If you haven’t yet read Jason Hill’s article at Salon.com, head over there now. It’s an engrossing story about how Hill, now a professor at De Paul University, first encountered Ayn Rand’s ideas growing up in Jamaica. A thoughtful young gay man in a society antagonistic to gays, an atheist in a deeply religious culture, Hill found inspiration in Rand’s individualist vision of life and man’s potential. Rand’s ideas armed Hill with, as he puts it, a “rational and comprehensive guide to living on earth.” That galvanized him to overcome the obstacles and grinding hardships he faced, to define his own path in life, to find the career he’s passionate about, to pursue his own happiness.

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Shout out to the folks at Salon.com: you publish a lot of articles about or mentioning Rand, so — for a change — it was great to see this outlier that treats her ideas seriously.