I feel like no matter what happens in my career endeavors after today, going to grad school is one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I personally favor old mechanical watches, but my snobbery does not extend to demanding that all people wear them. My snobbery demands that no one wear a digital.

I very much believe in the Intentional Fallacy. If Donald Trump lies and dopes and bumbles and staggers his way into peace in the middle east, he gets credit for it. He owns it.

I read a lot of conservatives. They are thoughtful and intelligent and annoying, and I always read them because they have viewpoints that challenge my own, even thought they are wrong. But this does me no good because, being intelligent and sophisticated human beings, they are all contemptuous of Trump. They hate him. They find him...vulgar.

I am perhaps being charitable but I think there are a bunch of people out there who feel stupid. Some will be feeling stupid for stupid and evil reasons - HEY, TRUMP HASN'T DEPORTED ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE YET - and some will feel stupid for good reasons, such as that he lied about everything. But I think being made to feel stupid is damage.

It is not a coincidence that Donald Trump has attracted white supremacists.

Is it really the right of the media to dictate to the president whom he will allow in his press conferences? That's tetchier. And then there is the added issue of whether it would be a service to their readers, and the country at large, for, say, the Washington Post to take itself out of the room -- meaning they don't have the ability to ask important questions the president is obliged to answer? I think that would be a mistake.