The handsome devil to the left is one Eric Arthur Blair, better known to the world as George Orwell.
Mr. Orwell was the author of some of the greatest anti-authoritarian novels of all time. Books like 1984 and Animal Farm will stand the test of time as classics, and he was also an accomplished essayist, book reviewer, and journalist. Orwell, despite the fact that he was a Socialist, is one of my heroes.
As if that were a secret? I only bust out an Orwell reference about every thirty seconds, sometimes.
He’s a hero to me because, unlike most writers of his day -- a good many of whom are given the honorific of ‘great’ for little to no reason beyond that they appeal to pansy academics -- he dared to speak the truth, plainly and as he saw it. He did not apologize for his political positions, but did do his best to convince you of their veracity and utility with a command of the language that has been matched by very few. Compared to Orwell, in terms of the use of the English language, Shakespeare was a drooling idiot.