Spinners

Turkey hunting ends this weekend so a friend of mine and I decided to go one last time this morning. Last night we were trying to locate an old Tom that was roosting in order that we might be near where he flies down this morning in order to blast him one and be home in time for morning coffee.

“Roosting” a turkey requires that one wait until it is nearly dark and listen for the turkeys’ flapping their large wings as they fly up into their roosting trees and hopefully hear a gobble or two by an old Tom prior to his getting some shut-eye. Once the roost tree is located, we “mighty” hunters can stumble through the darkness, rattlers, briars, and mosquitoes to locate ourselves near the roosting tree prior to the old gobbler flying down at daylight in order to quickly call him in and put some meat on the table.

My buddy is a longtime turkey hunting guide and is constantly offering unsolicited advice. As we stood there listening for one to fly up or gobble, he looked at me and solemnly told me to put both of my hands in my front pockets and partially open my mouth and I could hear more easily.

Huh?

I looked at him like he was crazy and refused to do it. Logically I could not see how doing what he asked would enhance my hearing one iota. He laughed heartily as he told me how he used to tell all his “Yankee” dude clients to do that and then they would stand there at dusk with both of their hands in their front pockets and their mouths hanging open listening for turkeys. (He told them that opening their mouths would unlock tubes that were interconnected to their “hearing system”.) I laughed to tears as he demonstrated how they looked standing there with their mouths hanging open. He went on to tell me that it actually did enhance “his” hearing because his neophyte clients would not talk and/or be moving their hands around making noise while he was trying to hear the turkeys.

It is amazing how people get sucked in to stories. Our swimming pool contactor asked me the other day if I wanted to know some of the things that were being said about me around there, and of course I said yes. He began by telling me that he stopped in at a store down the road from my plantation and the lady running it saw his pool company logo on his shirt and asked where he was working. He told her at my plantation and she told him I was a billionaire many times over.

Huh?

When he got to the plantation one of our electricians, (who has been working at our place for two years), told his son that when I sold my last company part of my compensation was that I was to receive four and a half million dollars a month every month for the rest of my life. He went on to say that my sons were determined to keep me alive at all costs in order to keep receiving the payments and they had made medical arrangements that if anything were to happen to me they were going to keep me alive on life support indefinitely.

Huh?

I cannot imagine how anyone could have such an imagination to make this crazy stuff up; or worse embellish the story and pass it on and on. (No, I’m not a billionaire, and no I don’t receive an income of four and a half million a month…)

Nowhere is lying worse than with politicians, beginning at the local level and rising to include the most powerful. It never ceases to amaze me to see the President of the United States, the most powerful man on earth, stand there and recite outright lies and never bat an eye. Obama, a true Chicago style politician, is the most unabashed and prolific liar to serve as President in my lifetime, but certainly Bill Clinton was the most famous. When he was impeached on perjury charges, his defense was defined and memorialized with the following statement: “It depends upon what someone’s definition of “is” is…

Huh?

Perhaps a sign of the times, (end times), is that the American public now accepts lies and lying as our new normal way of life. Where is the outrage when a politician deliberately misrepresents the truth? We don’t see the mainstream media complaining or calling them out. Lest you think I am being too tough on Obama, I readily admit Republicans participate too. Old man Bush said, “Read my lips – No new taxes!” and then signed new taxes into law.

It’s called spin. I call it saying anything that you think people might want to hear in order to get elected. If a communist country like North Korea or Cuba or some other totalitarian regime like Iran does it, our media blasts it as propaganda, but not here. Here it is called fair and balanced to let one side lie and then the other side counter with their lies and all the while everyone including the commentators, participants on the foolish talking head shows, and the public know that it is simply spin, or better, outright lies…

Lying is a serious sin to God. So serious in fact that He included it as His ninth commandment in the “Big Ten”. He said, “Let Your yes be a yes and your no be a no”. How refreshing it would be if politicians would just honestly state their positions and stand by their word. Hey, come to think of it, this nugget is not just for politicians, it’s for all of us…

Proverbs 10:32
If you obey the Lord, you will always know the right thing to say.
But no one will trust you if you tell lies.”

Proverbs 11:6
“Honesty can keep you safe, but if you can’t be trusted, you trap yourself.”