Fish for Friday

The article "Paul Ryan’s marathon puffery matters less than his convention whopper" seems to fit nicely with some of Ken Marks's points about politicians. [personal communication; excerpts from the article:]

What troubles me far more about Ryan’s honesty [than his exaggerating his marathon-running time] is the story he told last Wednesday night in his convention acceptance speech about the closing of the General Motors plant in his hometown of Janesville. The VP nominee linked a 2008 Obama campaign speech in Janesville expressing the hope that the factory would last for a century with GM shuttering the plant within a year. The obvious implication was that Obama’s economic policies as president led to laid-off factory workers in Ryan’s home town.
    There was one problem: The time sequence proves nothing of the sort....
    Truth-telling does matter in political campaigns, even if “fact” has become a subset of “spin.” Athletes might occasionally exaggerate their exploits to impress listeners, but it requires a different form of hypocrisy knowingly to tell a whopper about your home town in the biggest speech of your political career.

Levity is not permitted if it concerns Obama's birth certificate or Bain Capital or Swiss bank accounts.
     There are many things that divide us. However, we can't really debate these things anymore, can we? Because Our Side is as pure as new snow, and Their Side has hearts of darkness.
     We all do it. Our guts choose a candidate. Then our brains look for confirmation, and helpfully screen out anything that disagrees with us. [from a letter to a local newspaper]

Thanks for suggesting that my health might improve if I exercised more (and for not brow-beating me about it, which I would hate). I have, in fact, started taking long walks. Gentle prompting probably works better for most people than strong urging. Ever heard of the folk tale in which the sun and the wind wager to see which can get a man to remove his coat? The sun, of course, won.
     Aaahhh...the old sun and the wind fable, eh? Did you ever hear the one about the beggar at an intersection who meekly asked, and received very little, and the man who poked a shotgun in a car window and got all the cash, and the car?
     Ooh, good one! But you weren't just coming back for the sake of humor, but for the profound truth involved, right?
     Yes, it is a profound truth that people react much more quickly to the demands of a person with a gun than to the begging of someone who is unarmed. [personal communication]