Gandhi's Lobotomy

A lot of those inspirational sayings you've seen on the web? They aren't quite as pithy and cheerful as you think they are.

For one thing, anybody who pays attention to rhetoric at all would realize that it's a real stretch (in both cultural and gender terms) to imagine Nelson Mandela saying, during his 1994 Presidential inauguration, "We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?"

Doesn't that sound a whole hell of a lot more like a self-help guru in L.A., who shows up on Oprah a lot? Which is what it actually turns out to be.