Hasta La Gadget!

I did not read the “deflategate” report. I haven’t closely followed the story other than reading the headlines, so I’m not about to guess whether Tom Brady is innocent or guilty. I’m waiting to hear the fate of Brian Williams (though I think it’s pretty clear). Despite all the suspensions, alleged steroid use and subsequent admissions, Americans still love baseball. Bill Clinton is still a popular political figure. Martha Stewart recently appeared on Comedy Central’s Roast of Justin Beiber. With a few light-hearted jokes about her prison time, by most accounts, she killed it. Lance Armstrong told the truth (was forced to tell?) and has been vilified.

For all our talk about honesty being the best policy and honesty being a virtue worthy of possessing, as a society, we rarely reward it.

Of all the virtues, honestly might be the trickiest. As a parent, I can understand the mentality of, “thanks for telling the truth… but you’re still in trouble for you bad behavior.” Being honest doesn’t excuse bad behavior. But should it?

If my child hits his brother and admits it, he will get in trouble for hitting. If he hits his brother and can get away with fooling me, he will not get in trouble. If he hits his brother, lies and gets caught, he will still get in trouble. I’m afraid the lesson he learns is that you might as well try to cover it up.

If Tom Brady had come out and said, “Yes, I knew the balls were going to be deflated,” do you think his suspension would remain at four games? Instead of copping to “misremembering,” if Brian Williams had said, “I lied, but now I want to tell the truth,” is there any chance he’d still be the face of “Nightly News” (even if the chance now is minimal at best)? If Bill Cosby announced today that what ALL those women claim, is in fact, true, will anyone think more of him because he finally told the truth? If Lance Armstrong admitted to using drugs the first time he was asked about it, would his legacy be significantly different from what it is today?

If you can cover up the truth and get away with it, all you have to quiet is your own conscience. You can try to make up for it. You can spend your life trying to right the wrong and maintain a squeaky clean exterior. Covering up the truth, and not getting away with it, rarely makes things worse. Richard Nixon lied, tried to cover it up and eventually got caught. He was forced to resign. If Richard Nixon told the truth in the first place, he would’ve been forced to resign.

As soon as your actions are called into question, it’s much easier to rationalize lying rather than telling the truth. We make telling the truth REALLY hard. The truth may set you free, but our society will likely still crucify you for it.

We have short memories. If Tom Brady admitted to some wrongdoing, he would be remembered as a cheater — not as an honest cheater — but a cheater. We all lie, and maybe that’s why it’s so easy for us to forgive and forget. Bill Clinton, as leader of the free world, went on national television and lied about having sexual relations with that girl. It’s a footnote to his legacy. If he admitted on national television that he had an affair in 1998, would he have escaped a trial?

Being honest about our transgressions rarely trumps the actual transgression. Should it?

We want our kids to learn that the punishment for telling the truth will always be less than the punishment for lying and then getting caught. But is it? We spin stories and airbrush photos. We try to hide our faults and call our imperfections, perfect. We tell those who are closest to us we want the truth, but sometimes, often times, we don’t really want the truth. We are a nation built on a false story about the honesty of a great American who admitted to cutting down a cherry tree.

The line between truth telling and lying has become so blurred we don’t know what or who to believe. Beyoncé admitted to lip syncing the national anthem at Obama’s 2013 inauguration. Since then, several other of her live performances have been called into question. Even when she says she did not, she gets accused of lying (even though she told the truth about the Obama performance). All it takes is one lie to unravel the truth about one’s character.

Mea Culpa is Latin for “through my fault.” We all have faults. It’s time we start owning them instead of hiding them. It’s time we start forgiving instead of persecuting. It’s time we stop accepting the cover up and eventual admission as good enough. We can’t stop the lying until we start rewarding the truth.

This post originally appeared on Avery Adventures.

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Actress Carla Gugino told HuffPost Live on Monday that there have been some real changes in Hollywood since the beginning of her career. While many actresses have spoken out about the lack of roles for women over 40, 43-year-old Gugino said that in the past, options for younger actresses were just as limited.

When I was 25, all I wanted to do was be the age I am now because there were no really meaty great roles for young women. And now, you know, you have Jennifer Lawrence. You have Shailene Woodley. Brit Marling is so wonderful. You have really wonderful actresses who are young women coming into their own who are getting to have roles that really count and they’re really filling that space.

As she told host Nancy Redd, Gugino has seen a lot of progress in the stories that women are telling on the big screen.

“We’re in a space where women from an early age people are realizing there’s a big story to tell there and there are a lot of people who want to see it,” she said.

Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation with Carla Gugino here.

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WASHINGTON — In his first major foreign policy address as a presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) urged the Senate to permanently authorize core sections of the Patriot Act, the landmark law that granted the National Security Agency broad authority to conduct surveillance, including controversial programs like the bulk collection of telephone data revealed by leaker Edward Snowden.

“A strong military also means a strong intelligence community, equipped with all it needs to defend the homeland from extremism — both homegrown and foreign-trained,” Rubio said Wednesday at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “We cannot let politics cloud the importance of this issue. We must never find ourselves looking back after a terrorist attack and saying we could have done more to save American lives.”

But during his time in the Florida House of Representatives, Rubio was a much more moderate voice on national security issues than he is known for being today. Then a member of a panel charged with overseeing Florida’s safety procedures, the Republican bucked his party and fought against a slew of restrictive anti-terrorism policies proposed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Alarmed by threats of new attacks, state lawmakers unleashed what the Orlando Sentinel called at the time an “unprecedented assault” on Florida’s public-records laws. They passed some two dozen bills — out of 150 that were considered — that curtailed the right to request public information, such as government building plans, all in the name of national security. It was in that atmosphere that Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, raised some of the loudest concerns about what he viewed as invasive measures that reminded him not of American democracy, but rather that of Fidel Castro’s communist haven several hundred miles south.

One of the most controversial bills, HB-109B, would have given state police the ability to detain a witness for up to four days if it pertained to a terror investigation. Another measure, HB-131B, would have allowed authorities to suspend public record laws for up to 21 days in terrorism investigations. Rubio’s objections — along with that of 12 other members of the legislature who were also of Cuban-American descent — were so notable that, in October 2011, the Palm Beach Post described the efforts as “veering closer to the liberal camp of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

“So many of these measures that we are talking about implementing were the very same ones that were forced on the people of Cuba right after Castro took over,” Rubio said, according to the Post.

In March 2002, the following legislative session, Rubio led the fight to defeat a fellow Republican’s bill that would have required universities to submit visa information on foreign students. Rubio told the Miami Herald he was concerned that, under the bill, immigrants “won’t be able to go to school without being tracked.”

“I hope no one thinks we’re Captain America saving the world,” Rubio said of the measure, adding that it was “part of what appears to be a pattern of legislation that targets people who are here to make their lives better and contribute to the good of the country.”

The Patriot Act, which Rubio enthusiastically supports, expanded government tracking of international students. It also directed the Immigration and Naturalization Service to monitor language training and other vocational schools.

A year after the clash in the Florida House, Rubio reflected on the post-9/11 mentality of the country in a March 2003 article in the Orlando Sentinel. He appeared to criticize law enforcement agencies for going too far in the name of national security.

“I think the atmosphere is less urgent and much calmer now,” Rubio said in 2003, then House majority leader. “In the aftermath of 9-11, everything with law enforcement was terrorism-this and terrorism-that.”

Granted, Rubio’s statements years ago don’t necessarily contradict with his newfound zeal for robust government surveillance. His objections then were to particularly onerous measures that tipped the scale against public interests. Controversial government surveillance programs like the NSA’s bulk phone data collection, Rubio argues now, are necessary when America faces more threats than any time since Sept. 11.

But the shift in tone is striking, especially considering his rightward lurch to become one of the Senate’s most hawkish members to seek the presidency.

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Clarence Blackmon called 911 for help Tuesday not because he was in need of police assistance or medical treatment, but because hunger had driven him to do so.

“What I need is someone to get to the grocery store and bring me some food, because I need to eat something,” Blackmon told Fayetteville, North Carolina, 911 operator Marilyn Hinson. “Whatever you can do to help. I can’t do anything. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t get out of my damn chair.”

Blackmon, 81, has prostate cancer and can barely stand or walk.

“It’s unreal how devastating one thing can be,” Blackmon told The Huffington Post on Wednesday. “Sometimes I just fall down and pray.”

Blackmon said he made the call after returning home from a lengthy hospital stay.

“I thought maybe 911 could help me,” he said. “I was very hungry and had an empty refrigerator. The grocery store wouldn’t deliver without a deposit and I couldn’t make it there.”

Hinson’s supervisor, Lisa Lee, said she was in the office when Blackmon called.

“He said he had money to pay and he gave Marilyn a grocery list,” Lee told HuffPost. “I looked at the list and it was small, but very specific. He wanted a head of cabbage, tomato juice, popcorn, cans of beans and beets, an avocado and some Pepsi. He said, ‘I don’t want no diet, I want Pepsi in the bottle.'”

Lee said they entered Blackmon’s name into their computer system and discovered he had an illness and no relatives living in the area.

LISTEN TO THE 911 CALL: (Story Continues Below)

According to Blackmon, his wife, Wanda, died from cancer in 2011.

“I got married in 1954, the same year the Army drafted me,” Blackmon said. “In 1956, the sergeant made me a corporal. He told me he’d make me a sergeant if I stayed one more year. I said, ‘Sergeant, I really appreciate that, but I had to leave my girl behind right after we got married. I can’t stay in. It wouldn’t be right.'”

Blackmon went on to work as an administrator for a petroleum company. He worked there 40 years before he retired.

“She was a dynamite person,” Blackmon said of his wife. “When she passed away, my situation went downhill. We had so many bills and we had barely been making the mortgage with both our pensions. I just couldn’t manage it myself.”

Blackmon said he lost the couple’s home of 35 years to foreclosure on July 24, 2014.

“I thank the lord I had Wanda for as long as I did, but I miss her and our house,” he said. “Life is unpredictable and unfortunately it doesn’t get easier as we get older.”

MARILYN HINSON AND POLICE OFFICERS DELIVERING THE FOOD: (Story Continues Below)

Lee said 911 operators typically do not offer direct assistance to callers, but in Blackmon’s case she was certain Hinson would do so on her own if she didn’t approve it.

“She has a heart of gold,” Lee said of Hinson. “She’s always helping people and we didn’t want her to go by herself. We didn’t know what she would be walking into — if it was a hoax or something — so we had police officers escort her.”

Antoine Kincade, the public information officer for the Fayetteville Police Department, was one of the officers who went to Blackmon’s home on Tuesday.

“We made contact with the elderly male and he was barely 115 pounds,” Kincade told HuffPost. “He was in genuine need and it was the right thing to do.”

Blackmon said he was overjoyed by the generosity of everyone involved, especially Hinson, who went right to work in his kitchen.

“I was in high water and she come to my rescue, making me a couple ham sandwiches and getting me a glass of Pepsi,” he said. “Thank God for good people who can help people in need.”

Hinson, who was unavailable for comment Wednesday, told ABC11.com that she was more than happy to help Blackmon.

“He was hungry,” Hinson said. “I’ve been hungry. A lot of people can’t say that, but I can, and I can’t stand for anyone to be hungry.”

Blackmon, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2008, said his doctor recently told him he doesn’t have much time left.

“He says maybe another six months,” Blackmon said. “But he doesn’t know and I don’t know. Only God knows and I thank God I’m still here.”

As Blackmon faces that diagnosis, he said he hopes to access the Internet in the near future.

“I don’t have a computer yet but one of these days I will get one and visit The Huffington Post. But don’t nobody ask me for my opinion unless you’re wanting to get one,” Blackmon laughed. “Because I’ll sure burn your ears — good or bad. That’s just the way I am.”

Lee said authorities are working with a local church to ensure Blackmon’s future needs are met. Anyone interested in helping him can contact the Fayetteville Police Department at 910-433-1529.

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We don’t fully know the answer. But every crew that resides on the International Space Station provides us information that we use to adjust our protocols and that extends that period of time. Let’s take a closer look.

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