  After recalling some elegant contributions of the late Freydoon Mansouri, we
turn to neutrino physics and use a {\it modicum} of grand unification to relate
quark and lepton mixing matrices. We advocate an expansion for the MNS matrix,
{\it \`a la} Wolfenstein, and argue that in a wide class of models,
$\theta_{13}$ is a Cabibbo mixing effect. Also the large neutrino mixing angles
reflect the mass patterns of the right-handed neutrinos near the Planck scale,
and provide evidence for family structure at that scale.
