Can you check my math here?

Sharpen your mechanical pencils and take out your graphing calculators, I need you to peer edit some work. World renowned mathematician Chase Mitchell recently got in touch with a groundbreaking new theorem, and I’d like to share it with you now:

1 Kyle Chandler (any) + 1 Mark Duplass (any) = 1 Ron Livingston (any)

Not convinced by the equation alone? I was skeptical too at first, but after running their faces through my algorithm I have to say, I think Chase may be onto something.

See it? The boyish good looks of a Chandler with the sleepy eyes of a Duplass. A Livingston! Could be a fluke, though. Let’s rearrange the components and see how it shakes out:

There it is again! The pale couch-lover aesthetic of a Duplass with the quiet handsomeness of a coach delivering a heartfelt monologue to some teens. If you’re not sold yet, we could always start with the final product and work our way back:

Seems like some pretty conclusive stuff as far as I’m concerned, but I’d love you to check our work—just to make sure we didn’t miss a decimal or forget to convert everything from kilometers to miles.

Previously: Jake Johnson.

I Think I Solved The Mystery Of Jake Johnson’s Face

Finally, some answers

Welcome to the second edition of my deep dive into not liking the word “gift” when it’s used as a verb. If you missed the introduction, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the phenomenon. Are you back? Have you decided how you feel? Great.

“Gifting” Is Gross

I did a little data gathering after establishing my position last week, and in a 24-hour Twitter poll (where somehow exactly 500 people voted) I learned that 66% of participants shared my aversion:

do you feel comfortable using gift as a verb? (ie: “i gifted that sweater to you!!!”)

 — @christinefriar

That means 330 of the 500 people were anti-“gift” like me. While it’s nice to be in the majority, those results don’t give us much insight into why the word can be grating, so I talked to linguist Arika Okrent to see if we could get to the bottom of things. She told me there’s a set of steps a language professional walks through when examining questions like these:

1. Find a centuries-old example of the thing that people hate.

You will always find one. (Okay, maybe not for fuccboi). I go to the Oxford English Dictionary—yup, there’s a bunch. Here’s one from 1711: ‘This bell was gifted by the Earl of Kilmarnock to the town of Kilmarnock for their Council-house.’

This step heads off the idea that it’s bad because of kids these days and their lack of respect for language. Or the idea that it’s a grammar mistake a la, ‘You can’t use a noun as a verb.’

Okay, so “gift” as a verb has been happening for at least 305 years. This wasn’t invented online. Now for the next step:

2. Find an example like it that people used to hate and now don’t even notice anymore.

Back in the 1930’s version of Top 10 Words We Hate columns, you know what came up all the time? Contact. ‘It’s a noun, not a verb! You do not contact someone, you establish contact with them! This word needs to die!’ Or something like that. The rants haven’t changed much over the decades.

This step says, ‘Hey, relax, take the long view. The language will be fine. Civilization won’t end.’

I like this step because I learned that “contact” used to be a controversial word choice, and I dislike this step because it makes me sound like a snob. I don’t feel like a snob! By and large, I think wordplay is extremely fun and we should all engage in it more often. I suspect there’s something more specific bothering me here.

No one ever looks at this evidence and says, ‘Yeah, I guess I don’t mind this word now.’ These are visceral emotions we’re talking about! And you’re not saying, “This is terrible because it’s a grammar mistake and it’s ending civilization.” You’re not peeving, you’re introspecting! And you probably don’t mind that I just used introspect as a verb because you can tell I’m being a bit language-playful.

But what if I was leading a workshop at a corporate retreat you were forced to go to. What if I was laying out the 3 Core Principles of Productive Introspecting. Man, you’d probably hate it. You’d probably hate me too. And those two hates are probably related. I think a lot of time a word annoys us because the person we first heard that word from, or who uses that word a lot, annoys us. Your feeling that brands are using gift more might be true, but even if it isn’t, your perception that it is can make you hate it.

Mmm there it is. This rings true because I definitely don’t like the way brands talk to us online (especially when the seams are showing). So since the instances of “gift” I’m seeing are largely from companies tweeting out holiday guides, it would make sense that I’d experience it as smarmy.

I don’t usually hear people saying, “I gifted Janelle new earrings” out loud, but I do see brands tweeting, “13 things under $50 to gift a coworker.” In other words: instead of parroting trendy slang I’m familiar with back to me, advertisers are trying to shoehorn arbitrarily playful language into their sales pitch to seem fun, and for some reason this particular word is sticking. It’s like a parent interrupting the slumber party to ask everyone how to whip and nae nae. Get outta here, man! Isn’t “60 Minutes” on or something?

So what about my poll? Surely not everyone who voted “no icky” shares my allergy to advertisers.

Once you’ve staked out a position on a language issue, others might be inclined to go along with you just for the pure cathartic glee of hating something together. The Nickelback effect. I think that’s what happened with “literally.” One good rant or a charismatic teacher who really hates some thing can really get the ball rolling on a pet peeve. And then it’s part of your identity. Thus the Oxford comma flag waving.

So even though the majority of people I polled seemed to agree with me, a portion of those votes might simply reflect the fact that it’s fun to be part of a team. In getting pissed about “gift,” I inadvertently created an anti-gift agenda, which means that my poll results aren’t necessarily pure. A percentage of you might just be nice and subconsciously want to see me be correct (thank u). And if that’s not you? There’s a chance you’re either a snob or a brand-hater like me. Or maybe you’re a snob and a brand-hater and you love being part of a team. I’m not here to pigeonhole anyone. I’m just reporting the findings as I’ve come to understand them.

Let’s review: English-speaking people have been using “gift” as a verb since at least the 18th century; historically speaking, we tend to get worked up about new trends until they normalize and everyone forgets why anyone cared at all; and our reactions to word choice have just as much to do with context as they do with the meaning of the word. Will this stop me from thinking, “Ugh!” the next time I see “gift” in the wild? Probably not! But maybe my reaction will be abbreviated now that I know where it’s stemming from, and eventually, maybe I’ll even be able to pass it in my scroll without thinking, “There’s that word I dislike again.” Knowledge rules.

The Adventures of Liana Finck

Liana Finck is on Instagram.

And other answers to unsolicited questions

“I am going to write a year-end best-of list. Any pointers?” — Thomas 2016

How can one survive the dark days to come? It’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but these days can be the bleakest. Because of course every damned person is writing a Year-End Best-of List about something. Music, movies, books, sex partners, tweets. The snake won’t just eat it’s own tail, it will shit its own tail out to boot.

Time may be an illusion. Look it up. By observing a clock in your own universe you are not merely accepting that it is 4 a.m. and you have no pants on. You are making it 4 a.m. What happened to your pants is a different physics equation. Attempts to observe another universe from your universe makes the other universe seem frozen in amber. Or in my case, frozen in Jesus and Mary Chain songs. Which is why, although your #1 band for the so-called year 2016 might be 70 Foot Rotating Dildo, my #1 band for this year, a year I call “The Year Steve” is Stiff Little Fingers. Or maybe actually OK it was A Tribe Called Quest.

Einstein also said time is an illusion. And he was usually right about everything. Our human minds conceive the universe in a particular way, as moving forward. Science types are skeptical. “The cat that jumps is not the same cat that lands.” Let that wash over you for a minute. Until we get to the Roaring 2020s, we will probably no longer think of decades the same way. The human brain creates shortcuts for itself. It pushes a lot of information in on itself, like a monkey pushing an accordion in on itself to make a farty noise. This is how Year-End Best-Of Lists are made.

If one believes time is an arrow that flies from January to December, then I guess it makes sense to take the time to chronicle that arrow’s trajectory in movies, TV, film, etc. Without lists and awards, how would we know what was any good? Not that anything is all that good anymore. It’s as good as can be expected in ‘these dark days.’ I am going to preface all statements going forward with that, for context. We will need context in these dark days.

The internet basically exists to deliver four things at this point: Fake news, pornography, cat stuff, and list articles. I have no beef with the first two. If we could somehow combine cute cat photography and humor with hardcore porn I think we’d all have a lot more time on our hands to write bad novels in “Novembers,” if you wish to continue to believe in such quaint things such as months and days and monogamy. And, now, democracy. And the fundamental goodness of white people.

The internet fails when it fails to surprise and delight us. Or to horrify and depress us. Either way. When the internet gets predictable we go to HBOGO and watch “Deadwood” for a week. So many of us need to crank out content to please the Cubicle Class: young creative people in depressing desk jobs. Beneath their Excel spreadsheets they got the Twitter. They ride the Twitter to direct them to surprising or terrifying content. We’re all Walter Mittys now. Rich imaginary internet lives to go with Bartleby-level busywork drudgery. I feel for you, Cubicle Class. Time is a very slow illusion for you. That’s a lot of Excel files.

Boredom, invented in the late pre-internet 1980s and responsible for things like irony, nostalgia and grunge music, is part of a physics equation that involves Time and Repetition on the other side. Time is a constant. It’s imaginary, and therefore needs to be represented by an imaginary number. like 5i. Repetition, the stuff of comedy when in threes, gets super-annoying and bore-inducing in more than threes.

Meme culture demands everyone act like lemmings. We get a billion similar jokes, but only over the course of a few days. Afterwards we all lose interest, and wait for the next nip slip. The meme of year-end best-of list lasts for the entire month of December. Even Movember and Write A Crappy Novel Month only lasts as long as we bother to grow bad beards and write bad books. We will exhaust ourselves on both measures, and quickly.

The List is the lowest, and therefore the most popular, of internet writing assignments. They’re easy, people click on them. We’ve gotten better at titling them. “657 Things You Will Die Soon If You Don’t Know.” I’m not sure why the number is important at the beginning of the title. It just is. People won’t, in the middle of it, be like “Well I know the first 300, I will probably live through the week.” You will have to click on every damned page of the thing. And either agree or disagree. And of course, the more website hits you get the more all-powerful influence you wield. And someday your lists will be collected into a “Collected Lists of Jim Behrle” which will hopefully make everyone’s Year-End Best-of List for whatever year that comes out. And maybe even the movie list. With Whoopi Goldberg as “Jim Behrle.” And Emily Blunt as “The List.”

I find the whole endeavor extremely depressing. No one wants to be on a list. They want to be singular, to stand triumphant upon the Internet Pigpile and shout from the rooftops “I, for this fleeting moment, MATTER.” To have to share this pigpile with anyone else, or stand below stuff you know just plain sucks and is lame.

Say you are the #10 movie on someone’s list. Being #10 means you almost didn’t make it and probably kinda suck. You are basically “Star Trek: Beyond.” Probably a perfectly fine movie to watch drunk some night by accident. And if you’re super-into Star Trek still, maybe you camped out all night to get in first and have tricorder sex with your girlfriend in the back row. But whatever. It’s #10. Why even write about it? Why not just draw a picture of Mister Spock and Captain Kirk making out?

If you insist on writing a list to mark the end of this year, make it a short list. Around 10. But maybe 11 or 9.

Throw some wacky things that are not technically from this year into them. Just to keep us on our toes. I hate surprises. Like that nothing matters and that everything is a lie. That was a horrible surprise to have sprung on me.

I want things to matter. Should I make a list of the things I wished still mattered?

1. The Truth
2. Human Decency
3. Rock n’ Roll
4. The X-Files
5. The Suffering of Others
6. Star Trek
7. Sex

Good luck out there. Years are just a constant barrage of dead famous people and depressing world news. Billy Joel will probably write a song about it, but only if we’re already all in Hell.

Jim Behrle lives in Jersey City, NJ and works at a bookstore.

From Everything Changes, the Awl’s newsletter. Subscribe here.

I asked readers of Everything Changes about a time they’d been brave; a time they’d failed to be brave, and regretted it; or a time they saw someone else be courageous. Here’s what they said.

Last week, when I asked my 5 year-old son how his day at school was, he said that the boys were mean to him and teasing him when there wasn’t any room at snack time to sit at their table and he’d have to sit the girls’ table. So I asked him what he did and he said, “Duh, I just went and had fun with the girls.” (Imagine it with an eyeroll and the Rs as Ws: cute as hell.) — ATGC

I was raised in a pretty abusive household. When I was 14, I found a boarding school three thousand miles away, applied in secret, got a full scholarship, and left home. I haven’t lived at home since and have made it ten years later fully supporting myself in a city I love, a job I love, friends/community that I love. I sometimes think about that now, packing up everything and moving across the country without any support and building a new life for myself through a lot of luck and other people’s help, and know I probably couldn’t do it again. I left the worse place for paradise, both handed-out and self-made, and there’s nothing i’m prouder of. — THL

My brother had a spinal stroke when he was fourteen — completely out of nowhere. Our whole family was in Boston for that weekend so he was in Boston hospitals, but on Sunday night my mom had to drive my other brothers and I back home, two hours away, so we could go to school in the morning. About halfway through the drive, barely twenty-four hours after my brother got sick, my mom had to pull over a little because she couldn’t see the road, she was crying too hard. I’d never seen her cry before. After a few minutes she took some deep breaths, got back on the road, dropped us off, and turned right back around and went back to Boston, not knowing if her healthy, athletic, incredible young son would ever walk again, but ready to do whatever it would take to get him there. It was the first moment in those long months after my brother got sick that I saw him and my parents exercise the depths of their faith in that quiet, persistent, unshakable way that can only be called courage.

This summer I took my 4-year-old nephew to the swimming pool. He told me he wanted to go off the diving board, so I strapped on his life jacket and swam out to help catch him. From the look on his face, I thought “there is no way this kid is going to jump. No way.” But he did. I helped him swim to the edge of the pool and was certain that would be the end of it. He got out, and climbed back on the diving board. Again, he had a look of pure terror. Again, he jumped. Over and over, this kid looked fear in the face, and he jumped anyway. It was a good reminder to me that courage looks different on everyone. — MRN

There have been times when it took so much courage for me to get out of my pajamas, put on real clothes and face the next few minutes. Not face the day, just the next few minutes. Then, when those minutes had been dealt with, to take on the next few minutes. If you’ve been there, you understand. If you haven’t, you can’t possibly.

A dear friend who’s also a middle school teacher once claimed a fart that was actually emitted by one of the girls in her class.

I was walking with a friend at night on a main boulevard in Los Angeles. We saw some young teenagers standing in front of a homeless man, curled and pressed against a wall. They taunted him, mocked him, and prodded him, eager to get a rise out of him.

I wanted nothing to do with it. Wanted to embrace the simple cowardice of ignoring the man’s plight and just keep on walking.

My friend stopped. I had walked on somewhat, only to notice that he was no longer by my side.

He said nothing to the kids. Just stood in front of the man on the ground. His extended arm a shield against the punks.

They were mad at the disruption to their fun. Talked shit but did nothing in the end. They regrouped and left the scene, loping after other hunts in the night. My friend said some words to the man, then rejoined me.

He said nothing as we walked. No anger or admonition towards me. Just wore a Buddha-like non-smile of serene patience as I babbled on and on about my inaction. Excusing myself, whipping my cowardice, vowing to do better next time. Still, he said nothing. All the while, the same expression of non-expression. — JRS

I told the first woman I fell in love with that I loved her. Now we are together.

At 24, I had the courage to ask four of my mom’s best friends if I could edit (rewrite) the obituary they drafted for her, so I could better capture her spirit. Six years later, I’m still proud of it and of the 24 year-old who somewhat selfishly took on an incredibly difficult yet cathartic endeavor. (You can read it here.)

I was walking down the street. Ahead of me, an Asian man accidentally bumped into a white man. The Asian man said “sorry” and continued to walk on. The white man started screaming at him to “go back where you came from” and started calling him a bunch of racist epithets to ugly to write here. I am 5 foot tall, and weighed about a hundred pounds. All around me, businessmen on their lunch break streamed around us, ignoring what was going on in the middle of the sidewalk. I walked up to the white man who was screaming and asked him to tell me how long his ancestors had been in this country. I wanted to provide a shield between the white man and the other man. The Asian man escaped while I was talking to the racist. No one stopped to help me. Eventually, we both walked away. — LB

She would be the first in her family to get a college degree, her teachers told her it wouldn’t be easy and her friends think she’s a workaholic. I see her studying in the library and when I pack my things to leave she’s still there. Sometimes it’s hard and she sleeps off on the desk, sometimes she doesn’t understand anything, she’s not even sure if she knows what she’s doing but she’s still choosing to work hard. I think she’s brave. (My friend and I are both medical students.) — CM

My husband was diagnosed with lung cancer in November, and died the following April. Every single day, I tended to him as best I could.

I was not being brave. I was faking it. When no one could see, I’d cry, or complain, or envy those people who would not be left alone. — MLT

Anytime I write something that I am terrified to publish but do it anyway.

I met someone I cared about. I lost that person to another person. I was (still am!) scared of being vulnerable, as it’s never worked out in my favor, and never got the chance to tell him how truly happy he made me, how improbably good our time together was. I wrote him a long email, saying all the things. I don’t think I’ve done anything braver in my life. It was very hard for me to send. I never got a full reply from him. It has been many months. I still think of it often these days. — C

Finally quit a shit job that took advantage of me after 5 years!!!! — BK

The morning after the last election, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I really struggled. My wife was in bad shape too. I told my boss I was staying home, but he asked me to come in. He said I was a leader in the office — that people looked up to me — and that I should come in. For the first hour or two, I was miserable. Then I listened to a colleague who had the misfortune of explaining to everyone in the organization (globally via VTC) explain the ramifications on our policies. She broke down openly. At that point I realized that I needed to be brave not for me, but for my colleagues (and for my wife). Like me, they were looking for comfort. In that moment I was reminded of the bravery that real leadership demands, and spent the rest of the day trying to cheer people up. Cracking into my desk bourbon. Taking half the office out for a boozy lunch. Just being there for others when I desperately wanted someone to be there for me.

A few months ago, some coworkers made some antisemitic jokes in a team chat channel. I quit the channel and started looking for (and since found) a new job, but I didn’t say anything. I’ve thought about that time I didn’t say anything literally every day since. I wish I had been a better person.

Last night I got a beer with a woman who used to be my arch-nemesis. It was great.

Yesterday, I decided to wear lipstick to work for the first time. I’m an AMAB nonbinary person. I’m a teacher and I was so afraid of students saying something rude to me or people making comments while I was at work. Instead, it went well, and I ended up getting compliments. I remember reading Coraline when I was a child and there is a part where they describe bravery that has always stayed with me. They say that bravery isn’t the lack of fear, but your willingness to keep going even though your scared. I’m trans and I’m scared for what will happen in the coming years under Trump, but I’m brave and will keep going. — MJD

For eight years I have wanted to end a friendship with a person who I’m convinced only wants me as an audience, not as a friend who has her own life and goals and problems. I still haven’t done it. — DM

My daughter is one of the bravest people I know. She was a shy and smart little person, round and soft and attached to me physically until she was 3 or 4. Even then, her preference was always to be with me — in bed at night, in the bathroom, at home instead of at preschool. She was hesitant and uncertain on the outside, but always with a fiercely strong core. At the age of 15 she won a scholarship to study for a year in Germany. She spoke no German, had barely ever been away from home. She was wrenchingly homesick for the first four months, crying almost daily. And yet, she said, “If I still feel this way in February, I’ll start to think about coming home.” She turned 16 in Germany. She became fluent in German. She made friends and bonded with her host family. She did it, even though it was terrifying and difficult nearly the entire time. Now she’s 24, and she is still the one person in my life who I watch face the unfamiliar and the frightening with courage, on a regular basis. She’s traveled to India 8 times now, and learned several Indian languages. She has friends all over the world. She’s seen things I will never see, and she knows things I have yet to learn. She is truly my role model — she reminds me that there’s a path I can follow that may not be safe or familiar or comfortable, but that might lead me in beautiful, even sublime directions. If only I can be brave enough, as brave as she is. — MEW

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Cody Delistraty on what makes people read it

The scientific narrative nonfiction formula, as [Michael] Lewis and [Malcolm] Gladwell use it, consists of depicting a character or small cadre of characters who embody a counterintuitive claim — especially counterintuitive for a behavioral or psychological subject (so that readers feel as though it might have application to their own lives). The scientific narrative nonfiction author then moves the reader from his or her original perception of the status quo to the counterintuitive truism through a winding road of anecdotes and eccentricities provided by the character or characters, all the while shearing and honing these stories for salience and readability. ‘You think that “experts” have a solid grasp on something? Actually, here are some relatively unknown people who can prove otherwise.’ This is the crux of the formula.

Here’s a pretty perceptive piece on why Michael Lewis is such a dream to read but also why you never feel truly full after reading him:

Michael Lewis and the Narrative Nonfiction Formula – Los Angeles Review of Books

Christmas is still a ways off.

There are two full workweeks until Christmas. Which kind of person are you, the kind who says, “That’s great, I hate Christmas and everything about it, keep it as far away from me as possible, I will put up with as many holiday parties as I have to just so long as it’s not fucking Christmas,” or the kind who is all, “Oh my God, two weeks is forever, how am I going to get through every agonizing minute of work and crowds and socializing and forced joy until it’s the actual holiday, please just make it fucking Christmas already”? Whoever you are, I advise you to ease into this week, because if early indications are anything to go by it will be just as painful as all weeks are now and probably more so. Here’s something vague and gentle to get you started. Enjoy.

★★★ The gray was heavy but unmenacing; the chill was real but painless. The Batman hat with the ears had been dug out of storage at the five-year-old’s request, but wearing it he began to fret that the other children hadn’t been wearing superhero gear. By morning’s end a very pale blue had begun showing itself uncertainly on the horizon. The northwest cleared by afternoon, but the light that came through was already aged to goldenness and slipping away.

Listen.

I don’t know anything about Pavo Pavo and the sense I get is they are one of those groups that have a hard time staying on the right side of the line that separates “interesting weird” from “weird just to be weird,” but this video came my way the other day and I am somewhat entranced by its tune. I would say you are advised to pass on the visual aspects here and just let it play out in another tab while you’re attending to other things, but the song, well, the song is something special. Enjoy.

Some examples we may see in the Times in the near future

Bias incidents on both sides have been reported. A student walking near campus was threatened with being lit on fire because she wore a hijab. Other students were accused of being racist for supporting Mr. Trump, according to a campuswide message from Mark Schlissel, the university’s president.

—New York Times

1. People described 2016 as being a time of great upheaval. One woman, a refugee from a long, bloody civil war, reported arriving on dry land after days in a crowded raft at sea. “When I had the first sip of water I’d had in three days, I felt like I was walking into the gates of heaven,” she said. Another woman, halfway across the globe, sat in her kitchen, shaking her head slowly, thinking back on her own year as she picked at a tin of Trader Joe’s Jingle Jangle. “We added on to the house, and suddenly, boom — my bedroom is twice as far away from the laundry room as it used to be.” She shrugged. “But what do we do? We adapt.” She smiled philosophically. “We have no choice.”

2. Low-income drivers report safety concerns with old, damaged vehicles that often put them in fear for their lives. “Sometimes my steering freezes up. The whole back end is pretty much tied on with old string,” one man said. “But I have to get to work, and I can barely afford maintaining this car — so buying a new one? Forget it.” Still, wealthy drivers are not immune from concerns the safety of their automobiles. One described — with visible anxiety — a poorly adjusted rear view mirror in his brand-new Chevy Malibu. “Everyone says, “Bob, just reach up and adjust it.” He shook his head. “But for some reason, I haven’t done it yet.”

3. Girls reported feeling that the school didn’t feel like a supportive place to them. “My math teacher told me I would never understand algebra because I was a girl,” said one ninth grader, “And my gym teacher said I had to take tap dancing instead of weight lifting, because ‘my legs might get too big.’” But boys didn’t feel that the school supported them either. A tenth boy recalled being ordered to turn off his phone when class started. “I don’t get it,” he said defiantly. “I mean, it’s my phone.”

4. East side residents say the varnish factory has to close. “When the factory is operating, my kids can’t go outside. It smells too awful, and sometimes their noses bleed,” said an East side resident, who also fears that the cancer she and four out of five of her closest neighbors have is a result of years of exposure in both the air and ground water. But a West side resident insisted that closing down the factory is not the answer. “The CEO lives right next door to me, when he’s not at work, he likes to putter around in the yard. Sometimes, if I’m puttering around in my yard, he says hello to me, and sometimes, if I don’t know he’s there, he makes me jump right out of my skin. ” She shook her head. “It really annoys me that people on the East side won’t look at the bigger picture.”

5. Environmentalists say that continued use of fossil fuels will continue to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, threatening the health, safety and indeed the very existence of all life on earth. They are particularly concerned about offshore drilling. “The more we leave in the ground, the better,” said one prominent climate scientist. “Also, accidents are common on offshore rigs, and these accidents cause further harm to already vulnerable marine ecosystems.” But there are others who insist offshore drilling can be beneficial to certain species. “The other day I must have seen ten seagulls hanging out on a rig, just chilling out,” said a random guy. “What if these environmentalists got their way and that rig was suddenly gone? Where would those seagulls go?” The climate scientist hypothesized that ten seagulls would be likely to have little trouble finding another place to go. But the random guy shook his head. “You say that,” he said. “But with all due respect, can you prove it?” The climate scientist shrugged. The random guy nodded. “I rest my case,” he said.