The other night I had my TV tuned into the Greensboro City Council meeting, but it was early in the evening and I was moving around the house doing dinner-time chores. But I just happened to glance at the screen and saw my friend Kit Spence at the podium addressing the council.

I can’t say I’m super-tight with Kit, but I’ve known him for at least 15 years and have had some pretty in-depth conversations with him. Just the other week he was passing through the neighborhood and we got into a discussion about recent movies we’d seen. But watching him address the council, I thought it was odd that, in all the years I’ve known him, I’d never once heard him express concern for endangered monkey whales.