He knows, because he once saw a guy stick his tongue to a railroad track on a bet, and the fire department had to come get the guy’s tongue off the track, because he couldn’t get it off.  — A Christmas Story

When someone says that you should do such and so, or that something or other is bad for you, you really need to demand they cite the original research.  Right now, children in the United States are catching measles, pertussis, and other childhood diseases in numbers that haven’t been seen in decades.  This has been attributed to the publicity that a Playboy model and actress gave to a now discredited study linking vaccinations to autism.  I still hear people at Boo’s school, many of whom have kids with autism-spectrum disorders, arguing about whether or not to get vaccinations.

A little knowledge can indeed be dangerous, but outright stupidity is homicidal.  Before reacting to the ‘scientific’ advice of someone whom you’ve never met and has no bona fides to back up that advice, seek out the actual data and make your own decision.

As a matter of fact, Pardner, you’re right. But I ain’t yet sunk to horse stealin’. Oh, I’ve salted claims, yeah. And I’ve sold whiskey to Injuns. And once a man in Walla Walla come at me with a gun and I killed him. I can’t think of one commandment I ain’t shattered regular. I never did fancy my mother and father, let alone respect ’em or honor ’em. And I have coveted my neighbor’s wife – whenever I had a neighbor and he had a wife, mm, mmm! And I gamble and I cheat at cards, but there’s one thing I do not do. I ain’t never gulled a pardner. The one sacred thing, even to low scuff like me, is a man’s pardner. — Paint Your Wagon

Abused trust is lost trust.  There has to be a line in any relationship beyond which the relationship disappears, or one member of the duo becomes the slave of the other.  That line needs to be bright, thick, and agreed upon before any relationship moves forward from square one.  Maybe it’s making sure that your significant other knows you will never put up with violence or infidelity.  Business partners should agree that all dealings will be transparent and to a mutual benefit.

No matter what that line is, once it is crossed, then you continue with the relationship at your own risk.  Someone who will abuse your trust once is likely to do it again.

Rango: [Wounded Bird is scratching his down feathers and scattering them into the wind] I see you’re communicating with the great spirits.
Wounded Bird: No. I’m molting. It means I’m ready to mate.

— Rango

It’s amazing how many things I see on-line or on television about how spiritual and healthy practices from around the world are, but when you dig deeper, you find that things are done in a certain way for almost pure practicality, and the ‘great spirit’ part is thrown in to impress the tourists.  If anyone ever asks why I wear a tan cotton hat with an embroidered bear paw on it, it’s because the bear is my totem, and I want to commune with its spirit.  I won’t tell them that it’s because I got a good deal on-line for them, and my scalp burns easily.

Mrs. Crockett: You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Mr. Carpenter?
Klaatu: How did you know?
Mrs. Crockett: Oh, I can tell a New England accent a mile away.

— The Day The Earth Stood Still

I was truly a stranger in a strange land when I moved to Tennessee and Kentucky.  My accent was wrong, my tastes in food was wrong, and the way I dressed, as if I still lived in Arizona, was way off.  Walking into a Waffle House and asking if they had chorizo and eggs with chilis got me some of the strangest looks.  Luckily, I like biscuits and gravy, even if I do douse it in hot sauce.

Moving to California when I was a teenager was a bit rough, but mostly because my manners and speech were a bit old-fashioned for my classmates.  Let’s be honest:  Not a lot of teenagers in the Bay Area in 1987 stood up when they spoke  to a teacher and said ‘Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir”.  But they got over it.  I learned to like the food (there’s a reason I say I dated the United Nations when I was a junior and senior.  Immigrant mothers can cook!), found a way to be polite without making the teachers uncomfortable, and got on with life.

Wherever I went,  I was never rejected because I was different.  True, there were the occasional “Yankee” or whatever thrown my way, but rarely out of meanness.  The people I met were patient with my ignorance, open to listening to my differences, and willing to try my strange way of doing things.

It’s that openness that I miss the most when I go overseas.  No matter where I have been in the United States, so long as I was respectful, others were willing to accept me.  I can’t say the same about most other places I’ve been.  You always have to know the ways of the local tribes when you go to a new place, but nowhere else on Earth have the local tribes been so willing to take from me as much as they give.

You’re so deceitful you can’t ask for water when you’re thirsty. We could tangle spiders in the webs you weave. — The Lion in Winter

It is amazing to me how hard some will work to maintain an ever-more intricate web of lies going.  Rather than be truthful and face the truth, they have to catalog all of the lies they’ve told, when they told them, and to whom, so that no two threads converge and crash the whole thing.

It’s usually been enlightening to get to know someone who is on the list of “you shouldn’t talk to them” that’s been given to me by a third person.  Usually, both of us end up learning a lot more about how things really are.  Heck, in one instance, I gained an entire adopted family and set of friends when we all figured out that a central figure in all of our lives was not only lying to all of us, but also lying to us about each other.

The truth is hard sometimes, but it is simpler, and the burden of deceit gets heavy very quickly.  Better to face the hard truth than the momentarily easier lie.