AIDS had won gays sympathy; they no longer seemed the privileged brats that the general populace had resented in the 1970s.

Each year, thousands of UFOs are sighted and reported, which is an impressive tally of unidentified aerial phenomena. Surveys show that roughly one-third of the populace believes that at least some of this sky show is due to extraterrestrial spacecraft, here to probe our airspace and, when that proves boring, our bodies.

We've seen over time that countries that have the best economic growth are those that have good governance, and good governance comes from freedom of communication. It comes from ending corruption. It comes from a populace that can go online and say, 'This politician is corrupt, this administrator, or this public official is corrupt.'

A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.

What is especially important is addressing the question of how religion can be enforced through political means and what can be done to create a political environment that on the one hand acknowledges the role of religion in society while on the other hand does not impose one religion on the populace at the expense of all others.

We have to raise the consciousness the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.