There is a story that Alfred, Lord Tennyson once invited a Russian nobleman to his estate to do some hunting. The nobleman went off by himself one morning and returned later in the day.

"How did you do?" asked Tennyson.

"Not too well," replied the nobleman. "I shot two peasants."

"You mean two pheasants," Lord Tennyson said with amusement. "We pronounce it with a ph. Pheasant."

"No," the nobleman said, "I mean two peasants. They were insolent to me, and so I shot them."

The story is outrageous, of course. You don't shoot someone just because they are insolent to you. Do you?

Tony Campolo tells about a Philadelphia man who killed a driver who cut in front of him on the expressway. The murderer explained that traffic had slowed as it was being funneled into a single lane. He claimed th…