For more than two years now, I’ve spent the first hour or so of my Wednesday morning putting the final touches on this, my weekly column for The Evening Sun, quite possibly my favorite assignment here in the newsroom. And looking back through my personal archive of weekly opinion pieces, I found several concepts cropping up again and again, namely common sense and its arch rival, the dangerous and increasingly prevalent ignorance.

What I didn’t find, however (and a big thanks goes out to Clint Eastwood ... I’ll explain later), was much on tolerance, which, when you think about it, is simply one more problem facing this country, and one that ties in remarkably well with the aforementioned common sense and ignorance. All three concepts are either lacking here in America, common sense and tolerance, obviously, or on the rise ... ignorance, of course.

As for Clint Eastwood’s involvement, well ... that goes back to Monday evening and a late night viewing of “Gran Torino,” by far one of my favorite Clint films, and one that he both directed and starred in. And before I go on, a quick shout-out to readers ... if you haven’t seen this movie, do yourself a favor and grab a copy; by far one of the most underrated motion pictures produced in the last decade and amazing in that it outlines so honestly the idea of tolerance (or lack thereof) in America today.

To keep a long story short, Eastwood, portraying old-school Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski, has recently lost his wife; has two sons (married with their own families) who could care less about the old man; and continues to live in the neighborhood where he raised his family, even as it’s been inhabited by Hmong Americans, many of whom sought safety in America following the United States’ withdrawal from Vietnam.

Throughout the film, we see Mr. Kowalski turn over a new leaf, shedding his grumpy old man persona even as he begins to open up to his Hmong neighbors, taking the young Thao under his wing and – in the end – saving the young man and his sister from a life spent avoiding the dangers that the area’s gang activities pose. Says Clint at one point in the movie, “You know, Thao and Sue are never going to find peace in this world as long as that gang’s around.”