The line between what is true and what is a lie is often blurred. What used to be the truth is now couched in terms like "plausible deniability," or "white lies and half truths," or "political spin."
Sometimes a lie is soft and expected, especially when fishing for compliments. Other times, a lie can be as jarring and cold as picking up the phone and finding a Sarah Palin robo-call at the other end of the line.
There are lies, and there are damned lies.
At the end of the day, however, a lie is what it is: a lie.
We who are fighting against the closure of the Motion Picture & Television Fund's long-term care center have been dealing with lies, half-truths and spin for a long time. We knew it -- we just wanted you to know it.
Our conjecture -- that the reasons for closing the much beloved MPTF Home hospital and long-term care center were based on mistruths and misstatements -- is well-known.
As much as we whined and opined about what appeared to be double-speak at best from the mouths of the MPTF spokesholes, we were hesitant to actually condemn them and give them a royal time-out to stand facing the corner for being liars as their pants blazed.
"Liar" is a powerful accusation, and not a term you would want to hang on caregivers and those who pay those caregivers, especially when they are caring for your own.
Or, for OUR own.
I bring this up because it seems we have caught them in a lie. A big lie. I'd single out Ken Scherer as being the mastermind that controlled the mouth that regurgitated and misspoke, but that would be giving him too much credit. Ken is merely a puppet who puts a friendly face on the MPTF. Cherubic, smiling, polished -- looking at him, he's hard not to like.
But then again, so was Chucky, the scruffy doll from those cheesy horror movies that would lie (or is that lay) innocently, soundlessly in his box until reanimated by forces from a netherworld that enabled his diabolic mischief. Just like these guys who get their strings pulled by the hapless and oft-derided MPTF PR machine.
Scherer claimed that the MPTF wanted to work with each family to look for "a beautiful bed" for each of the residents. What kind of crap is that? They are in a beautiful bed. The beds that I've personally seen of some of the facilities on your short list are anything but beautiful. They reek. They are piled four to a small room.
Come on, Ken, check these places out before you buy the bullshit that the MPTF is selling. Those who
fall victim to transfer trauma are not dying in beautiful beds. These aren't California queens with 1,000-count Egyptian cotton sheets and duvets. These are death beds, Ken.
Lies.
That's why we had a feeling of vindication when it was revealed by Steven Mikulan of TheWrap that Ken Scherer did lie when [pull string] "Scherer denied that MPTF had ever set a timetable in motion to satisfy a specific deadline."
