A Part Apart

In tribute to the style of Voltaire’s teachings:             A modern gadfly must exemplify characteristics of the great Socrates: challenge beliefs, contemplate deeply, and wholly assess situations under the purest of lights.   It is integral to the assumption of such a title that one is engaged in the world and, therefore, insightful.   It is also important to note that, due to interrelated world affairs, humans across the globe offer perspective to modern situations. Further, the far reach of technology is the most efficient form of involvement and expression. A modern gadfly, in today’s interrelated, technological world, must have also have influence in the media as well as in countless nations. There is only one source that fits these requirements completely: Fox News.             Fox News is a well-known company that presents unbiased information that is r...

When Marley was four, her mother crouched in the corner of a turquoise bedroom.  The four year-old's knee was locked straight and embellished by a band-aid that curled upwards at one edge.  There was an intolerable searing sensation beneath the band-aid.  Marley's mother removed the hands that had been picking at the knee, glanced into her daughter's blue eyes, and looked closer at the place of pain. Calm words soothed the stinging wound first; then long fingers, stiff from typing, stretched to the curled edge of the band-aid. They ripped it off. The stinging on her knee was stronger than it had been before.  Then fully gone. The small red speck left below, a reminder of a young attempt at no training wheels, was covered with kisses and a cookie. When Marley was eleven, she was taught to flip open a banana.  She learned to hold the yellow arch concave to her slim wrist, press her fingertips firmly against the stem, and flick; the banana would slit open, tum...