So here it is - the book that was hurled at President Obama at Philadelphia this weekend.
How To Become Wise is the magnum opus of Sajid Ali Khan, a New York antiques dealer and self-styled 'wisdom coach', who was briefly held by Secret Servicemen after the incident on Sunday. He was later released after being dismissed as simply "an over exuberant fan".
It's a shame the President didn't pick up the book which Khan claims landed some distance from the President's feet. If he had, he would have enjoyed such pearls of wisdom as:
- Treat your spouse as the Nobel Prize of your life, feeling proud, honored, loved, and respected in being at her/his service. If you do not treat her/him like this, then put your mind to work on your brain and ask yourself what is wrong.
- Learn from the mind and body training of Tiger Woods. Tiger Wood’s dad did not tell Tiger, ‘You are the best’. He did not develop a phony confidence in Tiger Woods. He made him become the best through learning and practice, learning and practice, learning and practice and more learning and practice. Tiger Wood’s confidence comes from being a champion and not from a phony self-image of being a champion.
If you really want to read more of this stuff, there's plenty here.
The man who threw a book at Obama in Philadelphia yesterday is a New York antiques dealer called Sajid Ali Khan.
Sajid Khan - The Obama Book Thrower
Rather bizarrely given that he was arrested for it, he’s written a web posting celebrating, what he has called, his day of “daring, courage and lunacy”.
Khan, a self-styled 'wisdom coach', who scribbles furiously online about why “wisdom is a fragrance of the brain”, “why the man’s sperm is tiny while the woman’s egg is huge” and - a particular bugbear - "why horniness is a 24/7 epidemic that must be stopped" was trying to get a copy of a book containing all his musings in front of Obama.
“Usually I am able to place myself at a point where I can shake the hand of the President and talk to him. This time I was one fence away so there was no way I could speak to him. There was five rows of people between me and the President. I was still about 10' away from him. So I held up my book and as soon as he looked at me I tilted the book to show him that I wanted to give it to him. I did it a few times when he looked towards my direction. The President is extremely intelligent and is always looking for new ideas so I could see that he took several good looks at the book. But he did not say anything. I realized that it was going no where.”
Instead he tried to target Vice President Biden.
“So I tried to focus on Vice President Biden. I tried to jester (sic) towards him, I kind of felt that he did not mind my throwing it to him. So I threw the book towards his feet. The book almost floated in a magical curve. I thought it would land off the stage but it floated and landed in front of the Vice President. I made a V sign and gave him a thumbs up and he enjoyed the whole episode and was smiling and gave me back a thumbs up. As if saying he got it.”
It was then, however, that the Secret Service intervened.
“Soon I was surrounded by the secret service. I was interrogated by a few officers. They said it is a very serious crime to throw an object at the President of the United States, even if it is a book and I am to be locked up till they made sure I meant no harm. However the Chief Officer was very professional and I told him if the Vice President welcomed my behavior then how come it is a crime. Anyway one officer ran a background check and he finally said that my record is clean and that I am good. I explained to the chief officer the whole idea how I need to take my work to the President. He said that this is not the way. I talked to him for over an hour. He said that according to procedure he will file a report and send it with the book to the White House. Then he let me go with a warning that if I did anything like this again I would be banned from any future rallies.”
