I’ve noticed a trendous amount of political and other subterfuge lately, much thanks to the ongoing secrecy and strangeness of the White House and those surrounding it lately. It reminds me a bit of the time when books like Pranks! were hits, back in the early 90s.
This was interesting: The Yes Men kind of make a mockery of things at a Heritage Foundation conference by nominating Ed Meese for President.
I saw today a woman today on the subway wearing a headscarf with a t-shirt underneath that obviously read “I am a Muslim.”
Leonard Lopate had an American serviceman on his show today who openly but gently criticized the war in Iraq, which is unheard of, literally, during wartime.
A colleague also put together this funny little site on the Bush record.
I can’t say I am in full agreement with any these actions but I can say I’m impressed that the courageous few are standing and speaking and being heard.

Companies often point to the true efficiencies gained due to their implementation of technologies, their use of new products, or their laying off of workers. There’s no question that all of these can produce more value at lower cost.
But I’ve always wondered about the (even more) true efficiencies of social interaction, at least in our modern capitalist economy. Efficiencies, taken without ethical considerations, are interesting because they work outside of the norms of behavior but are somehow part of them. Here are some examples, and they are Benthamist in bent and general in general:
1. Having people over to share a meal. It is highly likely that, because one is sharing food with others, that one will not poison the others through the serving of breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. The reason is that it is difficult to assign and always be sure of which plate of food contains the ill-gotten goods.
2. Driving one’s car. It’s likely that an accident on the road is just that. People do not, generally, swerve purposely into someone else’s car because it would prevent them from being effective — from getting to the next place.
3. Setting fires. While it’s nice to look at fire often, it does not serve one’s immediate needs to set a fire in one’s neigborhood as there’s a good chance your possessions will be lost in the mix.

There are a number of things that I believe in. For the record and for whatever they’re worth, here they are:

• G-d exists in some definitive form outside of human knowledge or full awareness. The presence of G-d can be felt on occasion the way a cat might walk past a mirror and get a glimpse of herself but not really know that it’s her reflection in the mirror.
• It’s quite possible that G-d was once here and, at some point, abandoned us, as the ancient Gnostics believed.
• History is very long and life is very short. It’s troubling that the present government has a strong, albeit ideologically driven, understanding of the historical past but no way to interpret it and no way to set new life and action into the world.
• Light comes from exhausted souls who seek presence in our lives.
• Human communication is necessarily frail, incomplete, and inherently tragic because everything that wants to be said to another cannot. At the same time, it’s all we have to go on and we truly should be thankful for all forms of language.
• Being surprised is one of the last forms of expressed innocence we have as adults.
• In many ways, belief is the opposite of expressed innocence; it is the internalized activity of true experience.