Liar, Liar

Those of you who have been following Illinois politics know that we are very proud to have Obama in the White House and very embarrassed by the mess that resulted from his vacant Senate seat. In short, for anyone who has been out of the country since December, our former governor has been impeached for trying to sell Obama's Senate seat and other egregious acts and lies. Before being booted out of Springfield, former governor Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to the Senate.

Apart from a few ego problems--- naming his children Roland and Rolanda and erecting a huge mausoleum to make sure his various accomplishments are never forgotten come to mind--people were cautiously optimisitic that Burris would be an unexciting but decent Senator.

Today his story is unraveling. Seems that Burris, in spite of assertions to the contrary during his "vetting", is now admitting that he did have conversations with Blagojevich's people and was asked to make campaign donations prior to his Senate appointment. No one is saying (yet) that any bribes were paid, but we are clearly dealing with big lies.

Then there are the small lies. Last night while preparing for dinner at the soup kitchen, my friend Irm (a former teacher) and I witnessed a mom and ten-year-old daughter working on the daughter's math homework while they waited. Irm suddenly shouted in horror, "She's using a calculator!" The real horror, however, came 15 minutes later when I realized that the daughter was now playing with another child while Mom was finishing the math homework--actually writing down the answers! Fortunately for Irm's mental health, she didn't see the latter abomination and I didn't tell her.

This morning at a crack-of-dawn breakfast with still-teaching friends, I related the above incident. Courtney, not to be outdone, told of the mom who called and--no lie---complained "Why did I (I mean Susie) get a B on the paper?"

On a foreign language chat site, AP teachers are trying to figure out ways to thwart students who get translations of novels on line. Meanwhile 1st and 2nd level foreign language teachers are amazed at the linguistic horrors that are turned in by students using electronic translators. They are especially amazed that the students think they can get away with the totally absurdities of the translations.

So, lies and cheating are everywhere. Clearly the above examples are wrong but what about all those things we say all the time: "Sure, no problem." "I'd love to come." "Thank you for the gift. I love it." "I'd love to stay but....."

Interesting that none of the 10 commandments directly says "Thou Shalt Not Lie". I'll have to ask a learned Jewish friend if lying is specified in any of the other 613 Old Testament laws. Maybe God didn't mention lying as an absolute "Thou Shalt Not" because it is such a slippery concept.

But for now, I'll put aside philosophical issues and make it look like I've been doing useful household tasks. Wouldn't want Ken to think I've wiled away an hour posting a blog, would I? Oops, I guess that's lying, huh?