[Part 1 of a 2-part series.]
That’s Dr. House’s line. According to the TV doc, “Liar, liar, pants on fire” applies to everybody. I guess that means we all should carry a fire extinguisher in our back pockets.
What’s up with lying? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately because it keeps coming up in my life:
When I visited my Dad a few weeks ago he told me he couldn’t afford things and wanted me to pay for them. Not true, as I do his taxes and check his bank account. Really creeped me out. Senility or lying going on here?
Two weeks ago a Republican Congresswoman claimed that President Obama’s trip to India was costing the taxpayers a whopping $200 million PER DAY—for a total tab of $2 billion! She read this “in the press” but it wasn’t true. Any lying going on here?
Reminded me what Mark Twain said: “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” And in the age of the Internet, make that “travel around the world a dozen times before truth can find its shoes.”
Last week I read a blog by a popular blogger who said: “The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that meditating is not a high priority.” The biggest? Oh, c’mon. Off the top of my head I can think of dozens of “bigger lies” than one about meditation. Any lying going on here?
Then today, many newspapers ran a story about a new cholesterol drug by Merck called anacetrapib. It’s supposed to be some fantastic miracle cure for heart disease. That’s Merck, the company that paid over $4 billion in settlement claims to 10,000 Americans because its painkiller drug Vioxx caused strokes and heart attacks (and was eventually yanked from the shelves). Any lying going on there?
I could not find a single article that mentioned the side effects of this new cholesterol wonder drug. There are ALWAYS side effects, some of which cause more damage than what the drug is supposed to cure. Any lying going on there?
USA Today’s front page article did mention “some worrisome findings.” From the article: “Eleven people died in the group taking anacetrapib compared with eight taking a placebo.”
But in the first paragraph, USA Today said: “Researchers believe it could become the best weapon against heart disease…has passed a critical test of its safety…”
HUH? More people die taking it than don’t and it’s safe? Any lying going on here?
Today at work I received a resume from a guy who a few years ago stole a job from our company. He screwed up the job so bad his professional license was suspended for two years (maximum penalty) and he had to pay a large fine. Nowhere was this incident mentioned on his resume and the fact that his license will not be valid again until January 2011. Any lying going on here? (Also, any stupidity? Sheesh… did he think we’d forget his unethical behavior?)
But here’s a story involving a lie that really drove me berserk:
Last week in Santa Clara County a man was arraigned on charges that he beat the crap out of another man. The man he pummeled was a retired priest, being shielded by the Catholic Church in a cushy retirement home in the verdant hills of Los Gatos, CA. The man and his brother had been abused by this priest (a known pedophile) when they were 7 and 5 years old at the time. (Really horrific stuff – can’t write it down.)
The Catholic Church had told this man (as a boy and presumably his family, too) that the Catholic Church was not only a “good” organization, but that priests are a good thing, too, as they are representatives of God on earth.
According to church documents, the priest’s pedophila had been going on for twenty years before the priest molested the man and his brother.
Holy Mother of God how much LYING has the Catholic Church done in its lifetime?
It’s beyond a fire extinguisher in its back pocket. The Catholic Church is already engulfed in the flames of HELL on EARTH.
The Catholic Church, the Congress, political parties, political lackeys, government agencies, the POTUS, financial institutions, Big Pharma, Big Business, and MSM: on and on and on—lying.
My point: What’s up with lying? I’m trying to figure it out. To be continued in Part 2.
