Not to be a buzz kill, but this is a reminder that facts matter ? reality matters.
Some of us humans show an extraordinary capacity for hubris ? for pride and arrogance to the point of losing touch with reality. Not just ?losing touch? with it, but dismissing it.
?That?ll be all, reality. Your services here are no longer required.?
Much recent evidence of this new anti-reality has brought this phenomenon into the spotlight. Take my mayor, Rob Ford ? please. (Sorry, Henny Youngman.) He seems able to construct different realities around himself with great ease. ?That TV reporter was threatening my family ? That newspaper reporter was leering at my family ? Those 911 operators are bitches ? etc. etc.?
The latest is his redefinition of the word ?corruption.? He says what it means ?to him? is the failure to follow proper process. So, for example, if one were to fail to follow the proper process for lawfully operating a motor vehicle, say by reading while driving, according to Mayor Ford?s definition one could rightfully be called corrupt.
Similarly, if one failed to follow proper process for engaging the use of city-owned buses, one could be called corrupt, using Mayor Ford?s definition.
The rest of the world seems to know the dictionary definition of corruption is acting dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.
In Canada, ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse for committing a crime. It remains to be seen whether ignorance of basic vocabulary by a city?s chief executive officer is an acceptable defence.
But even if the mayor loses the libel case against him, the trend suggests he doesn?t have to kowtow to your pedestrian, catch-all version of reality.
Take Conrad Black, really, pretty please. Mr. Black could be the dictionary picture accompanying hubris. He stands convicted of mail fraud and obstruction of justice. But in his alternate version of reality, he is not a convicted criminal, even though the rest of us understand the definition of convicted criminal is someone who has been convicted of a crime. In his reality, he would not have been convicted for his crimes in Canada or Great Britain, therefore these were not crimes. For many years, pedophiles used the same argument to justify their sex tourism to Asia.
But I am not comparing Conrad Black to a pedophile. His manipulation of reality is more akin to the brilliant Steve Martin defense.
?Let?s say you?re on trial for armed robbery,? explained Mr. Martin many years ago on Saturday Night Live. ?You say to the judge, ?I forgot armed robbery was illegal.? Let?s suppose he says back to you, ?You have committed a foul crime. You have stolen hundreds and thousands of dollars from people at random,? and you say, ?I forgot???
Two simple words: ?Excuuuuuse me!!?
Or maybe Mr. Black is using the ?Brazilian Virgin? defence. Catarina Migliorini is a 20-year-old Brazilian woman who has agreed to have sex with a man in exchange for $780,000. (This man thinks the sex act is worth $780,000 because Catarina has zero experience having sexual intercourse with a man. BTW, ?I have zero experience coaching third base for a Major League Baseball team but for half that money I?ll do it for 162 games next season and I guarantee that at least 100 men will score and none of them will get pregnant. Sadly, I also know the players would enjoy the season more with a more experienced coach.)
Anyway, Ms. Migliorini says that her act of trading sex for money is not prostitution because she is only doing it once.
Hmmmm, does that mean we all get one free bank robbery? Embezzlement? Murder?
The thing is, no matter what the people who misrepresent quantum physics want you to believe, there are some facts that we all share. This doesn?t mean one can?t have faith in an afterlife, or in a supreme being, or an order to the universe. It means that while we exist in this reality, we agree to the meaning of words like ?corrupt,? ?convicted criminal,? ?prostitute,? and many others. You don?t get to change the meaning of the word simply because you don?t like what it says about you.
Professional digression of a public relations professional:
Mr. Black was doing a brilliant job reintegrating with Canadian society until hubris got the better of him. He needed to prove that he could tangle with the aggressive British media better than most. He put on a great show for the Brit-book-buying public, but if his goal is to regain Canadian citizenship, his short-term ego boost may have cost him his ultimate prize, unless he has some inside knowledge that he doesn?t need to follow proper process.)
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