The only difference between McDonalds customers and the dinner crowd is that the latter dine on tablecloths. The powerful are as likely to be as portly as the plebes.

The only reality of the theater exists in the mind of the audience.

The pledge says 'I won't smoke in the high school and I won't smoke on school grounds. The last part says I will try by my actions to be a positive influence and help my friends so they don't smoke.

The perception could be that that relationship would influence the outcome of this transaction. It's one thing to lobby, where you represent a client, but you're not involved in the decision-making process. It's another thing when you ... can impact someone you have a business relationship with.

The positive energy and the overall tone of this event are almost euphoric, ... To have 2,400 people collectively engaged in an act of goodness like this restores one's faith in humanity. Indeed, this demonstrated capacity for altruism challenges the notion that it is always about self-interest.