"Luckily, as I said, I had finished lunch, so reading the letter didn't ruin my appetite. But it did put me off a little to learn that Mark Lemmon, whom I have, to the best of my knowledge, never even met, wants me weeded out and, perhaps, eradicated.

Some might think that the examples of those who followed eradication policies during the 20th century — most notably Stalin, Hitler, and Mao — had discredited those policies, but apparently not. (By the way, Mao was especially fond of comparing his opponents to weeds, who deserved to be eradicated.)"