The wrong planet

Photo courtesy of photos8.com

"If somehow that's impeachable, then I'm on the wrong planet and I'm living in the wrong place" This is what Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said to a WLS-TV reporter, as reported by the Huffington Post.

It makes me wonder on what planet he is living.

A lot of people ignore that the mind is a pleaser: our mind finds excuses for everything we want to do. You might define this as the original sin, on the Christian side or as some evolutionary safeguard, on the scientific side. We all know that animals cheat (monkeys more than cats and cats more than dogs), so it is human nature to cheat and feel good about it or find excuses for it. It might go back to the necessity to deceive when you hunt. If you do not know this about your own mind, you might wonder indeed on what planet you stand.

Tit-for-tat: "everybody does it"

Murder: "If I had done it, it would have been because I loved her very much" said O.J., never wondering what kind of "love" is that!
He did the same thing recently, going at some people with guns "I did not know it was illegal" he said (really?) and "I did not mean to hurt anybody"(then why use guns to confront his "friends"?)

Rape: all pedophiles on TV say that "they would not hurt a child" (they "love"children) and most rapists explain that "the bitch deserved it" or "the bitch wanted it"(nothing to do with them, poor guys trapped in this unjust world)

Stealing in a grocery store: "they can afford it"(even though it is never Walmart paying for the theft, it is just you and me)

"The boss is a jerk, so I can do this" (why don't you get another job?)

We don't have to claim that we are the most honest person in the world. We just have to know what is going on. If I was (God forbid) Gov. Rod Blagojevich' mom, I would suggest that he takes a honesty test on the web, just to know where he stands on this planet.

Everybody's brain is a pleaser: tell your kids.

On a new verb: to bleep

- And bleep you too!

The bleeping has been started this week by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. His report on the conversations of the Governor of Illinois was filled with "bleeps that were not bleeps". The press has not stopped bleeping since.

Disclosure: I might have occasionally let go of "merdre" if I inadvertently drop something in the house. I try to stay polite at all times, because I want to be a good example for my dogs. Merdre is the equivalent, I think, of "Shite!" an insult invented by the French surrealist author Alfred Jarry.But I think that from now on I might replace it by BLEEP when I get a bad moment.

That many bleeps is not a good sign. It was very disturbing to hear it in the White House in President Nixon's days. It says how much you are going to let yourself go, how much above the rules you are. Not a good sign at all.

Something you don't know about Blagojevich

He did not have a father like mine. My dad used to pose me ethical questions all the time. It would start like: "Suppose that you are buying police cars for the city" or "Now you are the director of the Central Bank" and it would be about bribes and corruption. "You cannot take that gift from the car company, he would say, you have to ask for a better price for the city instead". And if I asked why, he would say:"Because it is tax money. The price of the gift has to be deduced from the price of the cars, because the city is paying for it." All the time, I got these problems to solve, and some of them were not easy at all.

The worst came when I started going out: my dad would drill my would be boyfriends as well and send me warning signals if they did not have the right answer. Most of them did not. Nevertheless, I was a tad ungrateful for the advice.

I am not saying that Blagojevich is not responsible for what he did: every adult is, and it is his own greed. I am just saying that if he had had a dad like mine, brazen he would not be: there is no way that you could deny knowing right from wrong in our home.