I love Dan (and I'm not alone in this). Dan is unusually wonderful.
I've known him since he was almost a kid. Despite his awesome intelligence and wit, you can still talk to him about silly stuff. He's a great listener, a warm, playful all-round exceptional fellow. Dinosaurs love him. Kids love him. Arabs and Jews love him. To my mind, his only flaw is a lack of appreciation for one or two odd vegetables, but this is not so serious as he often
forgets himself and indulges passionately in exotic foreign versions of these wonders. He may not like eggplant, for example, but he makes
exception for baba ganooj. And speaking of baba ganooj, let it be known, Dan has an affliction--xenophilia. I don't know that he has ever turned down a proposition in portuguese, dutch, finnish,urdu or xhosa.