Lying and cheating

I was thinking today about people running for office who have small children.

What do you do, as a candidate, when your young child comes up to you and says, "Daddy/Mommy, a man/woman on TV just said you are (fill in a terrorist, a bimbo, or any other slur that you've heard this election season)?"

What do you say to your child when s/he repeats back to you what YOU said?

"Mommy, you said that man is a terrorist ... is that man really a terrorist?"

What do you say?

This culture is based too much on "acceptable" lies. All's fair, right?

I play this computer game, Civilization, a lot. It would be fair to say I'm addicted to it. This is a game in which to start building a civilization - and if you're playing solo, you are playing against other civilizations run by artificial intelligence, or AI.

The game cheats like ... like ... well, I can't think of anything right off hand. There's even an option for the player to cheat. There's no fair measure or explanation of why you're in last place, even though you have the largest and seemingly most thriving civilization.

You could have 15 military units guarding a city, and it does not matter, because an AI civilization will inevitably show up with 30 units to attack you. It does not matter the number, you can be sure the other civ will have more.

You can even predict it. If you think you're doing well - well, you're not. The creators of the latest version of the game even say, I believe, that it's nearly impossible to beat the AI.

I wouldn't know because I, in desperation, downloaded the game off the website and did not really get an owner's manual that I can access. Thank you, Windows Vista.

Why do I keep playing? Because, like a fool, I keep thinking there's some way that I can make it so it doesn't cheat. I've been thinking like that for more than 15 years now.

I know that because I was playing Civ the day I got the call that my niece had been born in Chicago, 15 years ago on Aug. 28.

What kind of a schmuck does that make me?