Megan Stacy
Those who deride this honor as an award of aspiration are missing the point. It’s not about what Obama hopes or intends to do; it’s about the hope and intention he inspires in others. It’s about changing the way people see the world and what the world can be and what the world can produce. There’s nothing wrong with honoring someone whose eloquence and prominence brought about a November night filled with mass gatherings of happy tears, shouts of glee, and hugs for strangers in the streets of Chicago, Kenyan villages, Indonesian hamlets, and towns across the world that see Barack Obama as a little bit of their own.
Lauren Caldwell
Writing is empathic; that is part of the point. And moments of emotional stress, rupture, fragmentation, et cetera, are frequently the spark that makes good writing go. But it is necessary to let things take their course. All poems about breakups, if they are only poems about breakups, are the same poem. So stare at something else for a while.
Justin Curia
The Kings seemed to want to portray themselves as rebels, but they rebelled against imaginary authority of their own creation. Matthew’s throwing a fit over a drink lacking a straw befit these imaginary rebels, as did Caleb’s forcing his roadie to wait around awkwardly with a bottle of Gatorade while he whooped it up with the crowd. Whatever Caleb was gabbing about was lost in the symbolism of his hapless roadie, whose sole purpose seemed to be to wait around awkwardly holding a bottle that could have just as easily been set down on the stage by Caleb’s feet. Rebels don’t need straws, nor do they need errand boys to hold their drinks.
Megan Stacy
The thoroughly discredited “birther” movement maintains, contrary to all available material evidence, not only that President Barack Obama is not a native-born U.S. citizen, but that we’ve all been duped into believing that he is by an international conspiracy.
So why does Google see the birthers as a new market?
Scott Coomes
Pages upon pages of John Galt self-righteously sneering at all the ‘looters’ (socialists, vegetarians, Christians, liberals, Buddhists, academics, environmentalists, Mexicans, etc.) seem not only like a pathetic attempt to overwhelm a reader who would be impressed by the volume of pages, but also like the product of a small mind. John Galt’s cheery speech was more than my well meaning young-Republican-lite ideology could take. Rand helpfully packaged this ideology in weapons-grade concentration and laid it all out for easy scrutiny and swift rejection.
