I’d like to invite you, if you’ll be in New York this weekend, to see the final performance of WE ARE THE LAWMAKERS, a daring play of political chaos directed by my dear friend, Marc Andreottola. It is part of this year’s New York International Film Festival and will be playing Saturday, August 23 at 7:30 pm at 45 Bleecker Street. I also happen to be the show’s rather bumbling publicist. And this, precisely, is about the last thing a publicist should say:

Beware, the reviews have been terrible.

But don’t be too -ware. I still think you should see the play. I’ll be there, and if the fun I had tonight was any indication, I’ll be loving it. In the end, after my third exposure to LAWMAKERS, I have no choice but to declare it among the most significant statements about American democracy in 2008 I know of. […]

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There was a time when the Olympics meant a cessation of hostilities. A glimpse of the eschaton—as William Stringfellow would have put it—when our desires to dominate over each other get translated into harmless athleticism. This year, not so. The start of the Olympics (which China made sure would happen on the auspicious day of 8/8/08) marked the start of a regional war.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia has already become a human catastrophe. The New York Times reports 1,500 Georgian civilians killed, plus 12 Russian soldiers. […]

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Yesterday evening in Washington Square Park (or what’s left of it), just after getting off the phone with my mother, a man and a woman approached me and asked if I knew about God the Mother. At first, forgetting myself, I said I didn’t want to have that conversation. Thankfully, the man (who did all of the talking) insisted, and I remembered that there are few joys greater than discovering a new line of belief. So, at least until my friend came to roll her eyes at me and truck me off to dinner, I sat and talked Bible with the Mother-lovers. […]

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The Economist has already shown its interest in following the fascinating recent scientific work about the origins and functions of human religiosity. This week’s article on the subject, “Praying for Health,” brings up challenging questions both for the study of religion and for the study of conflict. […]

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AlterNet has just posted a review I did of Lauri Lebo’s The Devil in Dover, an account of the 2005 evolution trial in Dover, Pennsylvania. It was a real treat to do the article, since I wrote my college thesis on the Dover trial while it was going on.

As another round of my usual spats with editors about titles, I’m not at all comfortable with the title AlterNet used, “Despite Overwhelming Evidence, Creationists Cling to Unreality.” In my thesis and in my review, I have tried to operate under the assumption that creationism feels like a reality, replete with evidence, to those who adhere to it. I only feel silly claiming that my reality, which they have yet to accede to, is the one with a capital R. All I claim in the article is that the scientific consensus is evolutionist, and that’s what we should teach in science classrooms. I have no intention of preaching metaphysics.

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