There were people whom I considered friends or loved ones who either abandoned me or betrayed me in ways I'd never have suspected. But there were others who had been barely acquaintances of mine whose loyalty and efforts on my behalf made me realize that not everyone was as inherently rotten as I'd previously believed. So it caused a violent split in my view of humanity - people turned out to be far worse and far better than I'd ever dreamed possible.

You could paper the globe with evidence that there are demonstrable cognitive and physical disparities between what are crudely called human "races." But you could fit all the evidence of innate equality on your pinkie fingernail with room to spare.

San Francisco, America's B-movie imitation of Paris. San Francisco, the city that ruined punk rock. San Francisco, the most intolerant place in the country.

What's absolutely impossible to prove is the idea of innate and everlasting equality.

I certainly didn't emerge from prison regretting anything I ever wrote, nor did I feel remorse for my crime in the least.

Here's an easy one: "Race is an entirely social construct." No, it's partially one, depending on how any given society seeks to define it and its implications. But there are basic things such as skin color and hair texture. Even a Martian who'd had no exposure to human "social constructs" would be able to spot those differences. But no Martian, as hard as he tried, could point at a "culture" or to "equality." Those are the social constructs. Those can't be measured in the same way as human DNA.

Anyone who's ever had the misfortune of seeing me interact with house pets knows I have a wickedly strong paternal instinct bordering on the maternal.