Rumor and Reality

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There's a saying I once heard somewhere to the effect that "a lie can travel half-way 'round the world before truth can get its pants on." Or maybe it was shoes, or boots, and all the way 'round the world (or six times 'round the world) -- I've seen it attributed to Winston Churchill, and to Mark Twain, and even to James Watt (remember him?), but the basic truthfulness of the proverb doesn't really depend much upon who first said it, or how quickly falsehoods travel, or even what Truth is or is not wearing. The rumors start, the gossip flows, and the next thing you know, everyone you meet knows something that just isn't true, and the best one can do is to try to correct it every time we hear it, and to hope that once the Truth is fully dressed it will eventually catch up with the lie and beat the crap out of it.

In the meantime though, I find it best to take everything I hear with at least a small grain of salt, and to try not to repeat gossip EVER, even when I KNOW it's true but also nobody's business. Which is the other issue, of course -- that the lies somehow always seem to be a little more racy, and titillating, and scandalous, than the plain, unadorned truth ever can be. Which is one of the BIG problems with news as entertainment, and the whole market-driven metaphor of the meaning of life, which has us pursuing happiness as quickly as we can commodify it, and package it for retail delivery.

Anyway, if you're waiting now for some big revelation about me, sorry to disappoint you. So far as I know, things are relatively quiet on this front in my life at the moment, although they certainly haven't always been that way. I can't even recall all of the strange things I've heard second-hand have been said about me (supposedly) behind my back over the years -- frankly, don't want to either. They were nothing but lies to begin with, the people who originated them were liars, and those who repeated them were not much better. "Lying, slime-eating, scum-sucking sons-of-bitches" one of my more venerable colleagues would have called them, although I think "Christ-hating" fit somewhere into that description as well.

Meanwhile, honesty, integrity, humility, truthfulness, trustworthiness, compassion, gratitude, generosity, fidelity, service, and so many other "old-fashioned" classical/Christian virtues (including honor, duty, and sacrifice): these are the values that allow Truth to put lies and liars in their place. Which is also why the worst lies of all are those which cynically insult those values in the process of spreading their own falsehood. But now I sense myself in danger of turning this into a full-blown rant. When actually I'm just a little annoyed by the bizarre treatment being given our new "Commander in Leash," and the legitimacy of his credentials as a "rescue" dog. I mean, really people... Really.

According to The Daily Show's Jon Stewart, "Bo" Obama is America's first openly gay First Dog.

But apparently he still likes a good romp through the Halls of Power, just like any other dog would.