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.

What are a genuine pain in the ass are all the misconceptions and outright lies. I read somewhere that in 2004 I was homeless in Seattle and drinking heavily, which came as a shock since I've never been homeless and haven't had a drink since 1982. I've also heard SEVERAL times that I'm a card-carrying member of several white-supremacist groups, when the last group I belonged to was the Boy Scouts.

Governments throughout the English-speaking sphere are creating and then ratcheting the torque on "hate-speech" laws with frightening eagerness.

A lot of people expend great time and effort explaining why they don't like me, but none of them ever try to explain why their opinion should matter to me. I think most of them sense, but would never be brave enough to admit, their subordinate role in the food chain relative to me.

I'm developing a mild rash at the idea of "plugging" anything, because it's not how I roll.

I don't think fatherhood's changed me so much as it's conjured protective instincts I've had all along.

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.