antidote for the kind of raging frustration I feel when, as happens often, I run into someone breathtakingly ill-informed and narrow-minded--or am sideswiped (which has happened)--or am asked a stupid, challenging question by someone with their head, neck, and chest buried in the sand.  

Of course, that means that they are talking out their asses.  And there are thousands of them out there.  They are in my family, on airplanes with me, write newspaper columns, and vote for George W.  

They don't WANT to know, because then they have a responsibiity.  An obscene number of people in this country want to turn it all over to an authority figure and never have to think past themselves.

This was a rant.  Sorry for that, too.