[at-l] Knowing that it's there..

[shane at theplacewithnoname.com (Shane Steinkamp)]

> Zealots always seek issues with which to separate
> the pure from the less-pure.

"Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people. Nowadays
when I meet the Ephraim-and-Manasseh devotees I say, "I don't think you've
got it quite right. I think the English are Ephraim and the Scotch
Manasseh." On this basis a pleasant and inconclusive argument becomes
possible. In like manner, I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by
adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotees of nuts by pointing out that
hazelnuts and walnuts are just as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil
nuts should be tolerated by the faithful. But when I was younger I had not
yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks
were sometimes alarming."

-- Bertrand Russell, In the Company of Cranks (Saturday Review, Aug. 11,
1956)