Happy day! My Pocket Obama from Amazon arrived.
One page contains these words:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form … without permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
The very next page has this:
In order to master the President’s ideology, it is essential to study many of the basic concepts over and over again, and it is best to memorize important statements and apply them repeatedly.
Together we can bring about the next great chapter in the American story.
Together is right. The best way to memorize material like this is together, with other people, preferably all standing in neat rows and columns, looking straight ahead, each holding a Pocket Obama in the left hand, just below chin level.
But there is a problem with this picture. Pocket Obama has no page numbers. It also cites no sources for the quotations, but that is less important. What is important is that without page numbers the group leader cannot say, “Everyone turn to page 32 and recite:”
Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
But it’s probably just as well. There will always be one person who instead of reciting the above words will recite from a different place, “I won. I will trump you on that.”