[ml/nj]

One of the things that tells me that Obama didn't write the book is an incident described when Obama visits Africa as a young adult. He is in some remote area with members of his family and talks about looking up at the sky and seeing a diffuse white band stretching across the sky. He wondered if this were smoke or clouds (Neither of which emit light. Duh.) and was told that it was the Milky Way. The author quotes the Obama response as, "Really?"

Now Obama supposedly grew up in Kansas, Hawaii, and Indonesia. The probability that he never saw a dark night sky, and the Milky Way is virtually nil. But maybe someone who spent his whole life in or near Chicago might never have seen it and thought of it as an exotic thing.

ML/NJ

[slowhandluke]

He wondered if this were smoke or clouds (Neither of which emit light. Duh.)

But it's quite common in urban sprawl for clouds and smoke to reflect the street lights.

I suppose if you were Obama's ghostwriter, and you thought of him as purely a city kid, you might write about his surprise at seeing the milky way. But it would be a strange and poorly educated and extremely incurious young adult who could have lived in Hawaii and Indonesia and Kansas and never looked up on a dark night.

(Did I get the comma's right?)

[muawiyah]

Definitely. Folks in Kansas, Hawaii and Indonesia almost certainly have plenty of opportunities to watch the Milky Way.

Bill Ayers didn't. On the other hand, I bet Bill Ayers balks at correct use of commas, so if you want to see if it's Bill or some other terrorist writing Obama's autobiography, just check their other materials and look real hard at the commas.

I'm pretty sure Obama can't correctly use the comma in English nor the dot in Arabic ~ a man who is functionally illiterate in at least two languages, and maybe three.

[CalifGirlInMaine]

Obama didn’t live in Kansas, his mat. grandparents grew up there, and his mother was born there. As far as I have reaad, Obama lived in Honolulu and Jakarta, Indonesia, while growing up. He also lived with his mother in Seattle for a year or two as an infant, when she attended U. of Washington (1961-62). I have also read mom left him in Hawaii with her mother during this time, so this seems to be another of the uncertainties/mysteries of Obama’s life.