What's the price of sincerity?

How old do you have to be before you can finally cut through the crap, look someone in the eye and say: "liar"; "confused but well-meaning"; "truthful and reliable", etc.? You read the Michael Moore vs Bill O'Really smackdown and you wonder, is the dude really that deluded? Did he do it to himself, or is there a shadowy underworld organization of mysteriously funded ideologues running around brainwashing people? Do they get you in your sleep, or just through the TV?

Then again, how relevant is it all to me? I really only ought to care about whether my mechanic, my doctor, or my boss is full of crap. Even then, what good would it do me? Sorry, sir, but this particular hose was forged by elves in the depths of Mount Fuji, and that's why it's so expensive. Oh, no problem, my boss says my late nights at the office are about to pan out *wink, wink*, and if not, my doctor says one of my kidney's will get me a bundle on the back-alley market, so no biggie.

'Jaded' doesn't begin to cover it. What do you have to do to trust someone around here, sell your soul to the Skull and Bones club? Forget it. I could never learn the secret handshake, anyway.

At least in Fantasy World, one of the guards always tells the truth, and the other always lies, whereas the person in front of you could, at any time, be shoveling any combination your way. As Gary Larson said in his depiction of two condemned souls in Hell's Kitchen: "You're new here, aincha, kid? Well on some days the sandwiches contain a dead scorpion. ...Not every day, but some days--that's why it's hell kid."