It's spring! The time of year to be alive in Austin. Evan and I went for a bike ride yesterday after dinner. We stopped at Rosedale School and he ended up hanging from the monkey bars.
"Daddy - the world looks upside down. It's amazing"
He stayed like that for several minutes, savoring the strange perspective. I remembered doing that when I was a kid. If you haven't tried it recently, stand up, bend over, tuck your head between your knees and look around. Normal Everyday World looks like Amazing Upside Down World.
A couple of nights ago, I told Evan to brush his teeth in preparation for bed. He returned very quickly and said he was done.
"Let's smell your breath"
"Oh - I forgot to brush my teeth"
And he ran back upstairs and returned two minutes later with minty breath and sparkling teeth. He had lied, but then had the grace to look guilty and confused. Once discovered, he took care of business. When I was his age I was the recipient of a glass of steaming Bournvita milk once in the morning and then again in the evening (we were a Bournvita or a Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate family. Many friends were Horlicks people. Some outliers were Complan folks). When no one was looking I poured the whole glass down the sink. Every time. I could have given a starving child the gift of nourishment and changed his life. But instead I just lied and poured. I told my mother this when I was an adult. She was horrified.
Catching Evan and Vivian lie about their dental hygiene habits forced me to reflect on myself. I mostly lie when it is convenient. Or to stay within the bounds of acceptable behavior. I usually don't lie if it actively gets someone into trouble. Not as a matter of principle, but because such situations rarely arise. If push comes to shove I probably will. But, like Evan, I have the grace to feel guilty about it when caught.
My friend is a good human being and a police officer. Yesterday he reposted a story that was making it's rounds on Blue Lives Matter. A gun store owner had stated that he would never sell Glocks again because the Glock rep said “I have found that most cops lie.” A discussion raged online about whether cops lie, if the Glock rep had actually said that (Glock denied this happened and people that know him vouched that the rep would never say something like that), and if the store owner had made this up. Most people however just read that Glock thinks cops lie.
Which inevitably brings us to Trump. The Atlantic, NYT, Time magazine, LA Times and hundreds of media companies have recently had long stories on Trump's lying nature. Why does his lie so often? To confuse opponents? To gain advantage? Because he truly doesn't know the difference between truth and lies? Theories abound. We'll never know. But interestingly enough, cops, who overwhelmingly voted for him are still concerned whether the Glock rep lied to a store owner about cops who lie.
Is Evan going to try to emulate Honest Abe. Or George Washington's famous (mythical) "I cannot tell a lie". Or have Trump and his voters ushered in an era of openly dishonest discourse? Three decades ago when I proverbially landed on the shores of this country for the very first time, I felt that Americans, more than anyone else I knew, placed a great deal of importance on the truth. Almost naively so. Over time it became one of the things I love about this nation.
But now, it's like Evan's upside down world from the monkey bars. When nothing is based on fact everything is up for grabs.
Even pussies :-)
"Daddy - the world looks upside down. It's amazing"
He stayed like that for several minutes, savoring the strange perspective. I remembered doing that when I was a kid. If you haven't tried it recently, stand up, bend over, tuck your head between your knees and look around. Normal Everyday World looks like Amazing Upside Down World.
A couple of nights ago, I told Evan to brush his teeth in preparation for bed. He returned very quickly and said he was done.
"Let's smell your breath"
"Oh - I forgot to brush my teeth"
And he ran back upstairs and returned two minutes later with minty breath and sparkling teeth. He had lied, but then had the grace to look guilty and confused. Once discovered, he took care of business. When I was his age I was the recipient of a glass of steaming Bournvita milk once in the morning and then again in the evening (we were a Bournvita or a Cadbury's Drinking Chocolate family. Many friends were Horlicks people. Some outliers were Complan folks). When no one was looking I poured the whole glass down the sink. Every time. I could have given a starving child the gift of nourishment and changed his life. But instead I just lied and poured. I told my mother this when I was an adult. She was horrified.
Catching Evan and Vivian lie about their dental hygiene habits forced me to reflect on myself. I mostly lie when it is convenient. Or to stay within the bounds of acceptable behavior. I usually don't lie if it actively gets someone into trouble. Not as a matter of principle, but because such situations rarely arise. If push comes to shove I probably will. But, like Evan, I have the grace to feel guilty about it when caught.
My friend is a good human being and a police officer. Yesterday he reposted a story that was making it's rounds on Blue Lives Matter. A gun store owner had stated that he would never sell Glocks again because the Glock rep said “I have found that most cops lie.” A discussion raged online about whether cops lie, if the Glock rep had actually said that (Glock denied this happened and people that know him vouched that the rep would never say something like that), and if the store owner had made this up. Most people however just read that Glock thinks cops lie.
Which inevitably brings us to Trump. The Atlantic, NYT, Time magazine, LA Times and hundreds of media companies have recently had long stories on Trump's lying nature. Why does his lie so often? To confuse opponents? To gain advantage? Because he truly doesn't know the difference between truth and lies? Theories abound. We'll never know. But interestingly enough, cops, who overwhelmingly voted for him are still concerned whether the Glock rep lied to a store owner about cops who lie.
Is Evan going to try to emulate Honest Abe. Or George Washington's famous (mythical) "I cannot tell a lie". Or have Trump and his voters ushered in an era of openly dishonest discourse? Three decades ago when I proverbially landed on the shores of this country for the very first time, I felt that Americans, more than anyone else I knew, placed a great deal of importance on the truth. Almost naively so. Over time it became one of the things I love about this nation.
But now, it's like Evan's upside down world from the monkey bars. When nothing is based on fact everything is up for grabs.
Even pussies :-)
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