The Stain of Lies

Today, as I am typing this post, Mr. Michael Cohen is testifying before the Congress in the very mediatic case of the investigations into Mr. Trump's. Many are rising for and against Mr. Cohen or his words. One of the things that stand out is Mr. Cohen's record at lying. The long list of things he did on personal title or on behalf of others is long like the Amazonas river, and now, as he reverts course, it seems that all the falsehoods he had said and attested to are not only catching up with him, but down right running over him. People who once seemed to partner with him or support him and his word, are now turning against him viciously.

Then again, let's remember that Mr. Cohen isn't the only one with a record of lying. Hardly anyone from the Trump entourage can be exempted from the lying. And, just to point this out, is the people that benefited from his confirmed lying the ones that are calling harder against him and the credibility of his word. It's not only a case of "the pot calling the kettle black", but an ugly reminder of how a system that has lies at its base attacks those that change their tune.

Now, that's... well, I won't call it "politics" because I'm an idealist and I believe that true politics do not mean by default "corruption". Politics isn't equal to corruption, just like business isn't equal to corruption either. The thing that got me thinking, however, was the fragile nature of credibility.

I've met a lot of people who deal in lies. If you've been reading my blog, you have probably read a couple of my rants about people I know who have lied. I'm sure you have probably also met people who lied, and lied a lot. First of all, it's important to note that we all lie. The idea of a completely honest person is a fiction: nobody is exempt of lying. Since we all tend to lie in different degrees, the practice of offering proof for what we say, back our words with evidence is also common. The problem comes when someone lies constantly, or lies on very big issues with frequency, or lies about everything - major or minor - and even lies in the face of the truth.

The issue here is that we tend to believe people - even though we know that people may lie to us - because we do believe that people will be inclined to tell us the truth. No, not everybody believes at first, but most of us do - thus the effectivity of fraudulent actions. However, when we realize that someone lies to us, that bubble of credibility breaks and suddenly we meet their words with suspition.

There are extreme cases where someone lies to us - be it a person or an organization - but time and time again we choose to believe them. Think here of religious institutions, community leaders, political parties, significant others. When we are tied to someone or something and we develop a dependant relationship, we might choose to believe because we can't afford not to. However, I believe that even in this situation, once lies are uncovered, credibility chips away, and we get more sensible to recognize and react to further lies. Think here, for instance, of the person that finds out their significant other has cheated on them. They may stay together, the person might choose to believe that it was a mistake and it won't happen again, but from then on, they will remain suspitious of any other possible chance.

However, not all cases are that extreme, and when a person has lied, and lied in the face of the truth, can they regain their credibility? If they speak the truth and back that truth with evidence - say, truly unquestionable, solid evidence - is that enough to repair their credibility?

I find here Mr. Cohen a case of study. Yes, we see a man repentant, a man that now speaks up - as he had before - but this time claims to speak with the truth and brings (some) evidence to back up his words. Even if he proves to be true, even if all of his words are confirmed, will that be enough to regain his trustworthiness?

In my experience, for me, that's not enough. Sadly, credibility is a delicate asset that once lost is lost forever. A lifetime of lying and cheating can hardly be revoked, erased, by a tell-all intensive marathon. He might tell the truth, but now are not his words what have meaning, but the evidence he has to support his devaluated words. From here on, as he speaks, the cloud of the lies he has spun will hang over his head and he will be forced to back up all of his claims, and even his back up will need back up so that his words can stand.

Yes, we all lie. We lie most often about stupid things, like if we really kept the diet as we should have, how much exercise we actually did, how much do we really drink. We lie about stupid things like who we like and who we don't like, how often do we brush our teeth or  - and this is the most common - how ahead in our work/study/project are we. Lying about how many chapters have we really read of the book we are supposed to finish by tomorrow, or how many guilty pleasure books/movies/food/video games do we really consume do not chip away from our credibility. Lying about big things does, and those lies eventually come back at us.

Can we recover from a life of mistakes and lying? Let's keep an eye on the notable Mr. Cohen, see how forgiving our society is with those that take our shared sins to a higher ground.

Atheists Reacting to Super-Christians

I call them Super Christians not because they have super powers, but because they go far and beyond, and I recently read that people of the Jewish faith take it to heart when non Jewish people throw around the term "pharisee" as a way to point out that someone is way too wrapped up into religion and behaves in a visibly hypocritical and holier-than-thou fashion.

Source: Dear Mr Atheist YouTube

So, the thing is that I've been watching Dear Mr Atheist's channel on You Tube, which I find very entertaining. Mr Atheist makes mostly reaction videos to videos posted on christian channels, and most of the ones I've watched are reactions to a famous christian channel hosted by two christian sisters called "Girl Defined". The channel of these women has a happy, chirp kind of tone, and seems to seek to attend to the questions of young women living within an overzealous christian community. If you've ever attended christian churches - particularly the evangelical types - you surely have run into this type of person: the ones that look so perfect, like they have attained that elusive godly status that seems to elude you, normal, regular, daily life mortal ("sinner", in christian parlance). Some of the topics they raise - what I know of them, as I clearly, have only seen what critics post and share, so there might be a score of other videos that are much more muted, soft and helpful - are seriously troubling, or eyebrow raising, like one about whether godly woman should or should not wear make up.

Source: Google Images

In general, from what I gather, the sisters follow a way of presenting their topics and arguments that relies on dizzying the viewer into loosing sight of the actual topic, to then concoct a message that doesn't actually reply the bait topic, makes it look like it replies a big question AND disguises harebrained life rules as easy-peasy godly solutions. Rather dangerous, if you ask me, to feed these "advises", specially to an audience with little discerning capabilities, or enough information from alternative sources.

Anyway, today the topic was "Six Types of Men You Shouldn't Date, Court or Marry". My first question was "who the hell 'courts' in these days?". But then again, I'm the same person who, upon hearing in a song lyric the phrase "save me from Hell" wondered who would ever want to be saved from Hell. So yeah, my wonderings about what people do or don't do, or want or wouldn't want might not necessarily need to be taken as guides to judge human behavior. Anyway, the sisters go into a listing of the types of men you should cross out of your list, and Mr Atheist dutifully addressed each of them, but still, there were things that needed to be said, or needed to be further commented, in my opinion. I don't remember all the types but they included Mr Talk, Mr Anger, Mr Pressure, Mr Struggle, Mr Obssessed and Mr Unsaved. Already the designation of "Mr" made me cringe. There's something kind of bothersome about they defining themselves as girls and refering to men they would date, court or marry as Mr. Sure, it might only be my impression, but this screams to me of pedophilia in the worse case scenario, or a misogynistic scenario were men are always portrayed as superior to women, in command, knowledgeable, responsible, while women are perpetual children in constant need of guideance. The Mr-girl relationship mentally created automatically place women at disadvantage: they are faving something bigger and stronger than what they are.

There is also the cautionary note that has not been added by our critic, where the viewers - all of them imagined as "girls" - are not asked not to fall into the same type of behavior that is not desired of their potential male partners. (There is no mention of Ms Talk, Ms Anger, Ms Pressure, Ms Struggle, Ms Obssessed or Ms Unsaved).

So, the point of all the types basically boils down to christian men that are not as crazily church obssessed as these sisters claim themselves to be. I say claim because I am personally not witness to their churchgoing habits. The types go from the guy that pretends to be an overzealous christian but probably is more of a generic church going believer or so - going through the type that desires more than the clean-cut, super-religious courting kind of relationship, to the last type: the Unsaved. The problem with all the first five types is basically that these guys don't put God first and foremost in their lives. Now, actually, from the signs these women give you as indications, you can't know that. From the many stories of abuse that surface from the Church, we can certainly say that the outwordly image of holines and dedication can cover up a rotten, currupted heart. We can also assume that a subdued, silent exterior can cover a deeply faith commited heart. In other words, the external signs - such as Bible reading, church going, participating in different ministries does not really reflect how a person actually related to their Divine entity, or how deeply and involved a person might be to follow their faith.

This also speaks about what people perceive as their faith, their god or gods and the path of their religious beliefs. Two christian people, claiming to believe in the same God, might have strikingly different personal faiths. One might believe God and his path might lie in the Bible and the strict interpretation of the preachers of their church, while the other might believe that God being good, his religious path lies in the way of being good and helpful and loving to others. And both being christians and being convinced of being good christians might believe the other is dead wrong.

Girl Defined's list mostly show their personal preferences, but they mask it as guidelines inspired by faith.

The last category - the Unsaved - covers every single guy that's not christian. For them, the sisters didn't even go into explaining the type: if he's not christian, it's an automatic NO. No matter his good qualities: not a christian, not an option. Wow, there goes christian piety, and there goes Jesus' lesson about the good Samaritan and him taking to all the outcasts. At one point one of the sisters actually claim that the Bible says so: not date-court-marry the non-Christian. Ok, where does it say so? Can you give us chapter and verse? More so, since the Bible is full of Jewish rules, laws and customes, a direct quote from Jesus would be needed in this case to make the rule stick.

I have not read the Bible (in full), but I kind of sure it doesn't say so. (Jewish people might not marry non-Jewish people, but such a rule might not apply to christians, as many inter-religious marriages show it). However, it's sad how these women are suggesting to their audience to cut off their lives people that think differently, that see the world differently and that could add to their lives. Thankfully there are plenty generic christians out there whose faith isn't so fragile as to be shattered by the smile of a non-christian person. People who are so confident in their own system of believes as to happily engage in a friendship, a romantic relationship with someone who's faith is different, and not feel threatened by it.

However, to the Defined Sisters that refuse to take upon adulthood, I have good news: I doubt any Unsaved, be it boy, guy, man, Mister, Goodman, simple person, Miss, Mistress, girl or woman, would not be interested in a godly girl or guy, but will probably run as fast as their feet can take them in the opposite direction... and probably not stop until they have crossed the border (another reason why Trump's wall can't be erected: the Unsaved need to flee the Godly).

Aimless Rambling

I actually opened this blogging window with one idea for a post, but as it opened, it just *puff* went up into smoke. Has that ever happened to you? Please say yes, so I don't feel like such a weirdo. Well, you won't actually say anything to me (which I appreciate) because - truth to be told - when someone I don't know comments my posts, it usually makes me panic at first. Weird, right? Yeah, let's state the obvious - the OTHER obvious, not that one -: I actually relate to this blog as a sort of "more public" journal, and so - even if I know that it has a moderate reading audience (mostly penpals of mine, to whom I already tell just about everything about my life), I feel safe in here. It's a contradiction, I know: I like to share, but I don't like to be seen.

One thing I've been trying to implement more often is to record those "great ideas" - which are more often than not a linking of ideas in my case - before they go missing from my head. This is how I've managed to record on my phone a grand total of ONE note about a topic for a potential blogpost. How comes that's where I stand on this front? I've opted to record instead of writing it down, because when these ideas come to me, I'm usually unable to write because a) I'm doing some exercise, b) I'm driving, c) I'm on the street and can't just break my notebook, a pen and write the idea down. My phone is supposed to be at hand, but still... only one idea recorded so far.

Source: Woman

Anyway, checking my newspaper mail in the morning, along with my trusty cup of freshly brewed and French pressed Pike Place coffee (two scoops of coffee per cup, no sugar, no cream, no milk), I found in Le Figaro's (Le Monde stopped sending free news mail, so there you go, my fancophone nourisment comes from Le Figaro) daily an article about the rising importance of shoes in fashion. Now, I must have fallen through a timeloop, because as far as I know, shoes have always been the unquestionable queens of fashion. I mean, has Carrie Bradshaw's legacy been so easily forgotten? My money is on "no". I'm not a big shoe collector... or any kind of shoe collector at all, to be honest. And yes, there has been a raise in the importance of bags, specially if we turn our attention to creations such as Nicole Lee, Prada, Louis Vuiton and Kate Spade (whose early departure will always be sorely missed). But have bags ever deplaced shoes from their glorified stand?

According to the article, though the accesory industry is experimenting a contraction, shoes are reigning supreme and rising, dethroning the bags and claiming their place as the center of fashion and the pièce de résistance of fashion. A lady's daily dressing routine is described as chosing the shoes first and the rest around it, while the bag - the deposed queen - is relegated to oblivion, while said lady packs all her belongings into her pockets. At this point I need to stop because, how can anyone pack all their belongings DAILY in their pockets? I mean, sure, I can do that when I go out and all I need are my keys, my phone and my wallet, but on daily basis? Nope, that doesn't work for me.

Anyway, aside from the deplacement of the bags, the article also notices the change in the trend of shoes, with a new goal towards comfort. More sneakers - though those for the Millenials - and comfortable heels. Ok, I must admit that I'm still hung on the bag thing, but the idea of the comfortable shoes coming into trend are something I like, though I'll wait to see if they really come through.

Source: Catawiki

You see, for a working person, sneakers can be as fashionable and trendy as you want (both words mean the same, in case you wonder, and yes, I did that on purpose), but still, office workers are relegated to their usual choice of shoes: ugly, flat, spade shaped, long nosed contraptions for men, and clicking heels or mocasines for women. I'm a bit of a rebel, with my black combats (neatly tucked under my legwarmers, pant legs or long skirts). That, or my trusty Vagabond boots, which I have already worn so much the leather seems to be getting discolored beyond my hability to repair it. My taste in shoes has probably been shaped in the 90's, when the idea of comfort was also important in shoes, though our general standing was picking fight boots, shoes that would take the beating while we carried on our revolutions. We preferred clunky boots to stiled shoes, something in which we could jump, run, march, climb. Something that would hold, that would get more precious with the aging, with the scraps and discoloring. It was also a type of comfort to have shoes that do not demand more attention from us that a puppy.

I don't follow much fashion (obviously), but I'm glad to see that every once in a while, comfort comes forth as an element that needs to be calculated into it. I remain skeptical, though, for I've seen many "comfy" options that are either impracticable for the working class, unattainable for the middle class or just called "comfy" while they remain incomfortable contraptions in which no sane human being could ever relax or feel at ease.

As for the bags - because, really, I can't let go of that topic - shoes could be climbing to the limelight and all that, BUT bags will always remain an eternal feature. Not only because they tend to be more visible than shoes, but because their function is undeniable and nearly irreplacable, but also because in a world populated by vloggers and curious people, videos about "what's in my bag" will sure keep drawing views, while... can you shoot that with a shoe? Sorry dear, we don't want to see you unpack your Stella Lunas.

"I don't know if you are a believer"

The fourth diploma is finally getting started on the last mile - meaning the thesis has already been officially started - and as part of it, I had my first meeting with the thesis tutor. It was a curious thing, because she choose to do the meeting via Skype - which she can record - something I found odd, truth to be told - and... well, it was a little difficult to get to work. I don't know your experience, but Skype being Skype, it usually offers more troubles than solutions.

My topic is something I have worked with a lot at my job, and something on which I can confidently say, I am one of the handful of people in the country that actually knows what are we talking about. Kind of like with the topic of the previous thesis (the one I did for Finance), where my main forte was that I was one of a handful of people with deep knowledge on the subject, in the whole country.

From what I gather of the experience, I have the feeling that we both had a very different view of what the thesis was to be about. As she tried to give me some guidence from her perspective, I felt at loss because it was like she was trying to do the work for me, take my topic and give it whatever spin she wanted from it. Then, there was a part I found really improper. To better fit my thesis to the requirements of the University -  to which I am open - not only did she do some suggestions  - to which I am open - but the she ended up the issue telling me that SHE would redact the specific goals and send them to me. I mean, isn't THIS supposed to be MY thesis? She shouldn't be allowed to redact ANYTHING in my thesis. And I want to make it clear that I have not asked her to do this, nor I suggested it, nor she offered it: she stated it. This rubbed me wrong.

I let her talk, listened, watched and kept my cards close to my chest. She did had a couple of really good turns by the end where I thought things could work. And then... she brought her religious views into the conversation. Yes, it could be seen as "she bringing God into the conversation", but let's bring this into its actual matter: people hardly ever talk about a Divine Entity without framing it within their religious frame. So, there she goes, finishing the conversation with "the first thing is to put this in the hands of God, because without Him nothing can't be done -- oh, are you a Believer?". I didn't even got to answer that, but she just went on with it.

As she went on the godly thing, I started thinking about the narrow mindedness of the believer-non believer world view. I am a believer, but I happen not to be a christian believer. I'm a pagan believer. She, however, didn't consider that, and went on her holy extasy as if "believing" means that you follow the christian religious frame... specifically hers. To me, this was uncomfortable and insulting. No, she wasn't bashing my personal beliefs or my religious beliefs directly, but probably she hasn't been exposed to any other religion, but she also got me thinking of the things we mistakenly take for granted. Just because something is meaningful for you, it doesn't mean it is as meaningful - and in the same way - to others. Be it religion, politics, fashion, sports, sometimes it pays better to be cautious, to wait until you get a full answer from the person you are talking to before putting in your two cents. I mean, what would have she done if the situation were reversed, and by the end of the conversation I would have said "Well, I pray to my Gods for illumination and clarity of view on this topic", or if instead of "I'll think about that" I would have said "I'll consult tonight with the spirits"?

We all need to be a little bit more mindful and listen before we jump into conclusions and offer our opinion.