Last week the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, offered a first mild question about President Bush's plans to carry the war around the world.
(Some have called it iPod noir, but is that right? Shouldn't it be iNoir or something? And now that I think of it, can this be called a theater review if I took part?) Ms. Arber asks the "performers" to introduce themselves and answer a mild question or two.
That feeling was surely re-enforced the other day when the coach, Andy Flower, whose work with Andrew Strauss to build a new and resourceful England could scarcely have received higher levels of general approval, stared down the author of an essentially mild question about whether he regretted his decision not to pick either Panesar or Chris Tremlett at Old Trafford.
Finally Mr Hemming asked a couple of mild questions which had nothing to do with famous actors, footballers or TV presenters.
If your partner poses mild questions, don't follow the conversation with a question or statement that's too naughty.
A precursor to Dear Sugar was Elizabeth M. Gilmer, who took mild-mannered questions from her female readers and churned out thorough and philosophical responses.
While the president and his officials flailed, the mildest of questions were raised about how much we should chide our erstwhile allies, or encourage the massed protesters, and about whether we should "take sides" (as though we hadn't done so decisively over the last decades).
When or if this becomes pathological, especially when it is still mild, is a question that is highly dependent on cultural, social, economic and political factors.
But, as TNC points out in his deceptively mild way, the question Juan asks — essentially, how come black people don't march against black violence — is one that it would have behooved him, as a journalist, to learn something about before sounding off.
The observation "none" in free text beside the box for mild in a question were processed statistically as mild and when two boxes were marked, the answer was recorded as the lower of the two.
However, while this analysis provided significant results, the obtained signal is mild and the question whether and how best one can identify a universal set of growth-associated genes still requires further study.
