One of the more interesting aspects of writing these essays is that I can never predict in advance what will get me a flurry of outraged responses each week. It's a fair bet that something always does; the collective conversation of the modern industrial world has become so overheated in the last decade or so that it's difficult to say much of anything without getting somebody in a swivet; still, what it is that sets off the swiveteers routinely catches me by surprise.

Last week was no except...