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People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. —Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat Here are some photos I took this afternoon:

Since I've been focusing on lies lately, I couldn't resist the image on the left which I happened on today. Don Asmussen's Bad Reporter cartoon is quite entertaining.

As I discussed in my last post , the word "lie" is often used to refer to a broad class of deceptions. But there is much to be said for specificity. I like the following definition, which the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls the "the most common definition of lying": to make a believed-false statement to another person with the intention that that other person believe that statement to be true. And as I argued a couple of years ago, definitions matter . Someone accused of lying will surely opt for the narrow definition above. The accusation may then actually strengthen their position. If a lie can't in fact be demonstrated, they may appear to be vindicated. It seems to me that politicians often play this game. Indeed the accusation of lying conveniently distracts attention from more important deceptions. There's a kind of objectivity about lies. With appropriate evidence, only a minimal number of assumptions are required to identify a lie. Children...

People in public relations are sometimes accused of being "paid liars". This misses the point. According to communications consultant Peter O'Malley : In all instances, on both practical and legal grounds, effective public relations means not lying or defaming. But when perceived or real culpability is high, damage control inherently requires that engaged PR practitioners not volunteer facts they may know which may be true and may even be important to getting at the "truth" of the matter, but the disclosure of which would be harmful to the client's interest. So lying is out (at least in principle), but that doesn't mean we'll be getting the whole truth. O'Malley continues: And it frequently requires being steadfast in characterizing a "nearly empty" bottle as being "almost full". We may like to call all this "focused messaging", but in plain language, it means being highly selective in the presentation of information...

I just got back from a wonderful couple of weeks on the Camino de Santiago in Spain (and a little bit in France). Here are some photos from the journey. I'm not sure how to summarize the experience and all its dimensions, but I can say that I have some great memories!