The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack.

Write even when the world is chaotic.

... I think that I was too self-centered to ever develop good skills as a peacemaker. In my younger days, I assumed that it was because I was smarter than everyone else, with no patience for explaining things in short words for mouthbreathers who just didn't get it.

The fact is, almost everything you do is collaborative. Somewhere out there, someone else had a hand it it.

It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we're free. Once we're not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! You're young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can't possibly win, so you're the only ones who can lead us to victory! Take it back!

Put simply, I want to treat my readers as partners and not crooks. There is no future in calling your most active promoters crooks.

Take it from someone who's read the Wikipedia entry: this is how the Ottoman Empire was won: madden horsemen fueled by lethal jet-black coffee-mud.