The grand irony, however, is that Southern segregation was not brought to an end, nor redneck violence dramatically reduced, by violence.

Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.

Self-segregation is an act. This action is passive-aggressive. This form of aggression causes resentment. Resentment eventually becomes hostility. Hostile people commit acts of violence toward their perceived aggressors who in turn, self-segregate further.

When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.

If there's an intellectual highway, there's also an intellectual subway.

Big business, for all its lobbying, is often put in line by investigative reporting, public scandals and multi-million-dollar judgments in court against those who put products on the market that are dangerous to their buyers.