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The statement by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) that being linked to President Obama would be like “touching a tar baby” doesn’t surprise  many people. Like a number of other public officials — many of them on the right — who have unashamedly disrespected the president by their offensive actions and contrived Freudian slips, Lamborn, is a Baby Boomer. Older Boomers grew up during the height of the civil rights era and unless they were totally spaced out during those tumultuous years they are well aware of what constitutes bigotry. Therefore, it is hard to believe the claims of some in question, that they did not know their comments or actions would be perceived as biased.  Read what they did and said at www.potpourri101.com.

I recently saw a movie titled, The Invention of Lying. Although it is classified as a comedy, I didn’t find much humor in the 2009 film. A few scenes made me chuckle, but overall I thought the movie was boring and just plain silly. In that film world no one ever lies. Everyone tells the truth and says exactly what they are thinking. When the main character, Mark, finds himself at wits ends after being fired from his job and watching his life slide downhill, he decides to do something different to improve his life. He tells a lie – the world’s first lie. Since no one in the universe is familiar with lying, people believe everything that Mark says and he soon begins taking advantage of his newly acquired skill. Nice stretch of the imagination, but the movie left me wondering how the real world would be if everyone told the truth all the time. 

The film gave me cause (yet again) to think about the downside of political correctness, an apparent good idea run amok. Now it has become a game that no one wants to play anymore, but everyone is being forced to participate to avoid being tagged out. You frequently see the absurdity of PC exposed on live TV programs, you hear it from politicians at public forums, and you even feel it when you and your peers hesitate to candidly express your thoughts, because you don’t know what reaction you will receive if your thinking does not align with theirs.

A couple of days ago, I discovered on a blog that I just happened to visit, a quote that was attributed to me. What’s the problem you ask? The problem is those were not my words. I never made the statement. In fact, I had never even visited that blog before. Thank goodness it wasn’t a negative statement. And it would have been all right to be quoted if those had been my words, but they were not. Since I was not the author of the quote, why was it credited to me?

I know what you are thinking. Of course, I know full well that it is not unusual for several people to have the same name. Numerous people throughout the world share their name. So the quote could actually have been made by my namesake or it may have been made by someone impersonating me because she (or he) didn’t want to disclose her (or his) own identity.

As I have discovered, plenty of people have the same first name as I do, just as countless people share their name with Charles Smith, Kathryne Johnson, and William Jones. But come on, there are not a lot of people who share the same given name and the exact hyphenated surname. Are there? Raise your hand if you know them. Just as I thought.

Take Kathryne, for instance. And notice the unique spelling of her given name.  Now let’s say that Kathryne’s last name is — we’ll use a hypothetical  — Johnson. You could probably find women named Kathryne whose surname happens to be Johnson. You may even know one of them personally. But when Kathryne Johnson marries and becomes Kathyrne Johnson-Coleman that name becomes a little less common, as was the case when I combined my given name with my hyphenated surname. It became somewhat uncommon.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible for people to have the exact name. But if that is the case, I wish that person sharing my name when being quoted on a blog or some other public place would use a pseudonym. Jill Doe probably wouldn’t mind sharing her name. Do you think?