Peculiar Politics: Liar, Liar and Polls on Fire

In the current presidential race, charges of "liar" are being tossed back and forth by just about everyone. Journalistic fact-checkers don't seem to have much impact, probably because people distrust the media more than the politicians (a recent Pew Research Center survey found 65% of the public hold a negative view of the media). My only consolation is that by watching the endless debates and town halls, I will have a chance to hone my skills at detecting liars from a bevy of sources. I revisited lie-detection research I did back in 2014 and added some new input. My first task was to accept that I am pretty bad at deception detection; most of us have only slightly better than a 50-50 chance of spotting a liar. Second, I had to junk popular "tells" as unreliable; the nervous guy who can't make eye contact isn't necessarily a liar; liars can be glib and engage in more eye contact to sell their stories (watch those politicians ace closeups and sound bites). Researchers suggest some slightly more reliable clues to deceit: a slight shrug, usually of one shoulder, coinciding with a verbal statement of confidence is one example, or a slight head shake "no" when saying "yes." Also, beware the smile that does not include the eyes; if the eyes don't simultaneously narrow and produce crow's feet, that flash of white teeth is not an authentic expression of pleasure or good will. And it's been shown that the nose heats up while lying, so watch for a tell-tale Pinocchio nose rub! If I can detect the biggest political liar, I may even get ahead of the pundits in predicting the winner--because in this peculiar election season, there is an inverse relationship between honesty and success. For example, nonpartisan PolitiFact rated the truthfulness of presidential candidates before the Iowa caucuses, and Donald Trump led the pack in falsehoods (78% mostly false statements all the way to pants-on-fire lies), followed by Ted Cruz (68%) and Marco Rubio in third. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were running close, with Bernie at 29% false statements and Hillary at 26% untrue. Now look at the primary results, polls and projections since then. What does it mean? Is there so much anger at the political system that we prefer "authentic" emotions to "establishment" facts? Do we think the world is now a game of liar's poker, and we need to elect the best liar to win? I hope Honest Abe Lincoln and "I cannot tell a lie" George Washington wouldn't run at the bottom of the polls today! For more about political lying: http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/02/01/a-winning-gop-formula-lie-more-do-better/

Mr. and Mrs. Malaprop on the Campaign Trail

I've noticed that American presidential campaigns generate a bumper crop of malapropisms, verbal mistakes named for Mrs. Malaprop, a comedic 18th century play character who tended to use an incorrect word in place of one with a similar sound. Mrs. Malaprop would urge "illiterate him, I say, quite from your memory" when she meant "obliterate," for example, and compared someone to "an allegory on the banks of the Nile" instead of an alligator. The malapropism tendency is fairly common and certainly has not been cured by 21st century sophistication. Examples include using "for all intensive purposes" in place of "for all intents and purposes," and "he supposably said" instead of the correct "he supposedly said." I heard a recent passionate declaration that "his claim doesn't jive with the facts," which would mean his claim can't engage in hip dance or talk but not the intended "his claim doesn't jibe with the facts," meaning a claim not agreeing with the facts. The famous and powerful are not immune. Former President George W. Bush was Mr. Malaprop, delivering gems such as "We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile." I wince when I hear malapropisms continue to fly from the mouths of today's presidential hopefuls and TV commentators. Social media is especially littered with these faux pas. For example, GOP candidate Ben Carson called Sharia Law "a central tenant of Islam" when he meant "tenet," and Republican contender Marco Rubio repeated the debate phrase “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing,” when he probably meant to use "dispense with." GOP hopeful Jeb Bush may have inherited a bit of brother George's language tangling, saying in his kick-off foreign policy speech that immigration should be “a catalytic converter for sustained economic growth" (meaning "catalyst," Jeb?), and explaining to an interviewer the difficulties of criticizing brother George when “I have to do the Heisman on my brother"--likely a reference to the throat-clearing Heimlich not the football trophy. For amusing malapropisms, see: http://www.fun-with-words.com/malapropisms.html

Some Murder Mysteries Inspire Historic Change

In a previous post, I talked about the new fascination with "true crime," and I think it's only fair here to acknowledge the positive side to our lurid interest. Some murders not only inspire fictional bestsellers and highly rated television shows, they generate lasting legal and social change. For example, the public outcry after the 1964 New York murder of Kitty Genovese, stabbed to death in front of her apartment while 37 witnesses watched and did not intervene or call police, led to the development of the current 911 system. After the 1981 Florida abduction and murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, his parents John and Reve Walsh established the pioneer Adam Walsh Outreach Center for Missing Children, launching a national movement that led to the Missing Children's Act to add missing children to the FBI's National Crime Information Center database in 1982 and creation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 1984. When 12-year-old Polly Klaas was kidnapped from her home in Petaluma, CA, in 1993, and later found murdered by a parolee with a history of abducting and raping women, public outrage backed a “three strikes” ballot initiative mandating an automatic 25 years to life sentence for three-time felons. The California’s state legislature was inspired to pass a three-strikes version of its own, and by 1999, 24 states as well as the federal government had enacted some type of three-strikes law. But here's a favorite history-making murder: In 1799, Gulielma “Elma” Sands left her Manhattan boarding house and vanished, until her body turned up in the Manhattan Well. Amid wide publicity, fellow boarder and lover Levi Weeks was put on trial for the crime. It was not only New York’s first scandalous murder mystery, it was the first "dream team" defense: Levi's well-off brother hired two founding fathers, former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and future Vice President Aaron Burr, along with future Supreme Court Justice Harry Livingston to defend Levi. The defense created a reasonable doubt strategy--presenting alternative suspects and theories (including suicide), attacking the victim's character, establishing Levi's alibi and planting doubts about prosecution witnesses--that would inspire future defense lawyers. And it was the young nation's first recorded criminal trial, as the court clerk transcribed into the wee hours, when exhausted jurors decided "not guilty." To read about more surprising murders that made history, go to http://listverse.com/2015/03/22/10-murder-mysteries-that-made-history/

Our Obsession With True Crime Tales

True crime stories, especially those focused on possible miscarriages of justice, are making their own headlines right now, and I admit to binging on Netflix's controversial "Making a Murderer," which raises questions of official misconduct in the murder convictions of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey; the "Serial" podcast about Adnan Syed's 15-year-old murder conviction, which helped win him a hearing to seek a new trial; and now the FX miniseries about the O.J. Simpson case. Add in the growing number of TV true-crime series and fictionalized crime shows, and you may see a new addiction to televised reality mayhem. True-crime writing, on the other hand, is an old genre, littered with both lurid hack jobs and Pulitzer Prize-worthy insight. On the list of must-reads, I would recommend Pulitzer-winning The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer about murderer Gary Gilmore's life and death; Edgar Award-winning The Devil in the White City, in which Erik Larson chillingly parallels a 1893 Chicago World's Fair architect building the fair's White City with serial murderer H.H. Holmes building a murder castle; Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi's famed take on the Manson murders; The Onion Field, LAPD veteran Joseph Wambaugh's gripping tale of a policeman murdered in a Bakersfield onion field and its aftermath; In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, a literary exploration of the tragic intersection of two killers and a rural Kansas family; Homicide by David Simon, creator of "The Wire," about real detectives on the mean streets of Baltimore; and Mind Hunter by John Douglas, the eminent FBI profiler's exploration of twisted criminal minds. All have had tremendous impact. But before you jump into the grim details, you may want to ask yourself why you can't resist peeking at gory crime scenes and disturbed minds. See if you recognize yourself in these theories about our true-crime obsession by best-selling authors, journalists, psychologists, sociologists, movie directors and more: http://www.hopesandfears.com/hopes/now/question/216997-why-are-people-obsessed-with-true-crime