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CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE. Not every opinion herein is well-thought, but they're mine, anyway: you know, the kind of opinions you can' t express at parties.

PET PEEVES

Big SUVs whose drivers don't know where their wheels are. And may not know while talking on the cell phone.

LOUD CELL PHONE conversations. People walking down the street solo and talking used to be considered for therapy.

NEWSPEAK: You know---one of the little redundancies that's become kneejerk prose on the tube: "changed forever." This one is beginning to get under my skin. If a thing is changed, it isn't what it was, and it's forever not what it was/has been by definition of having changed. If it changes back, it still isn't what it was before it took that trip into change. As the old Greek said, "All is flux. The same man can't step twice into the same river."

ARMED CONFRONTATIONS

I spent eleven years in the classroom in a modern urban school. This is a minimal condensation of what I told my own students: considering today's headlines, I offer these items of my own philosophy.

Manners. Not mentioning politics, religion, or fashion to strangers.

Common sense. If a thing done by people in a group seems unwise, it very probably is.

Sense of humor. A lot better than most quick answers.

Sense of honor. Having too much pride to cheat.

Poise. Refusing to humiliate oneself or one's opponent.

Discussion. Two or more people listening as hard as they talk.

Civilization. An organized system of alternatives to the stone age.