In The Times, Dennis Overbye chronicled and captured the magic of a recent marvel without any semantic straining, any verbal excess: “Today, in one of the greatest one-day migrations in history, humans flocked by the millions to a swath of North America that was briefly cast in a shadow of darkness and wonder. They crowded into airplanes, buses and trains, braved traffic jams, and slept in overpriced hotels, in tents and in their cars. For a cosmic moment, they were connected across the millenniums with every other person who has ever experienced an eclipse, witnessing the light die and then be reborn as a dazzling ring.” (Judy Walters, Naperville, Ill.)
Also in The Times, Pete Wells praised a messy, onion-y creation of the “hamburgerologist” George Motz at his new Manhattan restaurant: “This burger tastes like late-night drives into empty downtowns, of cheap beer on boardwalks and wax paper at fly-by-night carnivals, of places where you talk to weird characters you wouldn’t meet in the daytime. The fast-food chains pushed all of this out of their franchises. Mr. Motz’s Oklahoma burger brings it back. It tastes like honest American grease.” (Toni Barnhart, Hilo, Hawaii, and Jill H. Pace, North Bethesda, Md.)
David French shared this wise insight: “The older I get, the more I’m convinced that we simply don’t know who we are — or what we truly believe — until our values carry a cost.” (Ben Harding, Boulder, Colo.)
And Esau McCaulley shared this one: “Parents can only make deposits of joy. We cannot control when our children will make the withdrawals.” (Helen C. Gagel, Evanston, Ill. )
In The Atlantic, Brian Klaas pondered a paradox: “Government officials are deemed simultaneously too inept to manage, say, health care administration, and omnipotent enough to execute a complex global conspiracy involving a cabal of thousands without any mistakes or leaks. (Call it ‘Schrodinger’s Bureaucrat.’)” (David Director, Media, Pa., and David Mercer, Seattle)