David McElroy

Cleaning out the notebook…

Since Richard Nixon set the modern precedent in 1969, almost every president has released his tax returns. Even candidates do it. Is it just a coincidence that the president who started the tradition is the only one so far to resign in disgrace?

I can’t figure out what presidential tax returns are supposed to prove. If I’m a president engaging in financial hanky-panky, I’m not going to report the illicit income on my tax returns. So what exactly is the point? Does anybody know?

By the way, Nixon was the first to do it in the modern era, but Franklin Roosevelt did it for years during his (almost) four terms in office. After Nixon started doing it in ’69, Gerald Ford is the only president who hasn’t done it. If I were a candidate, I wouldn’t do it, but that’s probably just one more of the many reasons why I’d never be a candidate.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’m still constantly amazed at the lengths to which some people will go to make everything into a political issue. I saw several tweets over the weekend similar to this one: “Obama presides over biggest sex scandal in Secret Service history.”

I’m certainly no fan of Barack Obama, but he just happened to be president when this scandal involving Secret Service agents and prostitutes happened. It’s political demagoguery to blame this sort of thing on a president who isn’t responsible, but happened to be in office — whether that president is Obama or Bush or anyone else. It’s intellectually dishonest.

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How would you feel if you knew you couldn’t hide the truth about anything? What if you knew that the complete truth would always come out — about your actions, words and even thoughts? How would it change the way you live your life?

I’ve been reading a fascinating book called “Consciousness Beyond Life,” about so-called “near-death experiences.” One of the most commonly reported events from a near-death experience is a life review in which a person relives everything he’s ever done or thought. Here’s how Dr. Pim van Lommel explains what he found in the patients he interviewed:

“People know their own and others’ past thoughts and feelings because they have a connection with the memories and emotions of others. During the life review people experience the effects of their thoughts, words and actions on other people when they originally occurred, and they also get a sense of whether love has been shared or withheld. Although this can be extremely confrontational, nobody feels judged: people understand how they lived their life and how this affected others.”

I didn’t like the way that struck me, because I quickly realized that there were times when I haven’t been as honest with others as I’d like to be — especially about feelings and thoughts. So I wondered how I would feel if that were true. What would I feel if everyone one day knew every little thought or feeling I’d had about them? How would I feel if every little “white lie” I’ve told were exposed? How would I feel if there were no secrets about my thoughts or feelings?

The thought reminded me of a 1996 science fiction novel called “The Truth Machine.” The premise is that a perfect lie detector is invented — the truth machine. It’s first used for criminal justice, then for job interviews and then finally everyone is wearing them everywhere. All of a sudden, it’s not possible to lie, because lies are instantly exposed.

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If you wonder why governments in this country are broke, consider their priorities. While taxpayers struggle with bare necessities, California spent close to a quarter of a million dollars to move a shrub.

The story starts in 2009 when an ecologist spotted a bush called Franciscan manzanita in the path of a highway project. The shrub is a common plant that can be bought from commercial nurseries for as little as $15.98. It was formerly fairly common in the San Francisco area, but as the city expanded, examples of it growing wild dwindled. There was still plenty of it in nurseries if you wanted it, but it wasn’t known to be growing wildly in nature as this one random plant was.

After the ecologist spotted the plant in the path of a billion-dollar highway project, three local environmental groups — Wild Equity Institute, the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Native Plant Society — filed an emergency petition for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

As a result, an agreement was reached between the Presidio Trust, the California Department of Transportation, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game to spend $200,000 to save the bush by transplanting it to another location. About half of the cost was for the actual transplanting, but another $75,000 is for taking care of the shrub for the next 10 years and an additional $25,000 is to pay for paperwork requirements for the plant over the next decade. (You can read the 42-page PDF of the agreement here.)

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