Please allow me to gush for a bit: last week I met Ursula Franklin and she kindly signed the book that I brought with me.

At 83, Ursala is slight, seemingly frail but speaks with stength and a warmth just like you grandmother would... that is, just like your grandmother if your grandmother was a Royal Society member due to her work in theoretical physics or if your grandmother's work was instrumental in stopping atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons... or if your grandmother... well, you get the picture.

I'm gushing for good reason. I heard Ursula address the conference twice and she speaks as wonderfully as she writes. I'm going to leave it at that... I've been trying to distill Ursula's style for some minutes now and my descriptions are not doing the subject justice.

And to top the whole Ursula experience off, just as she took her leave of the hotel conference room to make her way to the lobby, she spied me and grabbed my hand and so I could accompany her walk to the lobby.

I'm a fairly skeptical person but I believe in the goodness of Ursula Franklin.