When I need to know the meaning of a word, I look it up in a dictionary.

I was standing next to a famed geo-politician when the first news of the Argentine attack [on the Faulkland Islands] was received, and heard him muse incredulously: "An old-fashioned naval battle. A war between two civilized nations, perhaps with even a declaration of war, and later a peace conference. Wow." No hostages, no nukes, no ideologies, no religious fanaticism; just a fair-and-square war over national interests - hard to believe, in this day and age.

I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways, provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness.

The Latin motto over Poindexter's new Pentagon office reads Scientia Est Potentia - "knowledge is power." Exactly: the government's infinite knowledge about you is its power over you.

We are all environmentalists now, but we are not all planetists. An environmentalist realizes that nature has its pleasures and deserves respect. A planetist puts the earth ahead of the earthlings.

Have a definite opinion.

I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels.