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D. None of the above

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Astronaut Scott Kelly and author Tom Wolfe. Photo courtesy of Amiko Kauderer

By Daniel Dunaief

How often do you get to talk to someone whose legend loomed large over your childhood?

Last year, I had the privilege of interviewing author Tom Wolfe, who died last week at the age of 88. Wolfe wrote “The Right Stuff,” “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” and “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test,” among others. I spoke with Wolfe about astronaut Scott Kelly, who was so inspired by “The Right Stuff” that he directed a life he considered somewhat aimless toward becoming a fighter pilot and, eventually, an astronaut.

My conversation was rewarding and memorable, so I thought I’d share my interview with the legendary author.

DD: Kelly credits you with putting him on a path that led him to spend almost a year aboard the International Space Station. Is there a satisfaction that comes from that?

TW: Nothing else I’ve written has had such a beautiful result. He told me he’d been floundering around trying to figure out what to do with his life. He hadn’t been doing well in school. Then he just got the idea of going into space and became an astronaut.

DD: Did you know he took “The Right Stuff” with him?

TW: He sent me from the space station a picture of the cover on his iPad. That was one of the greatest messages I ever got.

DD: Do you think Kelly’s mission increased the excitement about space?

TW: There’s been a general lack of a sense of heroism in much of the post-World War II era and there were people who responded to the space program in general in that fashion.

DD: How does the excitement now compare to the early days of the space program?

TW: John Glenn’s return created a lot of excitement. At that time, we seemed to be at war in space with the Russians. That was what kept the space program going. There was always this threat. It’s very hard to hit the Earth from space. You’ve got three speeds: the speed of what you fired the rocket with, then you’ve got the speed at the end of that opening shot and you’ve got the speed of hitting the Earth, which is moving.

DD: How do you think people will react to Kelly’s mission?

TW: It remains to be seen whether it inspires young people the way the Mercury program did.

DD: What drove the space program until that point?

TW: Wernher van Braun [a German engineer who played a seminal role in advancing American rocket science] spoke in his last year. The point of the space program was not to beat the Russians. It was to prepare for the day when the sun burns out and we have to leave Earth and go somewhere else. It’s hard to imagine everybody shipping off to another heavenly body.

DD: Getting back to Kelly, how difficult do you think Kelly’s mission was?

TW: Scott Kelly’s adventures were a test of the human body and the psyche. Being that removed from anybody you could talk to and see must be a terrible stress. That’s what he and others in the space station are chosen for.

DD: Do people like Kelly still need “the right stuff” to be astronauts?

TW: It’s the same except anyone coming into the program is more confident that these things can be done. For Mercury astronauts, these things were totally new. The odds against you, the odds of death, were very high.

DD: What advice did you give to Kelly when he started writing his book?

TW: Begin at the beginning. So many of the astronauts and other people who have memorable experiences will start with the adventure to get you interested. Then, the second chapter, suddenly you’re saying, “Harold Bumberry was born in 1973,” and it makes you take a deep breath [and say], ‘OK, here it comes.” Whereas starting at the beginning always works.

DD: What do you think of the movies made about your books?

TW: I think they’re terrible. Three of my books were made into movies and I disliked them all. The reason being they didn’t do it like I did. You can’t do a lot of things in a movie that you can in print. You’re better at presenting themes, better at dialogue. You can hear it, you can’t get inside a mind of a character the way you can in print. Movies don’t have time.

DD: What impact did Scott Kelly’s being inspired by your book have on you?

TW: It’s the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.

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What do the signs tell us?

In Hawaii, numerous small earthquakes caused parts of Big Island to shake. Geologists, who monitor the islands regularly, warned of a pending volcanic eruption. They were right, clearing people away from lava flows.

How did they know?

It’s a combination of history and science. Researchers in the area point to specific signs that are reflections of patterns that have developed in past years. The small earthquakes, like the feel of the ground trembling as a herd of elephants is approaching in the Serengeti, suggest the movement of magma underneath the ground.

Higher volumes of lava flows could come later on, as in 1955 and 1960, say USGS scientists in the archipelago.

The science involves regular monitoring of events, looking for evidence of what’s going on below the surface. “Hopefully we’ll get smart enough that we can see [tremors] coming or at least be able to use that as a proxy for having people on the ground watching these things,” Tina Neal, scientist-in-charge at USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, explained to KHON2 News in Honolulu.

People look for signs in everything they do, hoping to learn from history and to use whatever evidence is
available to make predictions and react accordingly.

Your doctor does it during your annual physical, monitoring your blood chemistry, checking your heart and lungs, and asking basic questions about your lifestyle.

Scientists around Long Island are involved in a broad range of studies. Geneticists, for example, try to see what the sequence of base pairs might mean for you. Their information, like the data the geologists gather in
Hawaii, doesn’t indicate exactly what will happen and when, but it can suggest developments that might affect you.

Cancer researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Stony Brook University are using tools like the gene editing system called CRISPR to see how changing the genetic code affects the course of development or the pathway for a disease. Gene editing can help localize the regions responsible for the equivalent of destructive events in our own bodies, showing where they are and what sequences cause progression.

Scientists, often working six or seven days a week, push the frontiers of our ability to make sense of
whatever signs they collect. Once they gather that information, they can use it to help create more accurate diagnoses and to develop therapies that have individualized benefits.

Indeed, not all breast cancers are the same, which means that not all treatments will have the same effect. Some cancers will respond to one type of therapy, while others will barely react to the same treatment.

Fundamental, or basic, research is critical to the understanding of translational challenges like treating
Alzheimer’s patients or curing potentially deadly fungal infections.

Indeed, most scientists who “discover” a treatment will recognize the seminal studies that helped them finish a job started years — and in some cases decades — before they developed cures. Treatments often start long before the clinical stages, when scientists want to know how or why something happens. The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake can lead to unexpected and important benefits.

Outside the realm of medicine, researchers on Long Island are working on areas like understanding the climate and weather, and the effect on energy production.

Numerous scientists at SBU and Brookhaven National Laboratory study the climate, hoping to understand how one of the most problematic parts of predicting the weather — clouds — affects what could happen tomorrow or in the next decade.

The research all these scientists do helps us live longer and better lives, offering us early warnings of
developing possibilities.

Scientists not only interpret what the signs tell us, but can also help us figure out the right signs to study.

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It’s only May and, despite the warm weather, it feels a bit like October around here, at least, if you talk to fans of the Yankees and Red Sox.

The two best teams in baseball, as of earlier this week, were preparing to go head-to-head in a three-game
series that seemed to have more on the line than a typical series between the heated rivals at this point
in spring.

The Red Sox had that incredibly hot start, winning 17 of their first 19 games, tearing up the league and anyone who dared to try to compete with them. The Yankees, meanwhile, started slowly, sputtering to a .500 record.

And then the Yankees seemed to have gotten as hot as the weather, scoring runs in the clutch, pitching with confidence and bringing in rookies like Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar, who play more like seasoned veterans.

On a recent evening, my wife and I made a quick stop to the grocery store. As we were walking out, a friend saw me in my Yankees sweatshirt. The friend asked if the team pulled out a win, even though they were losing 4-0 in the eighth inning.

As my wife waited patiently, I recounted nearly every at bat that led to another improbable Yankees comeback. A man who worked at the supermarket came over to listen, put up his hand to high-five me and said he had a feeling they might come back.

While the team measures the success of the season by the ability to win the World Series, the fans, particularly during a season with so much early promise, can bask in the excitement of individual games or series.

The first season, as the incredibly long 162 games from March through October is called, can include
numerous highlights that allow fans to appreciate the journey, as well as the destination.

Nothing is a given in a game or a season. We attend or watch any game knowing that the walk-off home run the rookie hit could just as easily have been an inning ending double play.

Ultimately, the most important part of the season is the recognition that it is a game. You can see that when the players mob each other at the plate or smile through their interviews with the sideline reporters after a tight contest.

Year after year, all these teams with all their fans hope the season ends with a victory parade. They want to be able to say, “I was there.”

Ultimately, in life, that’s what we’re hoping for. Moments to cheer for friends and family, to celebrate victories and to enjoy these contests.

Indeed, the winners often look back on the moments when nothing came easily, when their team, their family or their opportunity seemed to be so elusive. These are occasions when nothing that seems to go right turns into those where everything goes according to plan. They don’t happen because you’ve got the right fortune cookie, put on the right socks or asked for some deity to help your team beat another team full of equally worthy opponents, whose fans utter the same prayers.

They happen because of the hard work and dedication. They also often happen because people are taking great pride in doing their jobs and being a part of a team.

Right now, it feels like these two blood rivals are well-matched, facing off in a May series that can bring the energy of October. And, hey, if you’re looking to connect with someone, put on a Yankees or Red Sox sweatshirt and head to the supermarket.

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This is the season for speeches. We’re about to enter the graduation and wedding time of year, when principals, best men, maids of honor and valedictorians stand in front of a group of people and share their thoughts during these momentous occasions.

For those about to grab the microphone, I’d like to offer my top 10 list of things not to do in a speech — in reverse order.

10. Don’t make inside jokes that no one, outside of your best friend and maybe your sibling, understands. Looking at your friend after you’ve made a joke that no one gets and pointing back and forth between this other person and you only endangers that friendship.

9. Don’t make a speech without practicing. Find someone who can be helpful and not someone who thinks you shouldn’t change anything you do, ever. That honest person might prevent you from saying, “The groom is so lucky. He gets to sleep with Karen — I always wanted to sleep with Karen. I can’t wait to hear about it.”

8. Don’t correct yourself on small details, such as, “Remember when we had that school snowball fight in second grade? No, wait it was first grade, right? No, no, it was second grade. I was right the first time.” Most people won’t care about those details. They’d rather you got it wrong than hear you go play a one person game of memory ping-pong.

7. Don’t forget to thank everyone you should thank. You can acknowledge your friends for helping you get through those tough years, the writers of your favorite movies for giving you a chance to laugh, and the woman at the supermarket for encouraging you to submit an application that got you into a summer program. Never forget to thank your parents, any relatives who are in attendance and the teachers who somehow managed to educate you despite your insistence that their subject was irrelevant.

6. Don’t imagine that alcohol makes you a better singer. It doesn’t. Besides, there’s always an enormous collection of cellphones at any wedding. You can’t erase that horrible rendition of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling.” Ever. Strangers will come up to you and screech at you.

5. Don’t quote someone else extensively. Winston Churchill was a tremendous speechmaker, JFK said some memorable things, too, as did Martin Luther King Jr. Audiences can read and have no desire to hear you butcher an extensive collection of words someone else delivered.

4. Don’t try to sell something. You’re there to support the graduate, the bride and groom and numerous families. This isn’t the time to suggest that people moved by your speech can pick up tissues at your store
because you sell the softest tissues in town.

3. Don’t talk about how difficult it is for you to give a speech. Chances are the audience supports you
anyway, so there is no need to tell them, over and over again. If you aren’t particularly good at public speaking, they’ll notice.

2. Don’t look down at your poorly written notes during the entire speech. If you look up once in a while, you won’t sound like you’re muttering anecdotes and advice in your sleep.

1. Don’t give a long speech. The most important part of any speech is to keep it short. Sure, you might be funny and have some words of wisdom that people will remember. And, yes, you might recall an
anecdote that sheds light on the people in your class. People want to eat dessert, go to a party, or throw their ridiculous square hats with tassels into the air for the annual picture of stupid hats in the air. A good rule of thumb for speeches: When in doubt, leave it out.

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The morning routine for all four of us was slightly off kilter. My daughter, who usually doesn’t have the energy to complain about starting her day, suggested that she really needed a day off. Sorry, but that wasn’t going to happen. Besides, she doesn’t generally want a day at home because she feels as if she would fall behind in her classes and would rather keep pace.

I dropped her off at school as she groaned something to the effect of, “Bye, have a good day, I hate this.”

I returned to pick up my wife and take her to the train. She was also slightly behind schedule. My son came “elephanting” down the stairs. It’s an expression we use that is exactly as it sounds. He throws his feet so heavily and loudly on the steps that the house shakes until he reaches the first floor, turns hard to his right twice and collapses into his chair.

My wife and I raced out of the house two minutes behind our usual departure time. Two minutes? How was I supposed to make it to a train that is only early when we’re late? It’s Murphy’s law of trains. Whatever can go wrong with the commute does go wrong and, often, in conjunction with other problems.

We came to the final light seconds before the train was scheduled to pull in.

We reached the traffic light just as it turned red, in that small window when all the lights are red at the same time. Despite the line to my left waiting for a green light, I made a right on red and pulled into the intersection behind another car waiting to make the immediate left into the train station.

Unfortunately, the cars on the other side of the street hadn’t left an opening for the frantic commuters to reach the station. When their light changed, the traffic immediately started moving, blocking us from making the turn.

My wife considered getting out, racing across the street and trot-running through the parking lot. The cars speeding by near her door made that impossible.

A car behind me honked, moved to our right and slowly passed. A woman in her 60s flipped us the bird.

Do we still do that? Do we still raise our middle finger to strangers? I do it to my computer when it’s frozen and to my phone when it’s not allowing me to respond to an email or text, or when it adds an error to one of my emails because it retyped a name into something potentially problematic.

But this woman, with her tight lips, curled and dyed hair, and menacing eyes, slowly rolled past me, extending the curse finger just in front of her left shoulder. That raised digit was so stiff, long and rigid that it looked it could have just as easily have been a weapon as a gesture.

I was stunned to react immediately. Then a few responses ricocheted around my head as my wife raced out of the car: “Sorry? Right back at you, sweetheart.” … “You know what you can do with that finger.”

It’s possible her day had, or was expected to have, much bigger problems than mine. I am sorry I upset her so much that she needed to express her outrage.

Or maybe I gave her a chance to be angry at something other than herself, her family, her boss or the people who work for her. Could I have done her a favor, providing a target for her anger?

I don’t know her story, but I do know that my day suddenly seemed less problematic.

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A friend recently told me she’s pregnant with her first child. She sounded thrilled and anxious. She is, as I’ve known for years, incredibly organized and efficient. She has been a standout in her job for several years.

“What’s the concern?” I asked.

“Everything,” she giggled.

As my children take one standardized test after another, I thought perhaps I would share a test-format version of what to expect when you’re expecting. No. 2 pencils ready? OK, let’s begin:

Question 1: Before the baby is born, you should:

a. Panic buy everything, including a crib and six months worth of food and clothing. You never know if you’ll be trapped in your house without access to the outside world.

b. Sleep as much as you can because the days of sleeping at your leisure are over.

c. Read everything you can about parenting and the delivery, and then realize that every process, including childbirth, can go off script.

d. Don’t tell anyone because people will write about you.

Question 2: When people give you advice, you should:

a. Write everything down because friends, family and strangers always know better and will enlighten you with wisdom that far exceeds that which you’d get on a fortune cookie.

b. Nod politely, say, “That’s a great idea,” and wonder what to eat for dinner.

c. Pretend your phone is ringing.

d. Ask them how many Nobel prizes their children have won.

Question 3: Taking Lamaze classes can be helpful because:

a. It allows you to meet parents who are older than you.

b. It allows you to practice breathing together because sometimes parents forget to breathe.

c. It’s so relaxing that you can doze off without punishment.

d. It gives you a sense of control that you’re unlikely to have in the actual moment.

Question 4: People generally love other people’s children unless:

a. They are sitting on a plane near them.

b. They have to do something for them.

c. The children are crying constantly and they don’t know why.

d. The children have dropped or broken something.

Question 5: Parents can be so tired in the early stage that they forget:

a. To take pictures of everything.

b. To feed themselves.

c. To go to the bathroom when they need to.

d. To revel in a new baby smell that will change into something much more challenging to the nose within a year.

Question 6: When you have a baby, it’s a great idea to:

a. Change jobs.

b. Move to a new city.

c. Start attending a new and rigorous educational course.

d. All of the above, because you’ll never have a chance to juggle more challenges at the same time than when a baby is born.

Question 7: The families of the father and mother are likely to:

a. Always agree on everything you should do for the child.

b. Never agree on anything you should do for a child.

c. See evidence of their family’s genes in the child.

d. Put small differences aside and enjoy the moment when they share a new relative.

Question 8: Once you have a child, you will:

a. Be thrilled when young children come over to play with your child.

b. Be worried that the young children who come over are sniffling.

c. Want everyone to bathe in Purell sanitizer before coming near your child.

d. Not be like me and will relax when people sneeze across the room.

Question 9: You know you’ve had a great day with your child when:

a. You keep replaying something he or she said or did as you’re preparing to sleep.

b. You actually go to sleep instead of passing out with Oreo cookie crumbs in your mouth.

c. You and your spouse are laughing, quietly, for hours before you go to sleep.

d. You can’t wait to start the next day.

Question 10: Parenting is:

a. Awesome.

b. Terrifying.

c. Exhausting.

d. All of the above.

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Hello, my name is Dan and I’m a … journalist.

It’s been a few days since my last meeting and a lot has happened since then.

For starters, I’ve decided to hate myself. I’m coming to grips with the idea that, as a journalist, I am detested and detestable.

I ask questions. All the time. Just ask my wife and kids, although they’re too annoyed with my questions to entertain yours.

I have this insane urge to understand and appreciate the nuance of a word or phrase. I even have a dictionary. Didn’t we burn those long ago? Aren’t we supposed to look for the underlined red words in a document?

My editors and I also change my words. What you see doesn’t just leap from my fingers onto the page. How are you supposed to know what I’m thinking if I let my ideas develop before shouting them at you?

I don’t have a specific character limit. Oh, and I only use hashtags when I’m pushing the button on my phone. Sacrebleu! And I write foreign phrases like “sacrebleu” to express my surprise.

Additionally, I absolutely adore alliteration. I can’t help smiling when I think about the movie “Broadcast News.” I know, I know, we’re supposed to hate everything with the word “news” in it, but I grin when I hear Albert Brooks asking, “Pretty peppy party, isn’t it, pal?”

I frequently read. Sometimes, I’ll be in a room with a television and I’ll have a book or a, gasp, newspaper in my hands with the TV off. How am I supposed to relate to everyone when I’m not watching TV?

And deadlines? They’re so real for me that I sometimes don’t talk to my wife and kids just before they arrive. I used to work for Bloomberg News — the fastest twitch environment I’d ever experienced. An editor once followed me into the bathroom to find out how long I would be in there because I had a story to write. When I was on deadline at Bloomberg, particularly around earnings season, I would give my wife all of five seconds to share whatever she needed to communicate before I raced to the next story.

Oh, and I sometimes make mistakes. That’s horrific, especially when I have to explain how I could have erred. I used to have to write letters reviewing how I blundered; I called them the “I suck because …” letters. I periodically imagined weaseling my way out of trouble by claiming how tired I was from getting up at 4 a.m. when I learned of a story I’d missed in Europe.

That, however, would never fly, because a mistake has no defense; it requires a correction. I also use semi-colons and colons, which have nothing to do with my bathroom habits.

Sure, there are times when someone claimed I made a mistake when, in fact, the mistake was not agreeing with their opinion. That’s not a mistake — a difference of opinion.

But, hey, that’s another reason to hate me. I think about whether something is an opinion or a fact. An opinion lives in a realm where people need to repeat it to make sure everyone agrees. A fact can and should stand on its own.

It’s hard, when we’re all human, to ignore the pleas of people in power who want journalists and their stories to go away. One of my journalism professors said he tried to limit his friendships so they wouldn’t prevent him from doing his job.

That’s tough because I enjoy interacting, even with people who don’t share the same viewpoint. But, wait, I hate that because, ultimately, I’m loathsome and detestable.

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I looked around the packed

Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia this past weekend. Let’s face it, I and — more importantly — my genes, fell short.

It’s not necessarily a character flaw, but it’s not exactly the kind of advantage I’d want to give my children.

There I was, cheering on my vertically challenged daughter in a game where height matters. Despite her stature, she has developed a royal passion for volleyball. The perpetual smile that crosses her face when she steps across the lines makes it all worthwhile, despite the effort, the expense, the endless attempts to get the stink out of her knee pads — and the driving through horrific traffic.

She couldn’t be happier than when she’s throwing her small body around the floor, trying to get to some giant’s smash that seemed only a moment earlier out of her reach.

When you have children, you want them to find their way, to develop outlets that they find rewarding and to contribute to something bigger than they are.

Sports, I know, don’t cure disease. And yet, somehow, it’s become part of the American way, with people flying, driving and caravanning from all over the country to play in competitive tournaments where, if they succeed, they can get enough points to make it to nationals.

So, there we were, listening to whistle after whistle at this volleyball attention-deficit-disorder factory when it occurred to me how my genes did my daughter no great favors. Many of the fathers towered over me. If I lived in a land where food were placed near the ceiling, I and my offspring would starve.

My mother played volleyball when she was younger. She was tallish for her generation. I played volleyball as well, although not nearly at the competitive level that has taken my daughter to places around the area, including Penn State.

While my daughter is involved in numerous activities inside and outside school, it is volleyball that tops the list. When we go on vacation anywhere, the first thing she looks for is a place to play volleyball.

As I watched her warm up for the third match of the day, I chatted with some of the parents from Virginia, Texas and Arizona that we met this past weekend. After some pleasantries about the event, the conversation inevitably turned toward the identity of our daughters.

I could see the satisfaction they felt at pointing out their children from across the convention center floor. “My daughter is the one ducking her head down to walk under the exit sign over there.” “My daughter? She’s just a hair over 6 feet tall, but she’s still growing. How about you?”

I’d smile sheepishly. “My daughter is in the middle of her teammates over there.”

“Where?” they’d ask politely.

“She’s No. 9.”

They’d squint into the group. Just then, my daughter would laugh her way to the outside of a circle of girls that looked like a group of gnats, diving in and out of the center of a circle of joy.

Then again, as I watched her throw herself across the floor, I thought about the match between her personality and the role she plays in this sport. Sure, it’d be easier for her to stand out if she were taller. But, given her need to defy expectations, she’d probably want to be a jockey if she were 6 feet tall.

As the weekend came to a close, I asked her if she wished she could play volleyball every day. “Of course,” she said.

“Can you imagine having a job one day that made you feel that way?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she smiled, trying to imagine a job that fits her interests as well as volleyball.

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We’ve reached a period of outrageous outrageousness. Or maybe extremes of extremism.

I read recently about an advertisement by a beer company that seems overtly racist.

Now, I’m not going to name the company because that might accomplish what it could have been attempting in the first place, which is to get its brand name in front of people.

This company has caused quite a stir by linking the color of beer to its quality, which in turn is linked to race in the ad.

What’s happening in the country? Have we reached the stage where all news is good news?

We live in a world of such polarization, so many shrill messages and such a rapid news cycle that you almost have to be outrageous and ridiculous to get attention and to remain in the public’s eye for more than just a moment.

It’s not an unprecedented phenomenon. Borrowing from the fictional world, poor Roxie Hart from the show “Chicago” is “the name on everyone’s lips,” as the song goes. But then, once the gripping trial ends, the newest crime of passion captivates the city’s attention, relegating Roxie to a less prominent place in the
dramas of the Windy City.

In our real world, which sometimes seems to require a reality check, people doubt everything. Why, just the other year, the current president questioned the national origin of the previous one.

Doubt and cynicism are all by-products of a shrill time where people shout alternative facts from
the rooftops.

And to bring matters up to speed, current politicians are questioning the motives of the Parkland
shooting survivors. Some suggest that left-leaning people who want to take away everyone’s guns are manipulating America’s youth. These students are not too young to die, but are somehow considered too young to have formed such an energized national movement.

Are people becoming more extreme with their time, with their emotions and with their donations? Yes, without a doubt. As the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates suggested, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” He was describing the response to life-threatening diseases and not to people who feel their lives are threatened leaving their homes.

As Long Island native Billy Joel sang in 1989, “we didn’t start the fire.” While that’s true, and people have lived through periods of considerable instability and uncertainty, we are living in a time defined by extremes.

At some point, We the People have to decide what we can accept and what we can’t. That beer advertisement seems to be a cheap ploy put together by a cynical advertising executive, who has now pulled the ad after it may have served its purpose.

Maybe this executive got his or her wish and more. Not only are people talking about it, but the company may also not have to pay as much for the ad, because now they’re not running it anymore.

How do we combat such unacceptable messages and decide when a company has crossed the red line? One possible solution is to follow the example of the United States government. When other countries create intolerable situations for their citizens or our citizens or the world, we start by hitting these nations in their wallets and refuse to buy their products.

Maybe a decline in sales at a company would send the kind of message that defeats the notion that all press is good press. Other cynical executives might get the message if the stock price or sales fell after such an advertisement polluted the company’s image. With our consumer decisions, we can send messages that it’s not OK to be offensive and outrageous just to sell another product or a toxic idea.

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The following dialogue was inspired by an actual conversation. No friendships ended as a result of this interaction.

Joe: That’s interesting.

Aaron: What made it interesting?

Joe: It held my interest.

Aaron: That’s tautological.

Joe: What does tautological mean?

Aaron: It’s a kind of circular argument, like something is interesting because it held your interest. So, what’s interesting about what I said?

Joe: No, you see, it’s not what you said, so much as the way you said it and, of course, the fact that it was, indeed, you who said it. Like, remember that time you said that our boss was having an affair with the man she kept insulting at work and then, lo and behold, she was?

Aaron: Yes, I remember that was because she was having an affair with you.

Joe: Oh, right. Good times.

Aaron: Can you tell me how what I said interested you?

Joe: But, first, did you read the latest thing about Donald Trump?

Aaron: Which one?

Joe: The one where he’s mad at the media and the media is reporting about stuff he says isn’t true.

Aaron: You’re going to have to be more specific than that.

Joe: You want specifics? How about Russia?

Aaron: What about it? It’s a country.

Joe: You’re funny.

Aaron: Stop calling me funny and tell me what Trump and the media are disagreeing about.

Joe: Are you angry?

Aaron: I’m trying to have a conversation.

Joe: Conversation. That’s interesting.

Aaron: What’s interesting?

Joe: It’s like the way you’re looking at me right now. You know what I mean?

Aaron: Nope.

Joe: You have your eyes open and your eyebrows are up, like you’re expecting me to say something interesting, when, you know, you’re the one who always says interesting things. I read interesting things. This
morning, I read something compelling about Trump and the media.

Aaron: OK, let’s go with that. What was compelling about it?

Joe: It was just, you know, well, maybe you wouldn’t think it’s compelling and maybe you knew it already, which means I probably don’t have to tell you.

Aaron: I want to talk about something.

Joe: We are talking about something. We’re talking about me and you and this weather. You know what I’m saying?

Aaron: Not really.

Joe: The weather is all around us, right? And, it’s all around everyone else. Except that, when people are somewhere else, the weather around them isn’t the same as it is here. So, to experience weather, you really have to be here.

Aaron: Right, uh huh. Go on.

Joe: Now you’re looking at me differently. You’re frowning. You need to laugh more often. That’s your problem.

Aaron: I don’t have a problem. I’m trying to have a conversation.

Joe: About what?

Aaron: Well, a few minutes ago, you said what I said was interesting and I’ve been waiting patiently to find out what you thought was interesting about it.

Joe: Oh. Let me think. I’m going to replay the entire conversation in my head and then I’ll let you know.

Aaron: Right, sure.

Joe: No, really. Was it before or after the conversation about the weather?

Aaron: Before.

Joe: See, I was listening. I remembered that we talked about the weather.

Aaron: You weren’t listening to me. You were listening to you. You brought up the weather.

Joe: Right, OK, I have a confession to make. I wasn’t listening to what you said all that closely, but I know it was interesting.

Aaron: What part? Do you remember any of the conversation?

Joe: Not really. I have to go. It’s been nice chatting with you.

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