Let's raise a toast to civility once again

"When small men begin to cast big shadows," the late Chinese author and translator Lin Yutang once observed, "it means that the sun is about to set."

How aptly this quote, if amended to read "small men and women," sums up the sentiments that I and many other US citizens have about the bruising, now thankfully concluded, US presidential race.

As we watched two essentially unsavory candidates cast big shadows in a run for the highest US office, I wondered, as the campaign unfolded, whether the sun might indeed be setting on our ability to discuss issues on merit, without resorting to shout-downs.