Grandma Obama Graces Magazine Cover

Barack Obama has appeared on many magazine covers (including our very own, of course) since he kicked off his campaign for the White House in early 2007. And reasonably so. Magazine covers are a type of societal thermometer--the people featured, either for good or bad, are the shapers of an idea or movement. So whether you like the president or not, the fact that Obama is setting the pace of two wars, a sputtering economy and reforms on health and climate policy make him and key members of his administration formative figures. But it caught our attention to see another Obama making a debut on a magazine cover. And this time, a bit refreshingly, for an apolitical reason. The face of Obama's grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, appears for the first time on the August issue of Ode, a monthly magazine that seeks out and reports only good news--with, occasionally, a positive spin on the bad. (Its tag line, which your Gaggler loves, charmingly refers to the mag's readers as "intelligent optimists," thank you very much.)

The issue at hand features a beaming Sarah Obama in a photo taken in the fall. Last year, writes Ode editor Jurriaan Kamp, the woman on the cover made the news because she was "laughing with good reason: her grandson had just been elected president of the United States." The corresponding essay dives deep into her emotion, offering a scientific appraisal of laughter and all it's health benefits. "Laughter blunts stress and pain; hearty chuckling increases levels of the "happy" brain chemicals known as endorphins...it staves off black moods...and reduces levels of a stress hormone that’s tied to various health problems," reports Mary Desmond Pinkowish, the story's author.

The rest of the issue carries the same theme: why people laugh, how you can laugh more and inside the lucrative business of making people laugh. All of which got us thinking: the problem-solver-in-chief could probably use a laugh these days, especially after a week of sagging poll numbers, accepting a delay on health care policy and tepidly closing the chapter of the Skip Gates affair. So Mr. President, now that you've already proven this week that you read Newsweek, go pick up an issue of Ode. You have our blessing. Grams' too.