Lies fibs and fairy tales

By MC O'Bryant

Congressman Joe Wilson's frothing display of impulsive behavior which he unleashed by shouting, "You lie," before an aghast world wide TV audience expecting to hear the president of the United States elaborate on a conflicted national health care policy has become an infamous shout heard around the world.

It gave new and reverberative prominence to one of our most enduring elements of universal communication, The lie. Much maligned, but ever increasingly perfected, the lie has become a celebrated staple in our idiom.

Although the congressman did apologize for his robust opine, I don't think he ever meant to say the president was a bald-faced liar or a big fat liar. Or even liar, liar pants on fire.

The thing that makes the lie so universally appealing is that it holds something for everyone. Lies, it seems, are treated by some as a miracle drug of communication. If you are not allergic and don't get an upset stomach, they can at times offer much needed temporary relief. The variety of choices is dazzling. Lying like a dog, lying through your teeth, little white lies, pack of lies, compulsive liar, patent liar, pathetic liar, pathological liar, lying in your boots, magnificent liar, bald-faced liar, innocent lies, two faced liar, big fat lies, courtesy lie, lying machine and lie like a trooper.

The lie's pervasive presence in our societal province may well be explained, at least in part, by its early incursion into that most formative period of our lives.

Dr. Kang Lee, director of the Institute of Child Study and Applied Psychology at the University of Toronto, reports that by the age of 3, children begin to concoct little white lies to conceal transgressions. Lee goes on to elaborate that after 7 or 8 years of age children can become so sophisticated at crafting lies that even professionally trained adults suffer ineptness at breaking down their fabrications.

Ever wonder what monkeys would say if they could talk. Well it turns out that primates and homo sapiens may share more in common than just kindred hand, feet and face. If initial observation proves to be true they also possess a well-developed propensity for lying. Brandon Wheeler of Stony Brook University quoted in the Smithsonian Magazine observed that the capuchin monkeys of South America living in families of seven to 30 individuals peeps and hiccups to sound warning when predators are in the neighborhood. Such torrid alarms have the effect of immediately clearing the area of capuchins who frantically flee for their lives. That is all but the lying monkey who is scandalously displaying deceit to frighten his fellow group members away from a food source he selfishly covets for his own greedy indulgence.

Lying appears to be innate and boundless. Researchers on Hainan Island off China's coast found that in the dearth of honeybees as pollinators, the dendrobium sinense flower produces a chemical that mimics that of honeybees. Hornets, which prey on the bees smell the subterfuge fragrance and attack the orchids searching in vain for honeybees and in thrashing about vicariously pollinate the island's receptive floras.

Even George Washington's pungent demonstration of honesty, extolled in his valiant declaration, "I cannot tell a lie, I cut down the cherry tree," cannot be substantiated in truth. Most historians view it as a marvelous bit of wonderfully evolved Americana folklore which never happened.

After living through the head-slappingly stupid lying behavior of the likes of Bill Clinton, Bernie Madoff, Clifford Irving, (author of the bogus Howard Hughes biography) and the Colorado Balloon Boy, I am willing to now and forever declare the lie persona-non-grata in our lexicon. However, letting go of fairy tales and fibs probably comes only after a stone bearing my name and dates has been set in place. I know what I saw. That Christmas Eve when I was 5 a team of reindeer with Santa at the reins came flying in from the north, left a little red wagon filled with gifts and vanished like a flash into the snowy sky to the east. I still think my mom was fibbing when she said, "Son, if you don't eat your broccoli and Brussels sprouts your eyes will turn crimson. Fibbing or not, I am happy to say I'm broccoli and Brussels sprout healthy and my eyes are still blue.

MC O'Bryant grew up in the Norman area -- a career educator and author having started his teaching experience at Ogden High School, Ogden, Utah. He can be contacted at (209) 293 4127 or (925) 229-1742. e-mail address is eldrieo@yahoo.com.