Mark Warren's Esquire profile of me is up. The part on why I love America:

I arrived here, and you had people brawling over everything that mattered, and just presuming to do so, honoring no protocol or pecking order, and showing precious little deference to position… This was so different from the land of my birth. This was the America of my dreams.

Of course, he was already American, certificate or not. He was as American as the first American, who was not American at all but who left a place far away and arrived in this new place as a very different person. That is, of course, the essence of Americanism, which is to say that the immigrant with a vision of America may be more American than the baby born on this soil ten generations hence.

I have to say seeing myself included in a list of 20 Americans Of The Year actually brought a tear to my eye. I haven't read the piece yet. I find it too excruciating to read about myself in print. I'll ask Aaron to read it and ask him how it is and then send it to my mum. Then I'll read it quickly. It's the way I am.