A mirror is a good thing. Be hard to get through the day without one or two – although spending time away from a mirror for a few days at a time is a good exercise.

A mirror's only job is to reflect. Their use comes from what you do about that reflected image.

I saw a mirror of a different kind the other day. What I saw reflected was both interesting and enlightening.

I had the chance to interview three young ladies, each an exchange student from Europe. Two from different cities in Russia and the third from Finland.

Each was particularly taken with the outgoing way they've been treated by their fellow students. How they've been greeted by an endless sea of smiles. How strangers stop and tell them how glad they are to have met. How total strangers earnestly ask `How are you?'

``In Russia, people don't do that,'' Sasha told me. ``I kept asking myself if these people were really interested in who I am and how I am. I am sure they are not, but they seem to be.''

She's correct in both assumptions. We're very good at asking how the people we meet are, and I think we've come to take that question for granted. It's our most familiar greeting, in its many forms. How are you? How do? But we get annoyed when, after asking how someone is, they stop and tell us. Anything beyond `fine, thanks' is considered rude. And that's a shame.

One of the interesting things I heard again from these three young ladies had to do with the protective way we create personal space. Each had been given an orientation class, conducted by Americans. They explained that, in the United States, you must be aware of a person's personal space. You can't get too close to people without making them uncomfortable. In Europe that space is considerably smaller than it is here, and they had to be aware of that.

That makes an interesting contrast to our open-sounding way of greeting people. `Hi! Tell me about yourself, just don't get too close' is the message. No wonder we leave people from other countries a bit confused.

More soon.

Maybe it's that I've spent so many years watching games and dissecting game plans. I'm also open to the argument that it springs from my deep-seeded opposition to their politics. Probably a synthesis of both – and a few other things thrown in.

But no matter where it comes from personally, Republican politics in this country rings with all the truth of those new tv commercials for the Chrysler Town and Country – the ones with Celine Dion riding along in the front passenger seat, singing to her young son (Presumably that's her husband, Rene behind the wheel – and you wonder if that allows them to park in the elderly spaces when they get to the local Wal-Mart). Yeah. Right.

There's an article in the current Atlantic Monthly that put things in a tighter focus for me – it's amazing how relatively unrelated things can do that for you. The article talks about Dick Morris, Bill Clinton's former pollster, and about how he and his polling partner had devised a much more reliable indicator of who would vote for Clinton than the simple, traditional who-do-you-prefer approach.

Morris had his pollsters ask five questions: Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? And is religion a very important part of your life?

As Morris defined it, someone with a liberal mindset would dismiss the notion that homosexuality is morally wrong, admits to looking at pornography, doesn't look down on someone for having had an extramarital affair, does not believe premarital sex is wrong, and views religion as being not important in their daily lives.

Respondents who took the liberal position on three of the five questions were inclined to vote for Clinton by a 2-1 margin. Four or five yeses meant an even stronger inclination to vote for Clinton. In effect, this litmus test was the strongest indicator of who someone vote for after party affiliation and race – since black voters are overwhelmingly inclined to vote Democratic.

Do you see the pattern Morris traded upon?

What has been the Republican sales pitch since the death of Lee Atwater and his Willie Horton approach to Presidential politics? Trade on what they've packaged as a decline of moral character in America – decry homosexuality as a sin against nature, decry promiscuity, whether it be inside or outside of marriage, trumpet the need to have Jesus Christ in everyone's life. All straight from that poll. Add to it the politics of abortion, particularly playing up the religious aspects of it to cement that religious affiliation with the Republican party, and since blacks were already going to vote Democratic, play on the tension between the races – especially in the South, where race is still a hotbed issue.

What makes it all ring hollow to me is the way that, once they've gained some level of power, Republican politicians abandon those particular issues and rush to inact an agenda that simply lines the pockets of their wealthy benefactors and themselves.

The Supreme Court has been made up with enough Conservatives to overturn Roe v. Wade now since Scalia was voted to the bench. Why hasn't it been overturned? Because it's not in the best interest of the Republican Party to overturn a woman's right to abortion. It's politically expedient to keep that section of their voter base sufficiently mobilized to keep Republicans in office. Take away their linchpin issue and all those Pro-Lifers fall back into splinter demographics that are more difficult to galvanize.

So, what exactly have Republicans done since taking control of Congress? Offered up an Economic Stimulus package along the lines of their tax-cut of two years ago – heavily, you could call it overwhelmingly, balanced toward the richest one percent of the population.

How do they deal with the Enron, et al, scandals? Make dividend income tax exempt – with an eye toward making stock market losses tax deductible. Oh, and they want to make it harder, if not impossible, to sue corporations for negligence and for mis-, mal- and nonfeasance.

How do they deal with making medical care affordable for everyone? Make it difficult if not impossible for you to sue your HMO.

So, like your basic car commercial, what they say and what the facts say are two different things. But like the salesmen they are, they keep right on saying it. Just so long as they sell the car.

Want to know a little secret from the Republican playbook? Look closely at the charges they level at Democrats in general, and Democratic leadership in particular. Those charges, particularly the ones about playing partisan politics on an issue, are more true of Republicans than of Democrats. They've discovered that if they tar Democrats with that charge first, it makes Republicans immune from recrimination.

That taint of sales hype hangs incredibly thin on the looming invasion of Iraq. The hue and cry is that it's about regime change, it's about disarming a dictator – growing louder when faced with the charge that it's all about oil.

It's not surprising that the emphasis on Afghanistan changed once work began on an oil pipeline that will bring crude from the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean.

But as long as the media is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by conservative corporations, there is little hope that these policies will ring up as a No Sale.

More soon.

Okay. So much for my self restraint.

I heard law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz discussing a case (and this was pre-O.J.) in which he talked about something or other ``passing the giggle test.'' That's a test where the subject has to be able to say whatever it is with a straight face. I've always remembered that.

I've come to the conclusion these days, however, that the giggle test is no longer valid. Not with the way our leaders can stand in front of television cameras and say the things they do.

Saying things you don't mean isn't new. That's how you end up with Trent Lott telling BET that he has always supported Affirmative Action. That's how you have Bill Clinton saying that he did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

But what does it mean when people sell out the very things they cherish most as personal beliefs?

How else do you explain the painful-to-watch exhibition of Condoleeza Rice endorsing the Bush Administration's plan to back a legal assault on affirmative action.

Rice claimed that she argued FOR the administration's take on a University of Michigan case on the grounds that it is a `quota' system.

Taking consideration the fact that Rice points with a great deal of pride to her efforts while a Provost at Stanford University to attract more black faculty members, which was done without any quota or percentage goal.

Rice said she was not opposed to considering race with respect to admissions. Just not when it's tied to a quota.

The problem is, the University of Michigan program ISN'T a quota system.

You see, `Quota' is the latest Republican buzzword. Their polling data tells them that people who support Affirmative Action, swap sides when they use the term `racial quotas.' Their tactics invariably boil down to this: If you oppose something, hang a label on it and attack the label. Whether or not the label applies.

So we have this admission program now being painted as a quota system. Falsely.

This from the New York Times: ``But "quota" has a specific meaning, and the University of Michigan's admissions policies do not meet it. In University of California Regents v. Bakke, the landmark 1978 case that upheld affirmative action while striking down quotas, the Supreme Court invalidated a medical school admissions system that set aside 16 "special admissions" places in the class, which invariably went to minorities. At Michigan, in both undergraduate and law school admissions, all applicants apply for all positions in the class. The university gives applicants extra points for belonging to an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority. But it also gives diversity points to applicants who come from an underrepresented part of the state, like Michigan's largely white Upper Peninsula, scholarship athletes, and men in the nursing program.

``The administration has suggested that the University of Michigan's program is unusually flawed. In fact, most highly selective educational institutions rely on similar admissions criteria. If the Supreme Court holds Michigan's procedures to be unconstitutional, it will force an overhaul in admissions policies nationwide.''

The argument the administration is using in this case, as spelled out in legal briefs prepared by the Solicitor General, press that case that any kind of affirmative action program with respect to race is unconstitutional.

Of course, we won't mention how the pResident got into Yale – being the son of a powerful alumnus and all.

More soon.

It was one of those nights where I couldn't think of anything better to do. It was cold and rainy out, which translates into black ice around these parts – so getting out to catch `Chicago' (psst, it's a musical) were pretty much out.

So I watched The Golden Globes. Which brought me to two interesting questions. And one cool thing to leave me feeling inspired.

First, does anyone actually believe that Celine Dion and her hubby/manager Rene actually cruise around in a Chrysler Town and Country?

And second, is this as shallow as we can possibly get?

These runway interviews are so, well, insipid. The amount of useful information that is imparted by these glam sessions is miniscule. Outside of `Who are you wearing?' you don't get much of anything from it. You get an occasional actor who shows up, half crocked, and tries to slip `shit' into his response to a question about how he feels to be at the ceremony – as in `I used to watch this shit back home.'

Somehow, I think that was probably the most honest appraisal of the goings-on of them all. The awards are nice. There was the moment a few years ago where Christine Lahti was actually in the bathroom when she won her award. This time, Meryl Streep was shocked to receive an award for Adaptation. And Richard Gere was blown away to win for Chicago. And, in my book, they get high marks for remembering to thank the writer for the original work. Too often, when it comes to thanking people at an awards show, the writer ranks somewhere after the manager, the personal assistant, the parents, the hair stylist, the craft-services person and the driver.

The awards themselves are interesting. It was good to see Tony Shalhoub win an award for his series `Monk.' His show is one of those cable series that you really have to work to catch, but it's well worth the effort. And his brief speech, ending with a heartfelt thank-you to his wife, actress Brooke Adams, was touching.

Donald Sutherland's acceptance speech, including his thank-you to Don King for providing his hair stylist, was sweet, as well.

And it was interesting to see how actresses Helen Mirren and Vanessa Redgrave get more and more attractive with each passing year. Same with Jamie Lee Curtis – even though she's done a recent spread on just how great she doesn't look. And how thin Sarah Jessica Parker is, even after giving birth – which makes one wonder if the baby came out when she was throwing up breakfast. Or how Uma Thurman looked positively haggard.

But the problem with awards shows is, well, there's about an hour of real interesting television spread out over three hours. The rest is about checking out who's wearing whom. As someone whose idea of designer fashion is buying Levis instead of Wranglers, that's kind of lost on me. In between awards, you have time to finish the dinner dishes, walk the dog, put out the trash, vacuum the living room, change the oil in the car, clean out the fish tank, balance the checkbook and answer a couple hundred emails.

Not that I was so inclined, mind you.

What left me feeling inspired was the air of passion that surrounded the awards this year -- more so than in past years, I thought. You could see the passion these various people had for their projects -- from Renee Zellwhatever's passion for Chicago and the inspiration she got from director Rob Marshall, to Nicole Kidman and her passion for the strong roles for women that were out there in 2002. Passion is the one thing that I feel is missing from too many of our lives. And it's so vital to having a good life. It surprises me that it ends up missing -- or that people confuse having passion with having frequent sex. Those people just don't understand.

More soon.