Mint chocolate chip ice cream is, in my opinion, the best flavor of ice cream. Maybe that isn’t a popular opinion to hold, or to express. I know lots of people prefer rocky road, or chocolate, or vanilla. But it’s an opinion I hold, and you may, or may not, hold the same opinion. No big deal, right? If I like mint chocolate chip ice cream, I can eat it, and if you don’t, you don’t have to. It is easy to have an opinion, express an opinion, and respect one another’s opinions. That’s what an opinion is…

Anthropologists tell us: people gossip. They spread rumors. It’s really common, in some form or another, across place and time. That isn’t a good thing or bad thing in itself; people are storytelling critters, and social critters, and it’s a way to make sense of the world we live in and find out things about each other…