…when you think column-writing isn’t worth the trouble–the constant deadline pressure, the fight to find worthwhile topics, the humilating blegging about everything from wine to depleted uranium–you get an e-mail like this…

“Subject: your writings in the daily newspapers

I cannot conceive of a writer more damaging to the world we live in than you; except perhaps religious zealots, of whom we have more than enough. Your ideas or philosophy are so neanderthal as to be unintelligible to we who have intelligence and ethics on our side . I suggest you quit right now and allow others who have brains to take your place. You are definitely a war-monger. And war is horrible and tragic….for the little people. Don’t you understand that?”