Lies, damn lies, and misstatements

Much political hay is being made about President Obama saying that people could keep their current insurance.  As thousands find that their current insurance is being cancelled, there is a clamor that Obama lied.

Did he really lie?  That is, did he make a statement that he knew with certainty to be untrue?  Or did he make a statement that he believed to be true given the information that he had?

Consider that any leader has to rely on the advice and information provided by hundreds of people.  If that leader had to verify every piece of information he or she was given, would anything ever get done in government or business?

What Obama and his staff had no control over was all the insurance companies deciding it was not in their best interest to have people keep those older policies.  I’ll leave that to historians to figure out who was right or wrong, truthful or deceitful.

Now the shoe is on “the other foot”.  Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey is accused of lying about the deliberate traffic jams caused around Fort Lee by his staff and associates.  He had directly asked some of them if they had any involvement in the situation.  They all said no.

Christie has worked with some of these people for years and has relied on them for good advice.  Should he believe anything differently?  If he was suspicious, how much time should he spend finding out more?  If he did so, how many other things that he should attend to would be ignored.

If Christie was not actively involved in the traffic jams, he did make the mistake of being gleeful about Fort Lee’s problems.  After all, the Democratic mayor did not support him in his reelection.

“I did not have sexual relations with that woman” is probably one of the most infamous lie and even damnedest lie ever made by a U.S. President.  Bill Clinton later backed off that strong denial, but the Republicans jumped with joy over his predicament.  Lots of federal money was spent on this investigation and that investigation and an impeachment.

But the whole mess rings hollow when Republicans have done similar acts and made similar denials.  I wish politicians would spend more time on thoughtful evaluation of laws and policies and less on personal attacks.  What a way to run a country!

Many have criticized President George W. Bush for a long string of lies about Iraq, for example Saddam Hussein’s stockpile of “weapons of mass destruction”. Now, was he just parroting what his advisors were telling him because of their own agendas or was he directly involved in creating these falsehoods?  We may never know.

But I can guess about one misstatement that he made that has become infamous – his advice that in response to the World Trade Center attacks Americans should go shopping. It was a stupid remark, but consider its underlying meaning.  The attacks were meant to disrupt the United States.  If people went about their ordinary business, then the planners of the attack would have failed in their attempt to disrupt the country.  In other words, if we shopped as we normally did, then the country would not have been disrupted as much as planned.

We probably all have experiences of sales people telling us what they think we want to hear, not what we need to know.  Sometimes they withhold details; sometimes they really do lie; and sometimes they divert us.  How often have you heard, “It’s a standard contract”?  In other words, just sign, don’t bother reading it.  Do you wonder why we had a mortgage crisis?

My favorite misdirection was decades ago when we bought a TV in a big box store.  We told the salesman that we liked a particular model, and he replied that he had one in the back room.  Only later did we see that as a ploy to get us to buy on the spot.  Of course he had one in the backroom; he may have also had one dozen.

This whole column is a misdirection to write about an irate phone message I had last week.  The caller was upset that I had spoken badly about Gannucci’s in my column of January 2.  I was flabbergasted!  I meant no such thing!

OK, let’s parse what I wrote to find the irritant.  Remember that I was writing about going to a plant-based diet and doing my best to stick to it.

“Just my luck that every item on the menu had cheese and/or meat.”  Many restaurants have meat, dairy, or eggs in most if not all of their menu choices.

“So I went with a turkey sandwich, figuring that was the leanest meat that I could get.”  I thought that was a neutral statement.  Maybe I should have said the turkey sandwich was delicious.  It was, but is that relevant to that fact that I made a choice?

“The organizers of the monthly social plan to go back in January.  I think I better call ahead to Gannucci’s.”  If I want to join the group and would like to avoid meat, dairy, and eggs, I should ask the restaurant in advance if they have any alternatives.  If not, maybe I’ll have a turkey sandwich again.  I am a vegan not because I object to turkeys having their heads cut off but because I don’t like what the turkeys might do to me.

This was also published in the Duluth Reader, 2013-01-16 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/01/16/2766_lies_damn_lies_and_misstatements

Commerce without connection

"Historians will tell you that nothing changed the American retail experience in the 20th century more than the shopping mall. Once developers clustered hundreds of stores in a single place (with ample parking), the American Main Street all but disappeared. People stopped seeing each other in the center of town. They felt less connected to their community — certainly less connected to its businesses."

Mitch Albom, Duluth News Tribune 2013-04-08

This quote was in "'Just browsing' may become a memory" also published on his website on 2013-03-31.

His article is on how the shopping on the web is changing our shopping habits as much as or even more than the shopping malls changed our shopping habits.

I grew up walking or taking a street car or bus almost everywhere I went.  At one place we lived there were three locally-owned groceries on our block and two store-front chains a bit farther.  At another place we lived there were three locally-owned drug stores in walking distance.

Now almost everything is chains.  The only locally-owned stores are restaurants, bottle shops, hardware stores, and some gas stations.  I really appreciate the few of these places where I can walk in, know the names of the people behind the counter, and be known by them.

An open day to catch up, but I'd rather do nothing

Here I sit, in our house in Duluth during a blizzard.  I had planned to go skiing today, but even before the snow started, I decided that Spirit Mt. wouldn't be open because of the wind.  I thought of doing some shopping, but driving is not recommended.

I did go out for the papers this morning and that was a bit of a struggle – bare sidewalk and then shin-high drifts.  There was only one car at the restaurant where the paper boxes are, and I had breakfast there to give them a bit of business.  I had planned to go tomorrow.   A few more people came in, but the restaurant was short-staffed because of the blizzard and it closed at nine.

When I came back home it was into the wind.  To keep my hat on, I had to look at the ground in front of me.  To get up the steps from the sidewalk I had to pull myself up with the handrail because of the drifts.  And I had to struggle to get the front door open because of another drift.

I thought of going to the fitness center because the buses were running, but did I really want to battle my way to the corner again?

Some of the heroes today are those who put the papers in the boxes, the bus drivers, the restaurant staff, and our mail carrier.  She or her sub came by far earlier than I expected, and our box let in a lot of snow.  At least there were no soaking checks or blurred ink.  Another hero is the person who went down the block struggling with a snowblower.  Unless he has somewhere to go, I don't see the point; the continuing snow and the gusting wind will soon fill the path up again.

It was fortunate that my wife had chosen yesterday to go to Tokyo to visit our son and his family.  The same flight out of Duluth today was cancelled.  Even then, her flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Tokyo was delayed because of snow.

My lunch was rather makeshift because I was going to buy some of the stuff I had planned to eat.  So I had to pick and choose stuff out of the refrigerator that I wouldn't normally eat for lunch, like yogurt and peanut butter.

So, here I sit with a pile of stuff on my left to file or throw out and a similar pile on my right.  I could download Turbo Tax and get started on taxes.  I could clear up my backlog of email.  I could practice singing.  I could read any of the five, six, or seven books I've started.  I could even start a fire in the fireplace and sit all afternoon reading.  But I just flit from one little thing to another.  I read a bit of one newspaper or other online. I play a bit of SuDoKu.

Instead I stare at the screen or I try to look out the snow-covered window to see if the storm has abated.  I really can't see if it is still snowing without going right up to a window and looking out through a "clearer" spot.  I do know the wind is still blowing.

I do get in some of my physical therapy exercises for my sore shoulder, but that only takes five minutes or so.

I could drink our last bottle of wine, but I would only get woozy and sick.

Maybe I will light a fire and then finish "Il Compagno Don Camillo" and then reread "Comrade Don Camillo" to see how much of the Italian I understood.  I do get the larger picture, but I know I'm missing lots of nuance.  Well, maybe not lots.  I do know that compagno Don Camillo doesn't miss any chance to use Communist doctrine to point up inconsistencies in Soviet practice.

That's what I need.  A good chuckle!  Ciao!