As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown more skeptical. 

I hear politician’s lies, and I sigh.  I pick apart their carefully chosen words and attempt to figure out “the real truth” based on the specific choices they make with their adjectives and “clarifying words”.  It’s like the Devil is speaking, because as Piers Anthony put it in his great book “For Love of Evil”, the best lies are sandwiched firmly between two truths.  The Devil doesn’t always lie; he actually tells the truth most of the time.  It’s when he lies that makes the difference.

In fact, one can tell the complete truth and still effectively lie.

As they say, the Devil is in the details.  It’s in the qualifying words one uses to further distinguish and refine the meaning, even to the point where it makes it more vague.  Be it a pronoun that can be taken multiple ways, or an unspoken assumption; there are countless ways to hide the truth.

Remember Pirates of the Carribean?  Curse of the Black Pearl?

At one point in the film, Captain Barbossa agrees to Will Turner’s terms of surrender, which is to set his companions free.  When it appears to Will Turner that Barbossa went back on his promise, Barbossa quickly explains he promised to set them free, and he’ll keep to his word (because not keeping your word will bring back luck to your ship), but it was Will Turner who failed to specify when or where.

Classic. In his case, it’s the lack of qualifying details that gives Barbossa what he wants without lying about it.  However, sometimes you can get information (or at least more healthy suspicion) from the details that are provided.

Take this milk carton for instance. 

Seems like a harmless, instructive carton of milk that makes you feel safe that no nasty hormones were used with the cows that produced the tasty treat contained inside.

With the keen, skeptical mind I possess, however, I dissect the Growth Hormone badge they presume to use to make me, the consumer, more at ease with my purchase.  But it just makes me wonder what the real truth is.

Here are my thoughts when I see this kind of badge.

• “Our Farmers Pledge”
  Ah, the promise of a promise.  Note they they don’t come out and say “This product has no growth hormones” or even the shorter “No growth hormones.”  They say that their farmers pledge that there aren’t any.  For one, what’s a pledge, anyway?  Secondly, do the farmers go about injecting hormones, or do scientists?  Since when do farmers know anything about chemicals?  Farmers farm.  And as far as we know, the hormones might be in there, but the farmers just don’t know about it.  If the company is found out to have the hormones, it’s the farmers that get the shaft, not the scientists or executives.
• No artificial growth hormones
  So then I hit the word “artificial” and wonder why they stuck that word in there.  Did they add it to increase confidence that something bad (presumably anything artificial) isn’t in there, or is it that growth hormones ARE given to the cows, but the hormones just aren’t artificial?  Are they putting in natural hormones instead?
• Asterisked
  The almighty asterisk.  How many lies have been sold to the public with this unwitting ally?

I just don’t know what to believe.  I did a little googling (probably one of the most dangerous things on the planet to someone who thinks they know but know nothing (I’m talking about me here) ) and found this tasty little nugget.

The hormone of greatest concern to critics and whistleblowers is not bovine growth hormone, however, but insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), which occurs naturally in both cows and humans. IGF-1 causes cells to divide and is one of the most powerful growth hormones in the body. Cows injected with rbGH have higher levels of IGF-1, and elevated levels of the hormone have been linked to cancer.

And it goes on

A Harvard study of 15,000 white males revealed that those with elevated IGF-1 levels in their blood were four times more likely to get prostate cancer than the average man. The report says, “administration of GH [natural human growth hormone] or IGF-1 over long periods…may increase risk of prostate cancer.”

Somehow I wonder if the people responsible for making this “natural growth hormone” are the same people making prostate pills.

There’s even a lawsuit against the people who use this label by the one producer of artificial growth hormone.  Imagine that – suing over deceptive labeling.

I now open up the comments to anyone wanting to submit a good cow or milk pun.