The Art Of The Lie

If there is one troubling aspect to popular culture in this new age, it is spin, or as I so fondly call it, the "art of the lie." Now, spin is not a new concept; it is as old as recorded history. It is the victors who write the history books, and the victors will always cast themselves in the most positive light. Manifest destiny, superiority of talent or morality, divine intervention -- the reasons for their victory are always of the highest order.

Mind you, the vanquished often find a way to have their say, in one fashion or another, especially when they turn the tables on the original victors and are themselves victorious. They then proceed to drag the newly vanquished through the mud while expounding upon their own virtues in the very same tones. And so this dance continues its endless cycle, the truth being trampled beneath heedless feet. It is very rare that anyone can stand aside from the maelstrom and pick out the roots of the truth, but every so often a historian gives us a critical look at events to the best of their ability, and perhaps we learn something of it.

My implication is not that honesty is dead. If it were, civilization would have broken down completely by now. No, it is not dead, but it may not be feeling well and is no doubt desirous of a trip to the nearest medical facility for a check-up. The dance of spin has ground upon it for so long that the truth's bones are beginning to ache.

There is no incentive in telling the truth. If the truth you have to tell is painful, no one wants to hear it. If the truth is damaging to your reputation, you wish to minimize the effect. If the truth is embarrassing, you wish to avoid anyone finding out, lest they use it for their own purposes. If the truth brands you a criminal, you would rather hide behind lies and hope you can tell enough of them sincerely enough that people will believe you.

Part of that is our own fault. Whatever the aroused and enraged mob may want us to believe, their cries of "Tell us the truth!" ring hollow, for they do not actually want to hear it. The truth, far from setting them free, would imprison them in cages of their own guilt, forged by their own hands and actions. They would be forced to confront the stain upon their own souls and admit that they are less than the people they claim to be. How can we be fine, upstanding citizens, if we are not fine, upstanding citizens?

Of course, that's the point: honesty is its own reward. It is the lever the raises one above the crowd, setting you slightly higher. If you are honest, if you accept the blame that is yours, if your apology comes from the heart, then whatever the transgression, you sink far less into the mire of iniquity than if you seek to protect yourself and your reputation at all costs. It is more laudable to commit an unsavory act and stand up to be counted, than to do so and hide behind a web of lies.

And yet, in the news right now, there are unrepentant transgressors who, rather than making quick, clean work of their obvious mistakes, seek to minimize them, to claim that all is not as it appears, that others had a hand in it, that they were merely foolish or stupid. If they lack sincerity, it is because they have sought the counsel of those who make a living of taking the truth out back, roughing it up, painting it a different color, and pretending it is out of town. They ask others to come in and shape the truth for them, crafting something which sounds a lot like the truth, a lot like an apology, but lacks for substance and for coherence. They stage-manage their "truth," to put it in the best possible light, then dole it out to the teeming throng and walk away satisfied that they have quelled suspicion.

And yet... the taste of spin is such that this pre-packaged and processed version of the truth is unpalatable and hard to swallow. For some, it won't be touched, or if touched, will be vomited back up, marked as the hypocrisy it is. The vast majority will choke it down. It will sit within them and cause unsettling pain, but they will keep it down and eventually the pain will pass and so will their discomfort.

Sadly, for a great many people, spin is getting easier to swallow.

Why The Problem With Equality?

All things being equal...

That's an interesting turn of phrase, because in most cases, we apply the maxim that all things are not equal in the first place. What does it mean, precisely, for two or more items to be equal? If we turn to mathematics as our guide, then equivalence is stated as the values on both sides of an equation carrying the same value, e.g. 3 + 2 = 5, because both sides are equivalent to 5. I know, that's a simplification, but for purposes of illustration, it's all we need.

For in mathematics, equality is a given. Though the numbers on both sides of the equal sign are different, their intrinsic value (after operations) is the same. And one 3 or 2 is as good as any other 3 or 2, and can even be broken down further. You can make both sides of an equation as complex as you like, and in the end, if the value each equation reduces to is the same, they are equivalent.

People are not numbers, nor are they quantifiable as such. The complexity of mind and body is not reducible in the way arithmetic equations are. You cannot be summed up as a single value, though many people will try (credit agencies, MENSA, numerologists). Furthermore, logic dictates that you cannot be compared to someone else on the basis of a single value if one does not exist.

The logic may be irrefutable, but that has not stopped people for eons untold from attempting to paint others with just that kind of singular, and myopic, stroke of the brush. Take any current aspect of humanity, whether it be the obvious (skin color) or the subtle (religious faith), and an inordinate amount of effort is spent trying to quantify, and thereby catalog, those differences in such a way as to give one group a higher value than another. White trumps Black. Man trumps Woman. Catholic trumps Jew trumps Muslim.

That is not to say that there are no differences between individuals -- far from it. As is so often written, we are no more alike than snowflakes, given where we live, from whom we descended, how our genes were expressed, and under what conditions we were raised. More than six billion of us, and we are bundles of minute variations, and yet those variations, at the heart of it, are controlled by physical and chemical processes that operate on a universal scale. We are built of the same types of atoms, using the same chemicals and their reactions, controlled by the same system, DNA. We are all the same under the hood.

It is the superficiality of our differences and the essence of our humanity, that makes the constant striving against equality between people an enigma. If we can be trained to see other people as different from us in some way, we can also be trained to see them as exactly the same. This does not necessitate disposing of the differences between us, only disposing of the acceptance of these differences as some absolute, some quantity that forever holds each of us in a certain place in the natural order. Unlike the elements of the Periodic Table, we are not so easily pigeon-holed, nor should we be. It is not enough to identify ourselves as belonging to some group, unless we also admit to the fact that we are part of a greater group: humanity. If we can train ourselves to look past the glassy surface to the cool, deep waters beneath, we will see more than water, but life. If we can accept that our differences separate us in name only, but not in common fellowship, perhaps we can learn to live and work together towards the betterment of all humanity.

A human can dream, can't he?

Calm, Peace, and Tranquility, People!

Take a deep breath.

Now take another.

And another.

Repeat.

President Obama has been in office a little over a week now. No, he has not single-handedly stopped global warming. He did not walk into Gaza and cause both sides to stop shooting at each other. He has not melted Vladimir Putin's icy heart. He has yet to eradicate poverty, hunger, and disease. The economy remains broken for the time being.

Hence the grousing.

The grumbling, a low, inaudible rumble that permeates the news and the Internet, is brought about by myriad things. Many groups who supported Obama, put their hopes on his Presidency, literally willing him into office, are finding it easy to complain that he has not addressed their issues immediately or with enough dispatch. Others are complaining that he is too eagerly running roughshod over President Bush's policies, without giving them due consideration, in attempt to castigate him in some way as he ambles into retirement. Some are questioning his tactics, sitting down with Republicans, listening to their concerns and trying to get them on board with his economic stimulus package, even though it would pass the House and Senate without them.

Oh, and he angered The Vatican. In his first week!

Our President is a busy man. He has a lot on his plate. The economy, unemployment, and job creation are his highest priorities, for obvious reasons. He has a full slate of agenda items for dealing with a great number of missteps, miscalculations, and just plain bad governance left over from the previous administration. He made a number of campaign promises and he's going to try and live up to them.

In a word: patience. It's been a busy 7 days -- there are quite a few more days ahead. Let the administration go to work, and we'll check back at the 100 day mark to see how he's done. He might just surprise everyone.

The Fire

Today marks a sad anniversary for anyone who is a NASA aficionado, as I am. On this date in 1967, during a routine test that marked the start of manned Apollo missions, fire swept through the Apollo 1 command module, killing the three astronauts inside: Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. At the time of the fire, the capsule was pressured at sea level pressure with 100% pure oxygen. While the cause was never completely confirmed, a review board determined that a spark from a faulty wire may have ignited the fire, which, under the environment at the time, caused the capsule to be filled with flames. The crew were not incinerated by the flames, but the toxic gases released in the brief interval of the fire caused all three men to be asphyxiated. The reason the men could not escape the capsule at the inception of the fire, was that the spacecraft hatch did not have explosive latches as other previous hatches. In what can only be considered irony, this was due in part to an experience Gus Grissom had at the end of his Mercury flight, where the hatch blew prematurely upon the capsule landing in the water, causing it to sink, and almost taking Grissom to a watery grave.

Within NASA, the event would simply be come to known as "The Fire," and it marked a turning-point in the race to get to the Moon. For the first time, astronauts had lost their lives during actual operations. The seeming invincibility of these men and the Apollo program as a whole was dashed. Through a single event, the danger of spaceflight was driven home.

The luster of Mankind's accomplishment in conquering the distance between the Earth and the Moon is slowly becoming lost to history. Even now plans are being hatched for a return, but given the uncertain economic times, there is no guarantee that this renewed effort will be forthcoming. It is sad to think that we may not return to the Moon until after the last of the original Moonwalkers has passed. Sadder still that the contributions of men like Grissom, White, and Chaffee, and their heroic efforts, are completely forgotten. Think what you will of the "race to the Moon" and all that went into it, but even if you felt it vainglorious and wasteful, do not hesitate to mourn these men and the sacrifice they made for Mankind. We are poorer for their passing, but richer for their dedication and their adventurous spirit.

We Must Cry For Caylee

My three-year-old daughter was home Tuesday, sick, watching the Inaugural with my wife. It struck me that at her age, 40 years beforehand, I too had been before a TV with my parents, watching a momentous event: Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon. I marvelled at the resonance, and the fact that as I grew up in world when men had set foot on another celestial body, she would grow up in a world where it would be possible for her to be President someday, now that the barrier to that office has been shattered.

Of course, as much as my daughter delights me and makes me humble, she also upsets me and often does things I wish she wouldn't. Of late, she has kept me up at night, and interrupted my sleep, which I do not seem to get enough of. I have been curt and cross with her lately, despite my best intentions as her father. But as angry as I sometimes get, when she behaves badly, it never occurs to me that my life would be anything but worse without her.

So, reading today about the current evidence in the Caylee Anthony murder investigation, I was stunned. Admittedly, I find the thought that someone murdered this beautiful young child abhorrent, but the new information just released to the public leads me to believe the murder was the act of a psychotic mind. To hear that the poor girl had been gagged with duct tape, and then her captor had apparently placed a heart-shaped sticker on the gag, was mind-wrenching. It is one thing to murder an innocent child, quite another to do it so calculated a fashion.

Caylee's poor life was snuffed out, not in some random act of violence, which is all too common, but in an act of premeditated and selfish destruction. It takes a complete self-absorption and cold resolve to so callously kill a child.

I do not know if Caylee's mother did this or not. If she didn't, I'm sorry for what she went through. If she did, I can only hope that she is consumed in the fiery pits of an other-worldly hell. To kill a child is bad enough, but to kill your child is a sin from which there can be no redemption.

And so I will cry for Caylee, as we all must, we who value the precious life of children. Tonight I will go home, pick my daughter up, hold her very tightly, and tell her how much I love her. I will revel in that feeling. I will try to let it seep through my skin. I will never forget it. And inside, in a small corner of my heart, I will share that feeling with a poor girl who will never know it again.