A book is always a great gift

I arrived at work this morning to an ominous memo from the administration about job and program cuts. Rather than obsess about the scary ramifications, let's focus on Comrade Hugo Chavez's fab gift to President Obama over the weekend: Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano.

As soon as I saw the news yesterday, I rushed to our bookshelves and pulled our well-worn copy and told Teresa, and she and I shared a big old grin.

Now the news is that Galeano's book, which reviews the 500 years of colonialist crimes in the Western Hemisphere from the time of Columbus, has shot up to the top of the Amazon rankings. Excellent.