavery and emancipation yet he will never be part of white America though the white side of his family are the ones that raised him. He continues to excel in school even as he dabbles in drugs and never quite quits chain-smoking. After graduating from Columbia, after transferring from Occidental, he works as a financial writer for a spell before becoming a community organizer in Chicago and finally returning to Harvard to attend law school and eventually return to Chicago.
Throughout the book, Obama is constantly searching for his true identity, revisiting Kenya as an adult long after his father was dead, having fallen from government favor and finally regaining some of his prestige before dying in a car accident, working to organize the mostly African-American citizens of Chicago’s housing projects. In the process of staking out his own personal identity, he becomes a community leader much like intelligent people fighting their own personal demons may end up being clinical psychologists to those needing more help than themselves, a sort of reverse therapy.
The book is strikingly honest in many respects, at least in the frankness of tone for we have nothing to cross check it against. Yet at the same time, you still walk away feeling a little empty. The book is quite rough to say the least, a first-time author’s foray into writing, but readable. However, it does raise one important question about American society and that is, does the myth of the American melting pot hold true against individuals like Obama who are displaced by the artificial racial divides ingrained into American life?
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
This book is really small and short to the point of almost regretting its purchase. One thing you take away from this book is that there is no real short cut which is why the “quitting strategy” comes in. For the one thing that matters, the one thing you have potential to excel at, you must give it your everything to be the absolute best, the greatest. The “dip” is that mild cliff that separates the winners from losers and its the point you must go beyond to really succeed. However, how do you know you’re at the right “dip” and not a dead end? Successful people know when to quit or pursue something better. So when are you in a “dip” and when should you quit? Only God knows.
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) by Seth Godin
I simply can’t get enough of Adam Sandler regardless of the film’s quality. I’m not sure what it is, even in a film’s most unfunny or even gross out moments, there’s just something about Adam Sandler that makes me smile. You get this feeling of genuine warmth that radiates from his eyes.
I honestly wasn’t expecting much more than a cheap laugh from the latest installment, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” about Israeli’s most decorated counter-terrorist agent and Mariah Carey’s biggest fan, who secretly longs to be a hairdresser. The man’s ridiculous human strength and agility make him an irreplaceable asset to the Israelis. I just couldn’t get enough of the trailers where he was swimming and catching up to a jet ski or surfing on the roof of live road traffic.
Zohan finally gives in to his greatest desire by faking his death and coming to New York, posing as a mixed-race man of Tibetan and Australian heritage despite his thick Jewish accent, calling himself Scrappy Coco and donning a new haircut. Despite being the most decorated counter-terrorist he faces considerable obstacles becoming a hairdresser due to his lack of experience. Suddenly, Israel’s greatest secret weapon is fighting the demons of self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy.
In the end he finally gets a break, despite all resistance, sweeping floors at a hair salon on the Palestinian side of town. When devious landlords start crowding out tenants and the hair salon starts losing key employees, Scrappy finally gets his big break to finally make the world “silky smooth”. He quickly becomes the favorite of old ladies as he gives them great haircuts and free sex, causing business to boom for the first time in the hair salon’s history.
Of course, such happiness can last so long as Zohan’s enemies from his military days catch up to his new life and Zohan develops erectile dysfunction as he falls in love with Dahlia, the very hot Palestinian owner of his hair salon.
I really liked the film because it was mindless entertainment from finish to start while taking serious stabs at Middle Eastern stereotypes and Israeli-Arab relations. While some people find Zohan’s “servicing” of older women offensive I thought it was Adam Sandler’s own twisted expression of the right of older women to be treated and thought of as women and not the remnants thereof. It may not be Sandler’s best film but I’d say it’s far from worse.
