A cadre of liars:

is this the mode of politics?

Is it possible to live forever lying

ever blushing behind a facade of truth?

Though I think not

life goes on

 election and selections take place

and we applaud the fakirs

who pulled it off

got rich with the deal

smiling broadly for the press.

It's the way life is.

Does God see 

then turn his back

sit on a stool and shit

flushing the toilet again and again? 

*...how can we really get a fix on the efficacy of different kinds of therapies?  To a large extent every healing system is effective or it would not survive; each one has a satisfactory way of explaining how its operations are a success even if patients die.  All patients die and any system of treatment must establish its effectiveness in the face of this challenging reality.  Measuring efficacy is an especially acute problem in dealing with traditional societies in Africa, South America, Oceania, and different parts of Asia.  It is difficult enough to make sure that adequate health care is being provided, never mind "looking on" at the same time, in order to measure effectiveness in a reliable and controlled fashion in terms that might satisfy biomedical scientists.

One aim of healing practice that is often very effective in local terms is to create an operating "theater", a spectacular setting where the forces of affliction and powers of cure can be put on display in a dramatic way.  Cure almost always has a "miraculous" quality: setting on visible display  the forces that might otherwise remain hidden and illumined.  Medical practice is effective, then, because it is revelatory, disclosing and naming transformative powers that are active but unrecognized.

-Lawrence E. Sullivan