Saturday, 28 January 2017



Wilmington, Delaware (CNN)Over Joe Biden's 44 years in public office, the former vice president says he made roughly 8,000 round trips between his home state of Delaware and Washington DC -- or 2.1 million miles.

Today, he left Washington on a one-way ticket.
    The avuncular Biden, with a wide grin on his face, boarded Amtrak train #2166 at Union Station, bound for the station named in his honor: Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Railroad Station.
    "Back on Amtrak," Biden exclaimed as he boarded.
    Amtrak is part of who Biden is.

    After losing his wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972, Biden rode the rails to and from Washington nearly every day to help raise his sons, Hunter and Beau. 

    He continued the practice even over the last eight years as vice president, becoming the rail system's biggest proponent on Capitol Hill.

    "This is my family and this is why I wanted to go home the way I came," Biden told CNN as the train moved between Washington and Baltimore.

    Listening in on the interview, Dr. Jill Biden, whom Biden married in 1977, chimed in, "It's full circle."

    "Full circle," the former vice president said in agreement. "I'm going home to Delaware, the people I owe. And I really do owe them."

    For as much as Friday's ride home was business as usual for the former vice president, the 135-mile ride was life changing for Biden.

    Theoretically, Biden's departure was giving way for a convective takeover of Washington. President Donald Trump, a man Biden had suggested he wanted to beat up as a candidate, was moving into the White House. Mike Pence, a social conservative with views diametrically opposed to what Biden has advocated throughout his career, was moving into the vice president's residence.

    But more practically, Biden's departure kicked off the slow transition to a semi-normal life. Secret Service protection will soon dissipate for Biden, and the former vice president will transition to splitting time between the University of Pennsylvania for work on foreign policy and the University of Delaware for domestic policy work.

    Biden will no longer be vice president and the differences will be obvious.

    After the vice president boarded the train on Friday, a ticket taker made her way through the cabin. Biden's ticket had his name scrawled across the front, a departure from the last eight years.

    According to Amtrak's vice president of operations, Biden has ridden the rails for the last eight years on an anonymous reservation for security reasons. With security less of a priority, Friday was the first time in eight years his ticket actually bore his name.

    Biden will still spend time in Washington. Jill Biden will continue to teach at Northern Virginia Community College and the couple is looking to rent a house in the area, aides said.

    That means more time on the train and more time for Biden to reflect on the people he passes by.

    "What I used to do, literally, is you ride along here at night going home and you look out, you look in the windows and you see the lights on and think about, I mean this sincerely, what is going on at that kitchen table," Biden said about his travel on Amtrak. "What are people thinking about, what are there real worries?"

    Biden said he plans on staying engaged and will keep in touch with former President Barack Obama.

    His last words to the former president, Biden said, were, "I'll see you in a couple of weeks."

    "I know it sounds corny, but we are close friends," Biden said.

    As the train pulled into Wilmington, the conductor broke with 
    protocol and read out the entire name of the station: Joseph R. Biden Jr. Railroad Station. Biden's cabin cheered when his name was read and the former vice president smiled.

    The real surprise, though, came when Biden made his way down into the Wilmington train station. There, Biden was joined by many of his friends, former aides and the University of Delaware marching band.

    "Whoa," Biden said. Some of his top aides were even surprised at the welcoming party.

    Biden has become synonymous with Delaware and he has wore the state on his sleeve throughout his career.

    After the heroes welcome and a short trip across town to the Chase Center, Biden was greeted by hundreds of people who had come to welcome him home. Dozens of Amtrak and Wilmington police stood at attention as Biden drove by.

    "This is overwhelming for Jill and me," he said with the pained look on his face of a man trying and failing to hold back tears. "We never, and I mean this sincerely, we never thought we left home."

    Biden barely pulled himself back together before losing it again, "When I die, Delaware will be written on my heart."
    Biden's voice broke as he thanked the audience.

    Near the end of his speech, Biden welcomed his entire extended family up on stage, including his grandchildren Natalie and Hunter, the daughter and son of Beau Biden, whose death in 2015 rocked the vice president.

    Biden recovered, aides said, in part because of the love he found from people around him in Delaware.

    "You have been with me in victory," Biden said near the close of his speech and, in effect, vice presidency. "You've been with me in defeat. You have all stayed with me."

    Source:     CNN.com

    Friday, 27 January 2017


                                               Why we wish our presidents dead
    Published January 26, 2017
    Abimbola Adelakun (aadelakun@punchng.com)
    When former Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, died in June 1998, I was one of those who took to the streets to celebrate the nation’s liberation from his murderous grip. 
    These days, I look back at that infamous Monday and wonder the point of rejoicing at someone’s death when none of us is beyond mortality. 
    Abacha’s death, we know, resolved a conundrum and cleanly freed us from the bonds with which he held us. 
    Also, given the timing of his death, it did in fact seem God heard Nigerians’ cries for liberation. 
    However, death by natural causes is no punishment; it is one of life’s many realities.
    In the past few days, both the “fake news” and refutation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s “death” have seized the airwaves and “bus-stop parliaments.”

    Since the President’s announcement of his annual vacation and “medical trip” to the United Kingdom, folks eager to script Buhari’s obituary have been beating an elegiac gong. 

    In the post-truth world, rumours and fact-free truths travel the world without a visa and debunking them, unfortunately, sometimes assert their validity.

    To make a revolting matter even more shameful, Buhari’s media aides, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, two spin doctors who never muster enough professional dignity to overlook the temptation of wading in murky pools with every species of human, seized their social media handles. 
    They announced – with puerile peevishness- that the President was alive and well! From their interaction with cybercitizens, one deduces they imagine that those who wanted the President dead are malevolent souls who are still sore Buhari defeated their candidate in the 2015 election.
    Adesina and Shehu might well be right. In the run-up to the 2015 election, the sitting governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, started the guessing game about Buhari’s health and death. Other “wailers” picked up the baton and have continued to run with it since then. 
    What both aides have probably not considered is that such rumour mongering is also a response to the failures of the government to properly communicate with people. 
    Over the years, the Nigerian government has proved to be thoroughgoing dishonest on even simple and insignificant issues. 
    When people cannot get reliable official information, they make up their realities and hawk them around until they acquire some truth value.
    Besides, our nation has a long history of leaders lying about their health. From Abacha to the late Umaru Yar’Adua, to the wife of the former President Goodluck Jonathan, we never get an accurate picture of anything. 
    Till now, we cannot tell with confirmed certainty if it was liver cirrhosis that killed Abacha or the mysterious “Indian escorts”. 
    Did Yar’Adua speak regularly to his ‘Kitchen Cabal’ or his communication on his deathbed was a case of ‘Esau’s hand, Jacob’s voice’? 
    How did Governor Danbaba Suntai govern Taraba State after his accident? 
    What was the nature of Dame Patience Jonathan’s illness and how did she get mysteriously healed after leaving Aso Rock? 
    What is Buhari’s actual condition of health? In these times where the traffic one successfully drives to one’s website translates to financial gains, “fake news” mongering will not abate. Until our leaders learn to preempt rumours by making their health conditions public information, they will expend themselves putting out fires.
    Rather than stamp their petulant feet on the ground and moan the immorality of wishing one’s leaders dead, they should ask why the people they govern want them dead. 
    Beyond the obvious reasons of poor communication between the leader and the led, is the reality of spite and sadism on the part of the citizens. 
    People wish their leaders dead because they want to transpose some of the pains those leaders inflict on them back to the leaders; they want everything that brings them joy obliterated
    While I am in no way justifying this sadism on the part of the people, I also think a mere resort to flagellating them will not help our leaders to introspect. The question they should in fact ask themselves is why things should be otherwise.
    Why should people care if their leaders live or die when those leaders themselves do not care if their people die or live?
    Why ask people to demonstrate empathy towards a leader who grabs the public wallet and goes abroad to see well-trained specialists in well-funded hospitals? 
    Why ask impoverished people to show humane feelings towards such a person when the system that the leader runs at home cannibalizes them and their children? 
    Why would people who live, move, and have their being, amidst dehumanizing conditions be concerned about the ethics of wishing death on someone else? 
    The conditions of their own existence already bespeak death yet they are supposed to writhe at the pain of a leader whose privileges are funded with their blood?
    If they must know, wishing our leaders dead is moral revanchism. Those death wishes are like the stone from David’s slingshot. They might not have achieved the desired aim of hitting Goliath in the head and watching him drop dead but is nevertheless a ready weapon of warfare available to the agonised poor, the helpless victims of the nation’s necropolitics, the forgotten and silenced majority, and the historically and structurally dispossessed. 
    Trying to ramp up religious or cultural sentiments about the immorality of wishing our leaders dead will not abdicate the reasons people wish death or evil on their leaders, such shaming will only repress the instinct to publicly express it. 
    Under that surface sneer of “I wish Mr. President soonest recover” will remain a seething rage that can only find some cathartic outlet through their deaths.
    I dare say that this feeling of “go and die!” as it was once tactlessly voiced by a former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, is mutual between the leaders and the led. 
    In Nigeria, we eat death for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 
    Life is cheap here and there is little evidence that our leaders think that our lives matter. 
    Ours is a country where a bomb will “mistakenly” drop on a refugee camp, death toll will rise to 236 and not a thing has changed one week later. No lawmaker is currently sitting to review the gross incompetence that led to such a massacre and propose changes to the conditions that made it happen.
    Ours is a country where protesters are shot by security agencies whose heads have been addled and nobody, not even their state governors or legislators will shut down the system and demand that their deaths be redressed. 
    From Benue to Enugu states, people have been gruesomely killed by rampaging herdsmen but what have our “dear leaders” done other than toss the responsibility of accountability elsewhere? 
    The blood of the Shiites who were dumped in graves dug at night still cries for justice but it flies past our deafened ears. 
    The many victims of violent deaths vociferously cry for redress; their vain pleas drain us of psychic energy. If our lives are treated so cheaply, why are they surprised wishes of their own death are cheaply trafficked?
    We are gradually becoming a society where death is meaningless because life itself has been sapped of meaning. When people look at their leaders and wish them dead, they are trying to infuse some meaning into a meaningless order. Just like we thought of Abacha, if this person -who represents ethical and spiritual corruption, decadence, executive aloofness, oppression of the poor by the rich – drops dead, then maybe it is proof that there is a God; He exists and in fact cares about alleviating our pain.
    Buhari is not the first President who will be rumoured dead and if the one that comes after him makes our lives miserable too, people could wish him/her dead as an expression of their inner rage and frustrated helplessness. 
    It is nothing personal.

    Source:     Facebook Group


    Thursday, 26 January 2017



    Reactions trail Obasanjo’s call for Igbo president in 2019

    ON JANUARY 26, 20174:12 AMIN NEWSCOMMENTS By Vincent Ujumadu, Anayo Okoli, Emman Ovuakporie, Johnbosco Agbakwuru & Peter Okutu Awka—

    REACTIONS, yesterday, trailed the call by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2019, with the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, and former president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr. Dozie Ikedife, saying the former president should not be taken seriously. 

    In his reaction, MASSOB leader, Mr Uchenna Madu, said Obasanjo’s statement was a sign of jittery, following the growing consciousness of the Biafra actualization, adding that he (Obasanjo) got it wrong by believing that he could use Igbo presidency to entice Igbo people. 

    He has nothing good to offer —MASSOB He said: “Nobody should rejoice over the statement by Obasanjo because he will never do or say anything good about Igbo. For him to solicit for Igbo president is not in the interest of Ndigbo.

    “It could also be that he is afraid of the emergence of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar as the next President and he is, therefore, trying to work against the man by pretending to be on the side of the Igbo. 

    “We in MASSOB cannot take him serious. If he means to show remorse for all the wrong things he did against Igbo, he should first of all pay solidarity visits to the Ohanaeze Ndigbo,and the traditional and religious leaders in this area. 

    It’s not most important thing for Igbo nation—Ikedife 
    Also, former Ohanaeze President, Dr. Dozie Ikedife, said he did not think Obasanjo’s recommended Igbo president was the most important thing for the Igbo nation. 

    “Anyway, we have heard him and we believe that he thought over the matter before making the statement. But the important question is, who needs Igbo president? Is it Nigeria of Ndigbo?” he asked. Obasanjo I doubt his sincerity

    Activist 
    Prominent human rights activist and constitutional lawyer, Dr. Anthony Agbazuere, expressed doubt over the sincerity of the former president on the issue, saying the suggestion was a welcome one if former President Obasanjo was sincere about it. 

    He said: “Yes, we need it because we have suffered enough, but what I don’t know is the possibility now as the North is still having only one term. If a Yoruba man is saying that now, he may be putting us on a collision course with the North. 

    “I think the ideal time for the turn of South East is 2023 when the North would have completed their two terms.” 

    Call deceitful —PDP chieftain 
    In a similar vein, a Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, stakeholder in Ebonyi State and former Commissioner for Information and State Orientation, Chief Abia Onyike, described the call for Igbo president in 2019 as deceitful and superficial. 

    According to him, Nigeria should restructure or be prepared for de-amalgamation. He said: “That can happen through genuine re-structuring of the system and a return to genuine federalism. Talking of Igbo presidency is deceitful and superficial. It is either we restructure or be prepared for de-amalgamation. 

    Achi-Okpaga lauds OBJ 
    Meanwhile, National Publicity Secretary of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Prince Uche Achi-Okpaga, has commended Obasanjo, saying: “We are poised to galvanize Ndigbo and indeed all Nigerians for a total support of the Igbo presidency. Ndigbo have track records of supporting the North (military or civilian), the South-West (Obasanjo) and South-South (Jonathan). Therefore, we expect all the geopolitical zones to reciprocate this kind political gesture.” 

    His support necessary—Ezeife 
    A former Governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, said what the former President said was his personal opinion and that he should follow it up to tell his followers to support any South East Presidential candidate. He said: “There is nothing bad about it. He has expressed his opinion. He is a respected person in the country. If he said so, it is his right to express his opinion. “However, political office is not by fiat, you have to fight for it. If that is what he thinks should happen, he should give his support to it.” 

    Also reacting, the Presidential candidate of the United Progressive Party, UPP, in the 2015 elections, Chief Chekwas Okorie, said: “It is good he has expressed his opinion. But the truth is left to the political parties to choose. Nigeria is not structured for an Igboman to become president. 

    “The way an Igboman can become a presidential candidate of a political party is if that party zones the presidential slot to the place. If APGA, for instance, does not zone a presidential candidate to the South-East, the people cannot be president.”

    He doesn’t mean what he said—Ezeemo 
    An industrialist and chieftain of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, Chief Godwin Ezeemo, said the former President was not somebody to be taken seriously. 

    Ezeemo, who was a governorship candidate of PPA in Anambra State said: “Well, for me, that statement is political. He doesn’t mean it. I don’t think he means well for the South East.” 

    He could be rational—Nkem-Abonta 
    Also commenting, a member of the House of Representatives representing Ukwa Federal Constituency of Abia State, Uzoma Nkem-Abonta said: “Obasanjo calling for South East President in 2019 could be rational, could be real, it could be proper. Perhaps, he is realising all the unfair and unkind things he did to the South-East. “Obasanjo as an elder statesman, is he sincere for calling for the presidential candidate now coming from South East knowing that the incumbent ordinarily, naturally and from political arrangement will want to do two tenures? 

    “Is it not an arrangement to throw spanner into political arrangement already done? With all the intent of that statement, we should look for the idea in him, the reason for saying that.”

    Source:     Vanguard Ngr



    Tuesday, 24 January 2017



    He was picked by Obama to run with him as the Vice Presidential Candidate in 2008 under the banner of the Democratic Party, they won the election and on the 20th of January 2009, he was sworn in as Vice President of the United States of America.

    He gave so much support to the President despite being his senior by many years and also being more exposed to the American Politics than him, he took all his assignments seriously and never for one day questioned the authority of the Commander in Chief.

    He performed so well that Obama asked him to run again with him on the same ticket in 2012 and again for the 2nd time they were elected and on the 20th of January 2013, he was sworn in as the Vice President of the United States of America for the 2nd time.

    His tenure expired alongside that of Obama on the 20th of January 2017, when a new Vice President was sworn in and in his humble nature, Joe Biden and his wife took the PUBLIC TRAIN from Washington back to Delaware his home state.

    There was no air around him, no pride, no haughtiness, he was so down to earth that he was loved even by those who hated him.

    He had no luxurious mansions in Washington, no private jets, and did not apparently corruptly enrich himself

    Joe Biden is one man that Nigerian Politricians should actually emulate

    Friday, 20 January 2017




    My name is ASP Usman Gambo Kobin, I am a retired police officer, I am from Kobin, Numana Chiefdom, Sanga LGA of Kaduna state.

    We learnt that some people were killed in Nandu, and some in Kabamu all in Numana Chiefdom. I then went to my old father around 7am and said, “baba, I don’t know what may happen to us today based on what we have been told but stay at home and don’t move around."

    A Fulani man had actually hinted us of the impending attack but it was hard to ever imagine that our Fulani neighbours would come around to attack us.

    Then around 1:30 pm, we suddenly heard gunshots. They had launched their attack. Without any weapon, and nowhere we could escape to, I told my wife to remain indoors and let us be killed with dignity in our home. But, she was too scared and insisted she wanted to run out believing she may escape. She then ran out as shooting was still going on. 

    My 104-year-old dad whom I asked to stay indoors was outside and he was the first casualty of the attack as they shot him outside. 

    After some time the shooting came close to my house, behind my room and since they were in my backyard, that meant that the entire village had been surrounded.

    You could hear the screaming and shrieking of women and children the invaders were just killing everyone. It was horrible. They shot dead my wife as she ran out trying to escape. 

    At the end of the shooting, nine of my relations were gunned down. 
    I lost my father, Madaki aged 104; 
    my elder brother, Paul aged 70; 
    my wife, Salamatu Gambu aged 56 years; 
    two of my brothers’ wives, Hadiza Danjuma, 35 and Helen Fedelis, 40 
    and the young son of my elder brother. 
    Also killed were the wives of my elder brother’s two sons as well as elder brother’s grand daughter who was eight months pregnant.


    Among those who carried out the killings were Fulani who were born and raised in our village. We know them and they know us also. We have been living with them since their parents gave birth to them in Kobin. We know them. Their leader is one Yakubu Alhaji Haruna who is still in Sanga area and moving freely doing what he likes.

    People who were killed in my village were 48. Yes, we buried 48 people in a mass grave in Kobin. They were killed by people we gave our land to settle and graze their cattle without a quarrel.

    There was not even a disagreement or anything between us before the attack. That is the most annoying aspect of the killings. The mass grave is there, just beside my house. And while killing our people, they were shouting, “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” (“God is great” in Arabic, popular with jihadists while on mission). 

    They were also saying “Ku Kashe Arna! Kashe Arna” (Kill the pagans! Kill the Pagans!) I was trapped in my home watching and listening. Those of us who survived are however suffering.

    Source:     Facebook Group

    Thursday, 19 January 2017




    Buhari to go on ten days medical vacation

    Posted By: Onyedi Ojiabor, Abuja on: January 19, 2017 THE NATION

    President Muhammadu Buhari has written the Senate on his intention to go on ten days medical vacation.


    In a letter addressed to the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, President Buhari said he was writing in line with Section 145 (1) of the 1999 constitution as amended.

    According to the letter which was read at plenary on Tuesday by Saraki, President Buhari said he will be away from Monday 23rd January to Monday 6th February.

    “In compliance with Section 145 (1) of the 1999 constitution as amended, I wish to inform the Distinguished Senate that I will be away on a short medical vacation from Monday January, 23 to February 6th, 2017 and while I am away, the Vice President (Osinbajo) will perform the functions of my office. “Please, accept, as always assurances of my highest esteemed consideration.”





    Continue reading the main story



    Michiko Kakutani, the chief book critic for The New York Times, interviewed President Obama about literature on Friday at the White House.

    Here are excerpts from the conversation, which have been edited and condensed.

    These books that you gave to your daughter Malia on the Kindle, what were they? Some of your favorites?

    I think some of them were sort of the usual suspects, so “The Naked and the Dead” or “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” I think she hadn’t read yet.

    Then there were some books I think that are not on everybody’s reading list these days, but I remembered as being interesting, like “The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing, for example. Or “The Woman Warrior,” by Maxine [Hong Kingston].

    Part of what was interesting was me pulling back books that I thought were really powerful, but that might not surface when she goes to college.

    Have you had a chance to discuss them with her?
    I’ve had the chance to discuss some. And she’s interested in being a filmmaker, so storytelling is of great interest to her. She had just read “A Moveable Feast.” I hadn’t included that, and she was just captivated by the idea that Hemingway described his goal of writing one true thing every day.

    What made you want to become a writer?
    I loved reading when I was a kid, partly because I was traveling so much, and there were times where I’d be displaced, I’d be the outsider. When I first moved to Indonesia, I’m this big, dark-skinned kid that kind of stood out. And then when I moved back from Indonesia to Hawaii, I had the manners and habits probably of an Indonesian kid.

    And so the idea of having these worlds that were portable, that were yours, that you could enter into, was appealing to me. And then I became a teenager and wasn’t reading that much other than what was assigned in school, and playing basketball and chasing girls, and imbibing things that weren’t very healthy.

    I think all of us did.
    Yeah. And then I think rediscovered writing and reading and thinking in my first or second year of college and used that as a way to rebuild myself, a process I write about in “Dreams From My Father.”

    That period in New York, where you were intensely reading.
    I was hermetic — it really is true. I had one plate, one towel, and I’d buy clothes from thrift shops. And I was very intense, and sort of humorless.

    But it reintroduced me to the power of words as a way to figure out who you are and what you think, and what you believe, and what’s important, and to sort through and interpret this swirl of events that is happening around you every minute.

    And so even though by the time I graduated I knew I wanted to be involved in public policy, or I had these vague notions of organizing, the idea of continuing to write and tell stories as part of that was valuable to me. And so I would come home from work, and I would write in my journal or write a story or two.

    The great thing was that it was useful in my organizing work. Because when I got there, the guy who had hired me said that the thing that brings people together to have the courage to take action on behalf of their lives is not just that they care about the same issue, it’s that they have shared stories. And he told me that if you learn how to listen to people’s stories and can find what’s sacred in other people’s stories, then you’ll be able to forge a relationship that lasts.

    But my interest in public service and politics then merged with the idea of storytelling.

    What were your short stories like?
    It’s interesting, when I read them, a lot of them had to do with older people.

    I think part of the reason was because I was working in communities with people who were significantly older than me. We were going into churches, and probably the average age of these folks was 55, 60. A lot of them had scratched and clawed their way into the middle class, but just barely. They were seeing the communities in which they had invested their hopes and dreams and raised their kids starting to decay — steel mills had closed, and there had been a lot of racial turnover in these communities. And so there was also this sense of loss and disappointment.

    And so a bunch of the short stories I wrote had to do with that sense, that atmosphere. One story is about an old black pastor who seems to be about to lose his church, his lease is running out and he’s got this loyal woman deacon who is trying to buck him up. Another is about an elderly couple — a white couple in L.A., — and he’s like in advertising, wrote jingles. And he’s just retired and has gotten cranky. And his wife is trying to convince him that his life is not over.

    So when I think back on what’s interesting to me, there is not a lot of Jack Kerouac, open-road, young kid on the make discovering stuff. It’s more melancholy and reflective.

    Was writing partly a way to figure out your identity?
    Yes, I think so. For me, particularly at that time, writing was the way I sorted through a lot of crosscurrents in my life — race, class, family.

    And I genuinely believe that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces of myself into something relatively whole.

    People now remark on this notion of me being very cool, or composed. And what is true is that I generally have a pretty good sense of place and who I am, and what’s important to me. And I trace a lot of that back to that process of writing.

    Has that continued to be so in the presidency?
    Not as much as I would have liked. I just didn’t have time.

    But you keep some form of a journal?
    I’ve kept some, but not with the sort of discipline that I would have hoped for. The main writing that I’ve done during the presidency has been my speeches, the ones at least that were important to me.

    How has the speechwriting and being at the center of history and dealing with crises affected you as a writer?

    I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to see when I start writing the next book. Some of the craft of writing a good speech is identical to any other good writing: Is that word necessary? Is it the right word? Is there a rhythm to it that feels good? How does it sound aloud?

    I actually think that one of the useful things about speechwriting is reminding yourself that the original words are spoken, and that there is a sound, a feel to words that, even if you’re reading silently, transmits itself.

    So in that sense, I think there will be some consistency.

    But this is part of why it was important to pick up the occasional novel during the presidency, because most of my reading every day was briefing books and memos and proposals. And so working that very analytical side of the brain all the time sometimes meant you lost track of not just the poetry of fiction, but also the depth of fiction.

    Fiction was useful as a reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about every day and was a way of seeing and hearing the voices, the multitudes of this country.

    Are there examples of specific novels or writers?
    Well, the last novel I read was Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad.” And the reminder of the ways in which the pain of slavery transmits itself across generations, not just in overt ways, but how it changes minds and hearts.

    It’s what you said in your farewell address about Atticus Finch, where you said people are so isolated in their little bubbles. Fiction can leap —
    It bridges them. I struck up a friendship with [the novelist] Marilynne Robinson, who has become a good friend. And we’ve become sort of pen pals. I started reading her in Iowa, where “Gilead” and some of her best novels are set. And I loved her writing in part because I saw those people every day. And the interior life she was describing that connected them — the people I was shaking hands with and making speeches to — it connected them with my grandparents, who were from Kansas and ended up journeying all the way to Hawaii, but whose foundation had been set in a very similar setting.

    And so I think that I found myself better able to imagine what’s going on in the lives of people throughout my presidency because of not just a specific novel but the act of reading fiction. It exercises those muscles, and I think that has been helpful.

    And then there’s been the occasion where I just want to get out of my own head. [Laughter] Sometimes you read fiction just because you want to be someplace else.

    What are some of those books?
    It’s interesting, the stuff I read just to escape ends up being a mix of things — some science fiction. For a while, there was a three-volume science-fiction novel, the “Three-Body Problem” series —

    Oh, Liu Cixin, who won the Hugo Award.
    — which was just wildly imaginative, really interesting. It wasn’t so much sort of character studies as it was just this sweeping —

    It’s really about the fate of the universe.
    Exactly. The scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade. [Laughter]
    There were books that would blend, I think, really good writing with thriller genres. I mean, I thought “Gone Girl” was a well-constructed, well-written book.

    I loved that structure.
    Yeah, and it was really well executed. And a similar structure, that I thought was a really powerful novel: “Fates and Furies,” by Lauren Groff.

    I like those structures where you actually see different points of view.
    Which I have to do for this job, too. [Laughter]

    Have there been certain books that have been touchstones for you in these eight years?

    I would say Shakespeare continues to be a touchstone. Like most teenagers in high school, when we were assigned, I don’t know, “The Tempest” or something, I thought, ‘My God, this is boring.’ And I took this wonderful Shakespeare class in college where I just started to read the tragedies and dig into them. And that, I think, is foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and play themselves out between human beings.

    Is that sort of comforting?
    It gives me a sense of perspective. I think Toni Morrison’s writings — particularly “Song of Solomon” is a book I think of when I imagine people going through hardship. That it’s not just pain, but there’s joy and glory and mystery.

    I think that there are writers who I don’t necessarily agree with in terms of their politics, but whose writings are sort of a baseline for how to think about certain things — V. S. Naipaul, for example. His “A Bend in the River,” which starts with the line, “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.” And I always think about that line, and I think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there are times where it feels as if that may be true.

    So in that sense, I’m using writing like that as a foil or something to debate against.

    I’ve read that Lincoln loved Shakespeare his whole life, but when he was dealing with the Civil War, reading the history plays helped give him solace and perspective.

    Lincoln’s own writings do that. He is a very fine writer.
    I’d put the Second Inaugural up against any piece of American writing — as good as anything. One of the great treats of being president is, in the Lincoln Bedroom, there’s a copy of the Gettysburg Address handwritten by him, one of five copies he did for charity. And there have been times in the evening when I’d just walk over, because it’s right next to my office, my home office, and I just read it.

    And perspective is exactly what is wanted. At a time when events move so quickly and so much information is transmitted, the ability to slow down and get perspective, along with the ability to get in somebody else’s shoes — those two things have been invaluable to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president, I can’t say. But what I can say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast and doesn’t let up.

    Is there some poem or any writing or author that you would turn to, say, after the mass killings in Newtown, Conn., or during the financial crisis?

    I think that during those periods, Lincoln’s writings, King’s writings, Gandhi’s writings, Mandela’s writings — I found those particularly helpful, because what you wanted was a sense of solidarity. During very difficult moments, this job can be very isolating. So sometimes you have to hop across history to find folks who have been similarly feeling isolated. Churchill’s a good writer. And I loved reading Teddy Roosevelt’s writing. He’s this big, outsize character.

    Have you read a lot of presidential biographies?
    The biographies have been useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or difficult. And it just serves you well to think about Roosevelt trying to navigate World War II or Lincoln trying to figure out whether he’s going to fire [George B.] McClellan when Rebel troops are 20, 30, 40 miles away.

    I watched some of the civil-rights-movement documentary mini-series “Eyes on the Prize” after the election.
    It was useful.

    You do see how far we’ve come, and in the space of my lifetime.
    And that’s why seeing my daughters now picking up books that I read 30 years ago or 40 years ago is gratifying, because I want them to have perspective — not for purposes of complacency, but rather to give them confidence that people with a sense of determination and courage and pluck can reshape things. It’s empowering for them.

    What books would you recommend at this moment in time, that captures this sense of turmoil?
    I should probably ask you or some people who have had time to catch up on reading. I’ll confess that since the election, I’ve been busier than I expected. So one of the things I’m really looking forward to is to dig into a whole bunch of literature.

    But one of the things I’m confident about is that, out of this moment, there are a whole bunch of writers, a lot of them young, who are probably writing the book I need to read. [Laughter] They’re ahead of me right now. And so in my post-presidency, in addition to training the next generation of leaders to work on issues like climate change or gun violence or criminal justice reform, my hope is to link them up with their peers who see fiction or nonfiction as an important part of that process.

    When so much of our politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important than ever.

    There’s something particular about quieting yourself and having a sustained stretch of time that is different from music or television or even the greatest movies.

    And part of what we’re all having to deal with right now is just a lot of information overload and a lack of time to process things. So we make quick judgments and assign stereotypes to things, block certain things out, because our brain is just trying to get through the day.

    We’re bombarded with information. Technology is moving so rapidly.
    Look, I don’t worry about the survival of the novel. We’re a storytelling species.

    I think that what one of the jobs of political leaders going forward is, is to tell a better story about what binds us together as a people. And America is unique in having to stitch together all these disparate elements — we’re not one race, we’re not one tribe, folks didn’t all arrive here at the same time.

    What holds us together is an idea, and it’s a story about who we are and what’s important to us. And I want to make sure that we continue that.

    I know you like Junot Díaz’s and Jhumpa Lahiri’s books, and they speak to immigration or the American Dream.

    I think Lahiri’s books, I think Díaz’s books, do speak to a very particular contemporary immigration experience. But also this combination of — that I think is universal — longing for this better place, but also feeling displaced and looking backwards at the same time. I think in that sense, their novels are directly connected to a lot of American literature.

    Some of the great books by Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you’re giving up — what you’re willing to give up and what you’re not willing to give up. So that particular aspect of American fiction I think is still of great relevance today.

    Source:     NY Times

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