the twilight of the false gods

http://www.nationofchange.org/twilight-false-gods-1360507606




A plague of phoniness stalks the land. Liars, cheats and hypocrites infest the public square. Can you smell it, my friends? That is the rich, redolent stink of BS. Everywhere you turn, someone is stepping in it.

Lance Armstrong peddles lies for a decade, gets caught, then prostrates himself on Oprah, seeking absolution through humiliation, and he still can’t tell the truth.

A young, naïve football player, looking for love in all the wrong places, finds it in a catfish. Poor Manti Te’o was hoaxed so hard he played along with the scam; the truth was too much to swallow in one gulp. He was an innocent victim turned accessory of a fraud perpetuated on himself, yet he still had to abase himself to Katie Couric. Innocence is no defense in these days of deceit; BS pollutes everything it touches and its reach is nearly infinite.

Shall I go on? Paula Broadwell writes a biography of David Petraeus using an unconventional research technique she perfected while staring at the ceiling. She pretended to be smitten and he pretended to be single. To this day we don’t know who was hoaxing whom. All we know for sure is that a writer’s reputation and a warrior’s lifetime of service both drowned in a fetid swamp of BS.