Tis the season for the big lie.
Infamous fabricator Stephen Glass is now after a lawyer’s job — off ‘Shattered Glass‘ fame, he made up stories at the New Republic during the late 1990s and was fired, displaying a major-tendency to lie at the drop of a vowel.
Adam Penenberg, who outed Glass as a serial liar (via fastcompany.com): When I first learned of Glass’s quest to join the legal profession, I thought, Christ, it’s been 13 years. And, since when does lying disqualify someone from being a lawyer? Let the guy earn a living. Leave it to Glass to disgrace himself in one mistrusted profession only to apply to another. (Gallup polls consistently rank reporters and lawyers as only slightly more favorable to car salesmen and members of Congress.)

Lying is American as the GOP.

(Illustration found here).

Is there any real truth out there?
People lie all the time, it’s nearly second nature, and sometimes prefaced with it’s just a “little white lie” — as if a lie is anything more than a lie.
We lie weirdly.

A new study to be published next year reveals people will lie when there’s no face-to-face, or voice-to-voice contact — yet it doesn’t seem to bother us if the lying is done in person.
Texting is a liars club.
Via the LA Times:

Researchers found that the stockbrokers were most likely to engage in duplicitous behavior — either lying about the quality of the stock, or not mentioning how bad it was — if they conducted the buy/sell conversation via text message.
They were most likely to be honest about the quality of the stock if the conversation happened via video, which beat out both face-to-face communication and audio chat.
Lying via text makes intuitive sense.
It’s what researchers call “lean media,” which means it doesn’t effectively transfer the rich emotional cues that might alert someone to duplicitous behavior.
You can’t stutter over text, or twist your hands nervously, or dart your eyes.

The study also exposed a truth-catch:

But researchers did find something that surprised them.
When they asked buyers how angry they were that the stockbroker had lied to them, the researchers found buyers were more furious if they had been lied to via text than if they had been lied to in a face-to-face conversation.
“That was a big surprise to us,” said Ronald Cenfetelli, a professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, who co-authored the paper.
“What we speculated was going on is there is some instant rapport-building, and some quick trust that happens when you talk to someone face to face, and it acts as a buffer and an inoculation — almost like a vaccine — against negative reactions.
People are still angry or upset if they are lied to face to face, but when they are lied to in the leaner communications, they are more angry.”

Odd if we didn’t expect people to lie, but they do all the time.
Which, of course, brings us to the biggest lie of all, especially for this time of year — Santa Claus.
Children when real young are curious about lying and truth, and they will go for the truth every time if given the chance, but…
Children also learn from their parents — a lie is not the truth.

You are a liar yourself if you think lying to kids about Santa won’t harm them, they may not show it, may not even seemingly skip a beat when they realize Santa is really familiar, mommy/daddy/grandparents, etc., but the impact throughout life is humongous.
A lie is okay — lying is okay because my parents lie.
Just about every dumb sonofabitch person in Western Civilization has been effected by this lie, most-especially in the US, where the lie is so rampant one is called a ‘Scrooge” in the most-vilest of terms if any objection to the Santa lie is even discussed.
Consider this: Jesus was born in the summer and seven years earlier than the calender indicates, which shadows another whopper.
What a sham just as the planet comes apart at the seams.
Don’t lie — ever.

(Illustration found here).

The  small-print clause of reality.