One of the things we get rewarded for in our contracts is community service. Most people think this is a tradeoff versus teaching and research, but it doesn't need to be. Mark Jaede's column can be seen as an attempt to combine these. I don't agree with him about his particular point. Bernard Lewis points out that Catholicism and Protestantism are part of a single civilization (even if one wishes to point to Northern Ireland) whereas Christianity and Islam are competing civilizations. Nevertheless, I think it's an interesting article and nice to see in our local paper, and written without condescension to the "unwashed public." That last part is all too rare.