Glen Of Scotland

The war on the rich

The presidential candidates are pretty much in place for the fall election and they are both in the 1% camp as the rich are being called. I believe as has been the case for a while now, one of the themes of the election will be this continued war against the rich.

To me this is the wrong war to be fighting, it cannot be successful in an universe that is all about expansion and growth and that has been the case since the beginning. There is more wealth and prosperity now than at any point in world history. Yes, there is still suffering and poverty and starvation in places and work has to be done there.

What if instead of a war on the rich, which implies that there is something wrong with wealth and success, that the focus is instead on tax simplification and fairness, reducing the tax code from 5000 or so pages that most don't even understand. Addressing the issues about equal access to lawmakers, passing laws that are disclosed fully before passage so that we don't have to hear what it contains until after it has passed. Equal justice for all instead of the reality that justice is color blind and income dependant.

There is a widely accepted perception that the rich have access to law makers who are dependant on contributions to gain reelection, that there are special favors granted and a quid pro quo at even the highest levels regardless of party affiliation.

In my opinion Obama blew the opportunity of a lifetime to be a leader, where his actions and words would be in alignment on the tax issue. A leader would have taken advantage of the opportunity to put the tax code aside and say I will pay the going tax rate, all these deductions are wrong and this is what I want to change. Instead he took the deductions that he was fully entitled to and paid a tax rate of 20% which is lower than his secretary. A real leader would have grasped the opportunity and people would have respected the move. Instead they are rightly cynical.

This is an important thing to remember, you will be bombarded with messages, sound bites during the campaign from the 1%ers in both the presidential and congressional election campaigns, this will distract you from reality in order to get elected. It will be very effective backed by close to a billion dollars of advertising.

My question to you is this, how many times are you going to fall for this?

The last major tax reform took place in 1986, the world is a far different place now and the tax code should reflect this. Instead we are faced with what is already being called Taxmageddon in January 2013 when tax cuts expire and new taxes are implemented, not to mention some serious deficit decisions that have to made then too. It is convenient that these are all coming after the election, so expect more crisis talk and bailouts to be in the news at that stage.

It doesn't take many people to effect change,I hope more step forward instead of following like sheep. Small campaigns prevented Verizon charging a $2 convenience fee for paying online and the Bank of America debit card fee of $5 as good examples. In Britain there is outrage about so called granny taxes and taxes on hot take out food, not to mention outrage about charity deductions being limited for the wealthy.

The power of the internet can help with campaigns like those mentioned. When they are designed properly they can be effective and other times not effective. To campaign against GE or Amazon not paying corporate taxes is not effective in my mind. What is more effective is to campaign against the tax code that allows deductions that allow Amazon and GE to pay no corporate taxes. They are only doing what the president did, take what was offered to them legally.

Make a difference, be effective, see through the sound bites or let them get away with it again and try again in 4 years time.

Bear Connection 2

I kept observing the bear at the animal sanctuary, which was checking things out in the area.

Is that a wave?

A nice big yawn

Time to scratch

This is the life

Well it's time to go for a nap I think.

Earth Day

Earth day is next Sunday and most cities and towns have some events going on to celebrate. It's a great opportunity to new your commitment to doing whatever you can to recycle, use less and use more efficiently whether it is light bulbs or solar panels. Every little thing helps.

Much is being made about the financial losses being incurred by solar and wind companies, some with losses for the taxpayer. This isn't unusual for new industries, very early on there were many different car manufacturers, computer companies and software companies most of which are no longer in business.(click on those items to see the defunct companies) It takes time for an industry to develop, efficiencies to be finely honed but eventually they do and those who make it prosper and those who don't vanish. Our history is littered with different examples of those who don't make it.

The ones that remain go on and do well, this will be true in solar and wind and perhaps even something new that is being developed. Be excited about the future it won't take long for even better and cheaper technologies to come along.

Also on earth day is Disney Nature's latest release in the movie theatres, it's called Chimpanzee. It's a true story about Oscar and you can see a preview below, it looks good!

 

Bear Connection

I ventured out to the animal sanctuary a place I had written about last year that had rescued lions from Bolivia. It is a great facility and offers lions, tigers, bears and other animals a new and better life. Most of these animals arrive in not the greatest of shape and are well looked after.

The bears were rising from their dens as I was there and I spent quite a bit of time observing one bear and was struck by how similar their days start off to humans. Get up go to the bathroom and have something to eat.

The elevated walkway offers a great view of the animals, the sanctuary finds the animals are less stressed when they are not at eye level to the visitors.

After the bear had breakfast, it got interesting, like humans, it's nice to sit back and relax.

Stretch your legs

Is that a smile?

Spring Clean

It has been spring for a few weeks now and a lot of people start to spring clean their homes after the long winter season.

In addition to cleaning the house, have you considered cleaning up other parts of your life too?

Have you thought about spring cleaning your friends or acquaintances, how many are really beneficial to your life and how many seem to take a lot of your time with not much in return? How many just drain your energy, so called energy vampires? How many stress you out and wear you down?

It's not necessary to drop everyone who are like that, perhaps it's just cleaning up your habits and responses or your availability, that can make a difference too.

Try adding up the time that you are on the phone or text or email with them, how many hours a week is it? Is this the best use of your time? Could you take back 10% of that time for yourself? How often do you find yourself saying that you have no time for your favorite things?  Would that 10% help you out?

You can do this with not just friends, anything that you do really, are you getting the best return for your time and efforts? Remember it's not the big things that make a difference its often several small things that can really help the most, so no need for drastic actions.

Don't forget during your house spring cleaning to sell off those things you don't need or use anymore, it will help pay for those higher gas prices.

Polar Bears

These polar bears are from the local zoo, a male and female haveing fun and perhpas a little foreplay as the female is in heat.

Quote

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “ A fight is going on inside me,”
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil- he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “the other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

More bears

Bears are coming out of hibernation, here are some photos to celebrate. You can see more on the  first photo here.

 

Here are some polar bears and cubs, you can see more here

Next we have a polar bear at play, you can see more here

Finally the waving bear, you have read about this before, the video and story is here

Just 1 person can make a difference

Here is a great example of how just 1 person can make a difference. As far as I can tell chef Jamie Oliver was the first to bring this out into the open just over a year ago. It is what he called pink slime in beef also known as "lean finely textured beef" you can view the video here.

Since the broadcast many companies, schools and restaurants have stopped selling or serving beef with this pink slime in it and just this week the last of the top supermarkets is dropping it too. It will most likely be eliminated from the food chain in a matter of months.

I feel the success here will prompt others to come forward with other examples in the near future. It may increase food costs somewhat, but in the long term   health care costs will hopefully be reduced. Health issues like obesity and diabetes cannot be all about human behavior, though it is a big contributing factor, I believe we will learn more about some of those other artificial ingredients that are also a contributing factor as well.

If you have information then use social media and video to get the story out. It takes just 1 person to make a difference.

From anger to love

Bears are coming out of hibernation, to celebrate I will have more bear photos next week. First though, here is a photo of a bear, an angry bear and it's cub. You can click  here to read the article and to see how it ends up. Bears clearly have emotions too, I think the bear does a better job than humans in moving from anger to love quickly.

Where is the overall economy headed?

To continue from last week, what can we expect from the overall economy from rising gas prices etc. It is true when gas prices rise like they have been, the overall economy slows. With many households still carrying record credit card debts, then it is inevitable there will be a slowdown of some sort.

However it is an election year too, and we have a president who would like to be reelected, so there is a lot of money getting poured into the economy from grants, lower taxes and other programs, so that will I feel, lessen the overall impact for this year.

There are still huge debt problems in Europe and in this country too that will not go away anytime quickly. The cutbacks that those debt levels are bringing, are creating slowdowns in activity in Europe and there is rising unemployment to go with that, something to be aware of.

I feel there is a bubble in student loans that will impact a lot of people in the upcoming years. For the first time, the level of student debt exceeds credit card debt at over a trillion dollars. Tuition costs are increasing each year, locally 15% here this year and graduate salaries are not increasing the same way.

What is problematic for many is that student debt for the most part cannot be discharged in bankruptcy where credit debt and personal loans can be. This can change in the future of course but for now, the low risk way would be to pay for college through grants, scholarships as much as you can, personal loans if you can get them, or consider extending college by a year, so you can work more in that period and require less in the way of loans.

You will be reading a lot more about student debt levels in the next few years.

The answer for many is to raise taxes, Britain did that last year for the top 1%, raising the tax level to 50%. However rather than raising tax income, it actually reduced the money brought in by 500 million pounds as people found ways around the  tax  increase. If taxes do increase it might be better accompanied by a rewrite of the tax code or taxing more on the consumption side to bring in revenue.

I don't feel the overall economy will really get going in a big way until California gets going, with an unemployment rate down to 6% from 11.2% and housing finally bottoms out. It is is some areas, but there are many foreclosures still to go through that keeps prices low.

On the other hand, interest rates are low, it is easy to obtain 0% financing for at least a year  for some purchases, just be sure to pay it off before that time period expires. Record all time low mortgage rates and car loans offer the chance to refinance or get a better low gas consuming car and as a result car sale are at 2008 levels again.

So it's not all doom and gloom out there, opportunities are available, take advantage of them while you can.

Getting Along

This is part of an occasional series of different animals getting along. Hopefully it will inspire humans with different beliefs to see the possibility of getting along too.

The first, is a fox and hound getting long, you can read the article here and there is a video too.

Next we have a cat and dog, with the cat massaging the dog, there is also a video and more here

Next, we have a cockatoo feeding a dog, there is more here

Finally a crow and a roe deer, you can see more here

Where is the economy headed?

With gas prices rising again, people are   starting to get nervous about the economy. This is very understandable, whenever gas prices rise this much, and it is early this year, it is very often followed by a slowdown in the economy.

We are not powerless if the economy does slow down or prices keep rising a little more. I feel the key is to separate yourself from the overall economy and focus more on your own individual situation. When the economy and housing markets were booming, companies were still going out of business, people were still going bankrupt, people were still becoming unemployed.

In 2006 which was probably the peak of the last economic boom, there were still 300,000 people a week making initial unemployment claims and recently that number has been running about 350,000 per week.

While the talk is about the slow economy at the moment, part of that slow economy includes North Dakota where unemployment is in the 3% range and a housing shortage and California the largest economy in the country is at 11.2%, which is still processing foreclosures.

If you focus on your own individual economy, how does it look, how is the job situation, going  well? Are sales declining or increasing, is the company getting paid on time and is it in turn paying suppliers on time. These are usually the early warning signs to watch for on the employment front.

Financially are you saving enough or is your spending out of control, are things breaking down with the car or house, are there things surplus to your requirements that you can sell and raise cash? Are you worried about the low interest income and looking for something better, or are you one of the many paying 18% interest or more on your credit cards, would that not be a better place to look first?

How about your taxes, did you get another big refund this year? Why are you giving the government a interest free loan of $3000 or more, adjust your withholding  so you get a lot less in a refund, be careful not to underpay and incur penalties though.

There are numerous programs out there if you are behind on your mortgage, banks are even paying people to leave these days, do a search and see what programs are available.

These are just some ideas to seperate yourself from the overall economy, I feel it is important to do this, otherwise you get caught up in the headlines, drama and negativity and conversations that people are having that can actually hold you back.

Next week more about the overall economy.

Amazing luck

I set off to Georgetown to take some more snow photos, a drive that would normally take 45 minutes, with the ski traffic it took 2 hours, not to worry things would be alright. When I tried to get as far up the pass as I could it was tough going for my car which is a two wheel drive, blowing snow was making it difficult going, so I found a spot to turn back. On the way back I found these big horn sheep. This was my first ever opportunity to take photographs of them. Talk about perfect timing, even with delays an everything it was just perfect.

Even big horn sheep enjoy extra salt

My timing was perfect

Could it get any better, of course on the way home I happened to notice some Buffalo or Bison as they are more commonly known here.I was patient and knew that I would eventually see both these animals in Colorado.

Quote

“The only measure of what you believe is what you do. If you want to know what people believe, don’t read what they write, don’t ask them what they believe, just observe what they do.” Ashley Montagu

More Snow

These photos are from December when there wasn't as much snow, but there were elk this time around.

At the higher elevation there was much more snow at Bear Lake

In the town of Estes itself it there is a nice big lake, you can see how windy it was from the blowing snow.

It was even windier higher up.

A bird came along for a visit

Nice ice formations

It's over

To follow up on the last two posts about it's not working, what happens when it's over, how do we deal with that.

It can be over for many reasons, death, divorce, separation and firing are the most common reasons that you find yourself alone or without someone or people that you have been accustomed to being with.

There is the feeling of loss and grieving which can take a little while to recover from, it will seem like it will never end and with the passage of time we find that it does.

One way to accelrate the process, is to focus on what you are gaining from the experience, yes I know a little different than focusing on what you have lost. In most situations,  we gain something or there is a positive aspect to the loss. It could be the free time you have now, or the money you will save or that you no longer have to deal with rudeness or other imperfections you were exposed to and didn't like so much.

You will be surprised at what you will come up with if you focus less on the loss and more on what you gain and even more surprised at how much faster you come through the grieving/loss period.

A final question to ask yourself is, are you missing the person or people or are you missing the connection or a realtionship. Again you may surprise yourself with the answer. It is a great step in moving forward to take advantage of all the opportunities waiting for you.

 

Winter almost over

The coldest season of the year will soon be over, though March is sometimes the snowiest month here in Colorado. I though I better post some more snow photos so last weekend I ventured up to Bear Lake. There was a lot of snow on the ground, attempting to get around was troublesome, I was waist deep in snow at times which provided the inspiration to get some snow shoes for next winter instead of talking about it.

A nice shot of the mountain tops and clouds with a little blowing snow too.

There was no wildlife at all which was surprising, my patience was well rewarded as I was leaving though, some deer feeding.

It's not working 2

Last week I mentioned how sometimes solutions can take a little while to work. Which can be frustrating when you want change immediately. People will then often decide to separate if it's a relationship or if it's an employment situation a termination.

Often when it's not working, it's usually not the big things that are causing problems, rather several smaller things that combine into a big feeling thing. I have seen time and time again when someone has felt blindsided by the complaints they hear when it all comes out in the open, it is a total shock and they have been unaware that those small things were causing a problem.

This article here expands on this with some solutions too, here is an excerpt "The experts—marriage counselors and researchers who study why some marriages last while others crumble—can tell you that most unions that fail do so not because of big setbacks, such as a job loss or a sickness in the family. "When couples experience these big challenges, they actually come together and support one another," says Terri Orbuch, a psychologist and research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, who is the director of the Early Years of Marriage Project, one of the longest-running studies of married couples in the country. "Instead, it's the seemingly small things that pull them apart."

Clearly a lot can be resolved by better and more effective communication, the response I often hear to that is, that there is communication and it's not working. My reply to that is yes you are communicating, just not to be heard. You may think the person is hearing, however when it is done in an attacking or angry way, many people often shut down to protect themselves emotionally in those circumstances.

My suggestions are firstly reducing or changing your reaction to what is being done or not being done or said, in other words not get bothered by it. Before you know it you begin to see the behaviour everywhere by keeping the attention on it. Some people are able to do this with good results, others get caught up in the need to control someone or worse get into the right and wrong mind battle.

For those who do have trouble changing their reaction, I suggest creating a worksheet for both people involved to complete. Asking questions about the happiness level in the relationship, 5 things you like best about the other in the past week and a couple of things that need attention. Just don't get overly picky with that part, choose something that is really, really bothering you.

Use this as a discussion on how to keep the relationship alive and thriving, not just to be critical, it's not something that has to take a long time, just something that let's the other person show you care and are listening and to take action on. All of this should be done with the background that it's those smaller things that cause problems.

If there indeed has to be a separation later at some point, then at least there will be no surprises every one will know what is going on and that the relationship was given every opportunity to be successful. It makes that separation a little bit easier to deal with, just remember not to get nit picky about things.

 

Highest Point 3

At the peak there were quite a few goats

I could see for miles and miles.

Another marmot

It's not working

Whether it's on the blog here or for someone I'm working with, I always have a variety of solutions which match up very well to whatever someone is going through and result in an improvement.

Once in a while though I will get an email or call saying it's not working and now what. Well the first thing I recommend patience and to keep make the effort with the solution. Other times another solution is needed and on rare occasions that doesn't work.

There was one such rare occasion at the end of the year, someone in a professional position was treating other people very badly, quite a number of people as it turns out. It took several solutions to finally get a change that everyone felt and it is holding nicely today.

If you are trying to get someone to notice that you have changed or are different or would like to help them, depending on how long the old pattern has been going on it can take a little while for someone to trust that you will not revert back to your old ways. They want to see things being repeated to believe it themselves.

Other times people are so caught up in their problems that they are shutting others and everything out just to cope or survive and don't realize what is going on. Those people will eventually relax and the solution will then work, which is why patience is needed.

Although I believe that every situation can be resolved and that there is no need to separate, quit and the like, there have been a handful of occasions over the decade or more that I have been doing this that the other person, is just so unstable or that there is danger etc that I do recommend that quitting or separating is for the best, or in other cases the positions are so entrenched that seperation is best.

It would be great if we could get instant results all of the time, it's not realistic though it does happen at times. Patience is the main key, as are not holding grudges, being stubborn and needing to be right. If you can be patient you will be rewarded with a change in your situation, there really is a solution to everything.

Highest Point 2

There was a trail, which led to this great view.

By this point I am well above the tree line

However I did have my first sighting of mountain goats

Followed by a marmot sighting

Just enjoying the view

Quote

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It’s in everyone. And as we let our light shine we give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson

Highest Point

Last summer my feet touched on the highest point so far, some 14,130 feet according to the sign at the top of Mount Evans.

The journey to the top was just spectacular and the views from this height are just amazing, it seemed like every time I turned another corner it got better and better.

Anyway the journey started at the bottom with a great view:

Then a view from a higher spot

I was surprised to see so many wild flowers and even more surprised at the number of bees on the trip up.

There were plenty of smaller lakes, this is a nice one

Take a moment

Take a moment to read this letter, it's from a 12 year old boy who successfully fought a 7 year battle with cancer. You can read the background to the story here. Whenever we go through an illness or some other troubles, it is easy to think we have it tough, there is always someone else worse off believe me. Often too it takes a challenge for us to wake up to what is really important, hopefuly, this letter will serve as that wake up call.

"This is a story of a child called Charlie who was diagnosed with cancer when he was only five years old. In fact, on the fifth day of the fifth month of 2005.

My name is Charlie Williams. I could have died by now. I recently found out I was not going to die.

At Addenbrooke's Hospital I had to endure medical treatments that included radiotherapy, which involved me going into a cylindrical tunnel for about half an hour, which is quite scary for a 6 year old, as I was at the time.

I also had several MRI scans, also in a cylindrical tunnel, with all kinds of noises while you are inside.

The chemotherapy was through a drip which was inserted into my body, in my upper chest, like a transfusion, and went on for a few hours at a time every month. I also had to have lots of blood transfusions.

Needles aren't the nicest thing in the world, and I used to be petrified of them, so you can imagine what it felt like for me to have them inserted into me so often as a child. But I'm used to them now.

Do you think you could cope with all that medical treatment? How do you think it would change you as a person?

Being ill, and knowing that there may be a chance that you will lose the things that make up your life, makes you value those things.

For instance, material things like computers and calculators, even pens and pencils, become special things in a way, because you realise that without them you would not have the tools for your education.

A simple pencil may mean nothing to a child in my school, but to a child in, say, a poor village in Uganda, it may just be the start of a lifetime of education. I think about these kinds of things now after being ill for so long.

In most classes in this school, there will always be one child (sometimes more, sometimes even three) who will distract the rest of the children by doing something daft. It happens so often, maybe every five minutes, sometimes every minute.

The person doing it seems to want to be the centre of attention - he uses the whole class as his stage, to do his performance.

He doesn't really care that there are other people there who really want to learn the subject the teacher is teaching.

He just wants to distract anyone else who, like him, doesn't care about learning.

He is basically being selfish. I just look at people like him and think, 'why?'

Once in a blue moon, I will also misbehave, don't we all, whether we are children or adults, it's part of growing up, and part of life. But like I said, it's once in a blue moon, not every minute of the day.

Being seriously ill makes you think about these sorts of things, because you think about what is important and what's not.

I wonder if those children, who don't care and don't behave, all had cancer one day, like me. Would it change them?

For all you children, food is not just vital, you love good food, think about all those things you love to eat: chocolate, cheeseburgers, fries, sweets, cakes, sausages, roast dinner, and loads of other things.

But imagine several days of not being able to put anything, even a drop of water, in your mouth.

When you have to have so many operations and medicines, you just can't keep anything down.

While in hospital, I would go to the canteen and watch people eating, but not be able to eat anything myself.

Parents may seem unfair but they will always help you

Just think if you were that person dying for something to eat and all you can think about is food, but you have to fast for so many hours.

Since I couldn't eat much, I was fitted with a tube up my nose (sounds horrible but you have to have what you need or die).

It was a little machine fitted with a glass bottle which gave me everything I needed for nourishment.

All that time I couldn't eat like a normal child, made me fussy about my food; now I know what I am safe with and what I like - I have sausages every night!

Parents may seem unfair or not let you do things you want, but they will always help you.

They feed you, they clothe you and they give you a home, but most of all they help you when you are hurt.

My mum and dad sat with me day after day in the hospital, and watched me being pulled about, having all kinds of medical treatment I couldn't stand.

I know first hand what parents go through when they see their child in pain.

I'm sure that when I was diagnosed with the brain tumour, they thought I would not get through it. Can you imagine if your parents thought you were going to die?

Now you have heard from a real life cancer survivor, I hope my story has shocked you in some way into thinking about your own lives.
Here I am a normal child but one who has had an awful journey in the start of his childhood.

But I have also had something positive from it all in that I am more serious and thoughtful about life.

It makes me behave better at school and work harder.

Cancer has made me take a step back and look through the window of life at what is ahead of me"

Black Canyon National Park 3

Conditions can change very quickly in the mountains and a very strong storm quickly  raged through the area, luckily I was prepared.

Lies part 2

Last week I wrote a little about lies, why people lie and what we can do to get the truth more often. This week I want to mention something related that also causes problems. What happens when you think that someone is lying only to find out, gasp, that they were telling the truth all along. I am sure that is familiar to many people who may have been falsely accused or have falsely accused or both.

My first recollection of that was my mother asking me at 16 if I had been drinking, the legal age in Scotland is 18. I hadn't been drinking (on this occasion!) so I told the truth and replied that I hadn't been. My mother wasn't believing it for a second, don't lie to me she screamed, I replied in turn by stating quite clearly that I hadn't been drinking. Then it got interesting, she said I can smell it on your breath, well there was no way that was true, now who is telling lies!

We went around in circles for a time then she let it go, never admitting that she was wrong, but still suspicious. Truthfully all that did was to get me very careful with my after work drink, always making sure that mints or parsley were on hand before I got home.

I understand where my mother was coming from, she had experienced problems with my father drinking too much early on in the marriage and she wanted her children not to have those problems. However she was looking for trouble, or signs of trouble which is natural for a parent, they want to protect their children.

As I think now and from experience, not that everything is 100% by any means, if you are on the look out for trouble, aren't you likely to find it? For example if you are looking for signs that your child is unhappy, isn't that your filter? What if instead you were looking for signs that your child is happy, that too would become your filter and you would see it at every turn. Most importantly of all, if your child was unhappy it would be so noticeable that you would see it instantly and could deal with what was coming up.

I feel it's an important difference, for one single important reason. When you have a filter going, in this case my mother being on guard for us drinking, you start to imagine things that aren't really there. It happens more than you realize. My mother thought she could smell alcohol on my breath when there was none there, she was so convinced she was right, she couldn't see past that fact and made things up to support that view.

This also occurs a frequently in criminal cases, where a witness or even detectives are so convinced someone is lying and that they did do it, when it turns out later that they indeed didn't do it. These cases don't represent the majority by any means, however when you have the death penalty as a punishment being more open and flexible is required.

Some people may think it's just semantics, looking for indicators that someone is happy or that someone is honest, make an adjustment and see if it changes things for you. Also avoid a rush to judgment and ask yourself if you have any filters running or even go as far as to ask yourself if you are going out of your way to prove it's a lie or are you out to prove the truth.

Black Canyon National Park 2

This section is known as the painted wall, which occurred when molten rock was squeezed into fractures and joints of existing rock which then cooled and hardened creating what you see.(there was a sign explaining it all )

Lies

Have you lied in the past and do you lie today? If you answered truthfully like me the answer is yes.

Of course not all lies are created equal there is a scale ranging from the small white lie or lie of convenience to the great whopper at the other end of the scale. I'm pretty sure we have all used different lies throughout the scale at some time or another.

With text messaging so popular nowadays a few studies seem to indicate that the number of lies increase dramatically over text compared to voice or video chat. One study concluded "Our results confirm that the more anonymous the technology allows a person to be in a communications exchange, the more likely they are to become morally lax,” Karl Aquino, a business professor at the University of British Columbia and co-author of the study, said in a statement".  You can read more here.

Researchers at Cornell came up with similar results "We’ve always lied; new technologies are merely changing the ways and the reasons we lie. Witness the “butler lie,” a term coined by Cornell University researchers in 2009 to describe lies that politely initiate and terminate instant messaging conversations. (“Gotta go, boss is coming!”) Like butlers, they act as social buffers, telling others that we are at lunch when we are just avoiding them" You can read more here.

So why do we humans lie and why do we humans hate to be lied to. There is no single answer to that question. Generally speaking I believe that humans lie because we perceive that the other person would not like hearing the truth, or perhaps we are embarrassed by the truth, or we fear punishment if we tell the truth, or we fear judgment if we tell  the truth, we sometimes want to make someone feel better or make ourselves feel better. In business we fear we might lose a sale or a loss of business, in politics we might lose an election, in government we fear we might cause panic if the truth comes out. These are just a few common examples.

Humans hate being lied to, yet clearly have no problem being the one to lie, something we tend to forget. Why do we hate it so much, well we all want the truth and feel we deserve the truth, when we eventually hear the truth and find we have been deceived  then it hurts, especially when it's family,we often find we have been scammed such as the Madoff scandal. We often personalize it with I treat you so well or trust you so much or I do so much for you why would you treat me this way. I am sure these will sound familiar.

If we can accept humans will lie, then how can we increase our odds of hearing the truth. The most obvious answer and something to look at is, how do we react when we hear something that has gone wrong, a mistake, something broken, someone wants some time to themselves, or want to discuss a problem. If humans overreact, get angry or don't handle it well in other ways that the other person feels diminished in anyway they will quickly learn to lie to you to avoid that experience again. Or as the famous line in the movie said, "you want the truth, you can't handle the truth" well can you?

It's natural to protect ourselves from emotional discomfort like that or not having our needs met and if someone constantly denies another their needs being met or unleashes verbal abuse for breaking a glass or something, then the self protective mechanism will activate.

One of the easiest, albeit risky ways to self protect is to lie. If you don't believe that then look at the times you felt the need to lie. What happened when you first broke something, or were late for dinner what did you do the next time?

Things happen in life, if you remain calm you increase the odds of getting the truth from others. However it is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect 100% compliance from everyone all of the time, we are emotional as well as human beings after all.

The other side of the argument is to fight and insist on the truth every time, with severe punishment if the truth isn't forthcoming. It would certainly be ideal if we received the truth every time, but human nature being what it is, how successful would you be? Would it increase the chances of being told the truth or would people become even more deceptive?

Black Canyon National Park

After going through the Gunnison Canyon, my day continued onwards to the Black Canyon National Park. I had read about it, but seeing it was even better as you will see from the photos over the next few posts.

First though on the way to the park, was a deer at the side of the road, and it stayed and posed for a photo, very rare, it was my birthday after all.

This gives you an idea of the scale of the canyon, at its highest the wall is 2300 feet, the highest in Colorado. Reports vary as to how old all of this is, billions or millions of years, it still looks good.