ask a silly question.....

In the middle 60s, I was in my second year at Valparaiso University and that school was chosen to participate in the GE College Bowl and two of my fraternity brothers were on the live team and one fellow, Tom Okamura was an alternate.

We used to grill them prior to leaving; just bombarding them with everything from Euclideon Geometry to arcane facts about opera. The campus caught the fire of the enterprise and on Sunday afternoon at telecast time, every available TV was tuned in and watched by everyone.  We learned that there was a warm-up session to get over the jitters and one of our folks, a guy named Nord, would give us a secret signal before the real event to tell us who won the preliminary.  We won three and then lost to Bates but only by a hair.

On the college bowl, there were specific questions and you had to supply specific answers; no close, no almost, no partly right.  Black and white right or wrong.

I mention this because questions and straight out correct answers seem to have gone a bit askew of late.

First, we rely on the press to ask good questions.  Oh my. This hapless gaggle couldn't ask a straight forward question if their lives depended it.   They ask junk questions like "why is the sky blue" and when they get a dumb answer like "because pink was taken" and they just take it like it makes sense.  YOU SEE - you have to have some idea of the answer before you ask the question or you have to have absolute trust in what the person tells you.....bringing us to Mr. Spicer and company.

1+1=3  honest. trust me.

Once you give a gobbuldygook answer that you just know isn't true then how can you every trust anything more ever again.  I'm not talking about the white lies of did you take out the garbage and "of course" isn't entirely correct..ok, that's one level.  Level two is "are we going to war" and is answered with "I don't think there has been any discussion on that topic"...well you just know.

If this goes on for too much longer there won't be any such thing as a college bowl, even in our memory.

THE MONKEYS AND THE TWO MEN

There were two men travelling together: one was a liar and the other always told the truth. Their journey led them to the land of the monkeys. There was a whole crowd of monkeys there and one of them noticed the travellers. The monkey who was clearly their leader ordered that the men be detained. Since he wanted to know what the men thought of him, he commanded all rest of the monkeys to stand before him in a long line to his right and to his left, while a seat was prepared for him to sit on (this monkey had once seen the emperor, so he was ordering his monkeys to line up for him in the same way). The men were then told to come forward into the midst of the monkeys. The chief monkey said, 'Who am I?' The liar said, 'You are the emperor!' Then the monkey asked, 'And those whom you see standing before me: who are they?' The man answered, 'They are your noble companions, your chancellors, your officials and the commanders of your armies!' Because these lies flattered the monkey and his troops, he ordered that the man be showered with presents. All the monkeys were fooled by his flattery. Meanwhile, the man who always told the truth thought to himself, 'If that liar received such rewards for telling lies, then surely I will receive an even greater reward for telling the truth.' The chief monkey said to the second man, 'Now you tell me who I am, and who are these whom you see standing before me?' And the man who always loved the truth and never lied said to the monkey, 'You are simply a monkey, and all of these similar simians are monkeys as well!' The chief monkey immediately ordered the monkeys to attack the man with their teeth and claws because he had spoken the truth.
For wicked people who love to tell lies and to make trouble, attacking honesty and truth.