Our mailbag is a wealth of wonder. Here's a letter we received from a reader from the wooded state of Oregon:

A woman I went on a date with mentioned reading Hannah Arendt's work, and I know next to nothing about her. All I know is that she's Jewish, so it would be nice if you could throw me a bone and explain her stuff to a dummy like me.

(You see, mom, we made it! No longer is this just a lame little website, a practical joke we started all these years ago. Our actual, real readers expect us to share knowledge!)

Now, dear Oregonian, we gotta warn you. You've read our website, right? You realize that we often go off script? Sure, sometimes we share knowledge, but have you seen some of our profiles? We turned the profile of Levi Eshkol, the Prime Minister of Israel, into a discussion of his rather unfortunate mustache! A wonderful man, who did so much for our people, and here we are, making fun of his facial hair. We're awful sometimes.

So, where were we... Hannah Arendt. You are so right, she definitely was Jewish, although (we wonder if your date knows this!) she didn't exactly embrace her Jewish identity. Her family didn't even use the word "Jew" at home. Look at us, dropping that knowledge!

As for her Arendt's contribution to the world of philosophy and political theory... uh... that's a tad complex... this profile is kinda running long already, isn't it? We should probably wrap it up.

Oh! Arendt coined the term "the banality of evil"! Use that to impress your date!