There is something intriguing about lying and why people do it. Most times it is done strategically, to cover up an embarrassing or damaging experience. Occasionally it is done to protect someone else who is vulnerable (the "little white lie"). But then there are the serial lies, told by people who are so used to doing it that they don't hear themselves doing it anymore and think nothing at all of doing so. Normal people feel remorse or anxiety inside about it, knowing that it is wrong and potentially harmful. Others feel like George Costanza ("It isn't a lie ... if you believe it."). With DJT it is Costanza on steroids, likely combined with an inherent mental and/or character flaw, that makes more lies than truth come out on an ongoing basis. We all know that. Which makes the issue in some ways less about the liar and more about the rest of us, those who hear the lies and choose to disregard them and their impact. Who is worse: the willful liar or those who allow the lies to stand and go uncontested? It is yet another reason why I say that this presidential election is less about the candidates and more about the character of the nation. The winner will tell us more about who we are than who they are. We know who they are. But who are we?

2) I keep hearing about voters who are disenchanted about Joe Biden's position on Israel's war against Hamas and how it impacts Gaza, that he is not doing enough and not making a difference. So I keep asking, to no response: just what is he supposed to do about it?. It isn't his war. He can put forth a peace plan. He can engage in shuttle diplomacy and back channel negotiations, out of our sight. But in the end it is about the participants, not outside sources with no power of enforcement. They have to want peace more than we can impose it, and they have to be flexible enough to make a deal when no one else can drag them to it. Then there is that thorny question that also no one is answering: how would DJT handle the situation better?. Please ask during the debate(s). And press him for a specific plan in comparison. It matters.

3) True dat to the notion that too many people ruin special moments with their failure to separate politics and other personal opinions from the bigger picture of what is happening around us. I suppose that, in this social media and device-addiction era, we think everything is all about us first and that dignity and ceremony and decorum come in a distant second. Or some people are simply selfish jerks who think that no social rules apply to them. The feeling is kind of like seeing a friend or someone else whose judgment you've come to trust post one of those stupid, superficial memes about a topic that makes them look prejudiced or unthinking or inherently ignorant, and feeling profoundly disappointed that they are not the person you thought they were, and that you can't unsee or unremember it. Yet again technology and social media are more of a curse than a blessing.