"Some treehugger"

At Borders yesterday, a woman picked up The Richness of Life: The Essential Stephen Jay Gould, and got very excited. Being a fan of the author, I eavesdropped on her cell phone explanation.

She began by getting very excited at learning "Professor Gould's" first and middle names, which suggested that she might be encountering the joy of the late Harvard paleontologist for the first time. She began reading the book jacket, which contained some text about his explanations of the ways life on earth developed (not, alas "evolved"). She paused, told her friend that he "must be some treehugger," and moved on.

We have a lot of work to do.