We've already asked a few questions meant to be considered and answered by religious believers, with the answers kept private, shared only between them and God. We now have a final question to ask, with the answer meant for us all, as Americans living in this land.

We need to ask the continuing patience of religious believers in this question, to help us all find an answer to this question -- an answer for atheists, agnostics, for any group or non-group accidentally left out here. An answer for all of us, for every American.

Cecil B. DeMille made a lavish production out of the Ten Commandments, naming it just so. You may have seen it.  It remains a huge and visually staggering film, chock-full of indelible imagery from biblical accounts.

By contrast, no production of any sort is planned here -- no theatrics, no rehearsed scripts. This is a simple piece.  In its deepest heart, it asks followers of religions -- Christianity most especially -- for a truce, one long enough to exchange information among believers and those who do not.

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall -- all over the place, on our vehicles, too:  Which Republican candidate in there's getting stranger by the second, what's all that smoke in there obscuring our view? Which world is spinning faster all the time -- the one inside there or out here? Which dreadful candidate has too much spin... or been spun up, wound up too tight?

Why aren't all of them down on hands and knees on these stages, at these so-called debates, searching for their marbles -- clearly, the whole pack of these jesters lost their entire collection, and a long time ago.

We thought we saw something move in our car mirrors as we were parking today -- thought the message on the mirrors was changing:  objects in mirror become more psychotic the longer you look.

This, of course, is all wrong -- that is the job of the big mirror at home, the one we use to read the newspaper in, without having to look directly at the Gorgon pages directly.  When you read it all backwards in there, when the smoke-screen starts to fade away, it's a bit like the Beatles' reversible messages hidden in songs on their LPs.

Hard to tell what is satire or parody in this life, as it does such a smash-up job with its special sweet-sour mash-up all its own.  Life, poker-faced, says it's playing straight with us, dealing from the top of the deck.

We remain fantastically doubtful about that here.  When we absorb our daily ration of information, insipidness, and fear, via newspapers, we hold them up to the mirror and read everything from there. This way, we don't have to look the news in the eye, not directly at it. We avoid the Gorgon's gaze.  Plus, we are embarrassed for the news,  at all the sludge and drivel in there.  We handle newspapers with metal tongs, so we don't get any on us.

Car mirrors have legally insisted to all passengers and interested passersby, desperate for reading material, objects in mirror are closer than they appear.  They try to remind us, this nearly inconspicuous, almost invisible image in the view, that being seen smaller in there doesn't necessarily equate to being further away, out here.

No mirror so far observed carries warnings or alerts about smoke being wielded in there, by professionals sent to distract us by way of politicians, corporations, or religions, to name only a few possible sponsors sent to trick our looking and seeing, trying to put off our few visions with unending illusion.