An Outbreak of Truth

I sent an email to a friend the other day. It was in response to the recent Island screening of the film the Economics of Happiness and the panel discussion that followed. As it turned out, I had seen the film a while back and had been underwhelmed by it. In the email though, I had promised I would give it a second viewing at some point. But in there I  also said that what we really needed was not so much an outbreak of happiness, but rather an outbreak of truth. Given that the persistence of prevarication seemingly clouds our vision everywhere these days, it seemed that truth should take precedence over happiness. There is, however, an element of verity to Jack Nicholson's often quoted statement as Col. Jessep in A Few Good Men- that being: "You can't handle the truth!" One can see evidence of this in the day to day of things in that certain truths are being made less evident, and that the only people dealing with any sense of real truth in the media are comedians. It is easier to handle the truth when it's funny, even if it isn't. The problem is that laughing at it doesn't make it better or cause it to go away- it just gives you a pass to ignore it.

 Another basic truth is that there are some things that just aren't funny. One could make the argument that the folks who have brought us Monty Python and South Park and the National Lampoon, among others, have done their best to tack on the parenthetical "and funny" to the end of the statement, "that's not funny, that's sick." A prime example of this is the Gulf oil disaster, whose one year anniversary we just observed. The South Park boys did their best to take on BP in a three part series recently, but the funniest parts involved the imagined demise of both Justin Bieber and Burning Man. While their doe-eyed portrayal of BP CEO Tony Hayward's attempts at apologizing for the environmental nightmare ("We're sorry") were biting, they were more sick than funny. The truth as it played- and plays- itself out on the water, shore and land was neither happy nor economical, so it simply had to go away. In the worlds of virtual reality and Glenn Beckian logic, this was not a stretch to accomplish- you simply made it so by saying so. If one had been living in a logical world and/or reading the Gulf reports on the website Truthout, or if one considered for a few seconds that both the Star Trek teleporters and Wonkavision are still fictions, one would have had a hard time handling this stated media truth- oil does not sink on water and being of mass and weight cannot disappear. In drinking this particular disappearance myth Koolaid, one could avoid asking why Mr. Hayward couldn't have dodged from the beginning having to repeatedly say he was sorry by simply bringing Harry Potter's cloak and wand out of the wardrobe a lot earlier with a wave and a wrist flick and a bit of gusher motion-reversing magic.

There was another story that surfaced recently that was potentially devastating in its simplicity. It had to do with author and climber and self-described humanitarian Greg Mortenson. In many ways, the truth that emerges from this tale could match the exposed truths of the Gulf in their devastation of a vision, if nothing else. It is one of those things where, having read his book Three Cups of Tea and visualized through the writings the good work and deeds of building schools and bringing teachers to devastated and impoverished areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, one feels that hearing, let alone handling, the truth is difficult at best. Pulling the strings of heart and trust are of course the realm of philanthropists and con-men alike. But then there is the side that says, why is this really happening and who has what to gain from it? Mortenson has been creating goodwill and trust for a fraction of the cost of our military operations in the region that are serving to do the complete opposite. He has been accused of extravagance in air travel and using foundation funds to finance promotion of his books. I have not yet read of any mansions or yachts in all of this, which apparently are okay perks as long as you are a high-rolling banker or wall street financier, regardless of who you ripped off to get them. I am willing to give Mortenson the benefit of the doubt, but as with any of the rest of this, all I want is the truth- I can handle it.