The survivor spoke to us though, or tried to. Mumbling through that matted brown beard of his, pale as death itself. I can__ say now if it was weakness from his wounds or what it was _ but we struggled to understand him. In fact we got nothing intelligible from him at all then. He seemed afraid, like any dying man probably would be, but he did seem more terrified than any dying man I__e seen before _ and I__e seen a few in my time. Let me tell you, Corsair or not, he grabbed whatever hand would hold his, and clenched it so tight his knuckles turned white! He kept fading out as we carried him on the stretcher board the medics brought with them. Looking back, I think he tried to warn us, poor bastard. He tried to tell us to leave him behind and go, but we wouldn__ listen. We thought we were better than the Corsairs, remember? We thought we would be all moral and upright and try to help him. __on__ say I didn__ warn you._ were the last words he said before losing consciousness. At least, those that we could make out. At the end of it all, he was right _ as it turned out, we couldn__ even help ourselves.

Loving my son, building my son, touching my son, playing with my son, being with my son_ these aren__ tasks that only super dads can perform. These are tasks that every dad should perform. Always. Without fail.

Dads. Do your faces light up when you first see your child in the morning or when you come home from work? Do you not understand that a child__ entire sense of value can revolve around what they see in your face when you first see them?

Do you not realize that your kids are going to make mistakes, and a lot of them? Do you not realize the damage you do when you push your son__ nose into his mishaps or make your daughter feel worthless because she bumped or spilled something? Do you have any idea how easy it is to make your child feel abject? It__ as simple as letting out the words, __hy would you do that!?_ or __ow many times have I told you_

I consider Yoda to be just about the most evil character that I__e ever seen in the history of literature. I have gotten people into tongue-tied snits unable to name for me one scene in which Yoda is ever helpful to anybody, or says anything that__ genuinely wise. 'Do or do not, there is no try.' Up yours, you horrible little oven mitt! 'Try' is how human beings get better. That__ how people learn, they try some of their muscles, or their Force mechanism heads in the right direction, that part gets reinforced and rewarded with positive feedback, which you never give. And parts of it get repressed by saying, 'No, that you will not do!' It is abhorrent, junior high school Zen. It__ cartoon crap.

Dads. Do you not realize that a child is what you tell them they are? That people almost always become what they are labeled? Was whatever your child just did really the __umbest thing you__e ever seen somebody do_? Was it really the __ost ridiculous thing they ever could have done_? Do you really believe that your child is an idiot? Because she now does. Think about that. Because you said it, she now believes it. Bravo.