Two Chinese stories were discovered by me recently which I feel gives a marvelous opportunity for "head fakes" in today's world. 

Story One: Three Chinese gentlemen were walking by a calm lake and comparing their reactions to the consumption of wine and other strong drinks. The first man said, "When I drink any wine or other liquor, I get giddy and confused." The second man said, "If I smell wine or any strong liquor on the breath of someone near me, I get giddy and confused." The third man said, "If I just hear of someone drinking wine, I get giddy and confused."

Head Fake: Is this a parable which demonstrates 19th, 20th and 21st century man and his thinking? As a member of a Rotary eClub (as well as the President of Rotary Global History Fellowship), I get information only in sequence or digital patterns therefore when I get giddy with too much information or confused because of the separations of time, distance and/or culture, I can identify with the third man.

Story Two: There was a merchant in Beijing who invented a spear which could penetrate any armor and a shield which could withstand any weapon. Since he sold them both, he made a lot of money.

Hear Fake: What happens when a man who can read all emotions on any person's face before him (identifying truth and lies) comes up against an actor who can create any true emotion and beliefs, making in that moment anyone seeing the performance believe that it is the ultimate truth? Maybe we have modern war, modern diplomacy and modern life. What happens to "Is it the truth?" for Rotarians in our modern world when the seeker of truth comes up against the great deceiver. The techniques of acting created by Stanislovsky may be used to hide as well as reveal. The spear may be "truth" but the shield is a weapon too.

As America tries to see truth in messages of our politicians, we may live the second story of the spear and the shield. Is truth a spear or a shield or both? Is misinformation and lies all three too?

Joe

Some "head fakes" are not stories that you tell but unfolding events before your eyes.

Last night, Anne and I (with our daughter and her husband) attended a concert in the Woodlands (an upscale living area where the houses are planted amongst the trees and forest, not visa versa) by the Gypsy Kings. We had seen them before in the Republic of Georgia (about the same high price for seats) when we took our driver (a flamenco guitarist who drove for us since Americans pay better than the local economy). His name was Raphael and he said, after the concert, "This is a rare treat for me. I have loved the Gypsy Kings and their music but I never thought that I would see them in person (since I could not afford it). Tickets in this country are for the rare few: the Mafia, the Georgian government and you Americans."

Anyway, we were here in Houston seeing and hearing the Gypsy Kings again. It was pulsatingly, stimulatingly, marvelously crafted music. The head fake for me came from the close ups on the two giant screens. In Georgia, I heard the music but was far enough away not to see details. Here, the images were blow-up of each head, each hand dancing across the strings, and....the head fake was that "what I saw were old men with young hearts, playing what they loved." Even their dress was that of a laborer. No flashy costumes but simple everyday dress that old men who have worked at a job for decades wore. The contrast was dramatic (and I am sure planned) but effective. The music was timeless and so were these men. Their audience now were mostly young, with a few gray and white heads (like me and Anne) in the audience. But what they played was eternally new, driven by the beat that races all hearts, and the passion that only comes from being close to the earth yet with a spirit in the clouds.

It was truly a magnificent evening of over two hours of 'heightened pulse rate, hearts pounding and spirits soaring' music. The old in the faces was offset by the present magic of the sound. A real, other-worldly head fake!

Joe

While we are still on the subject of "Head Fakes" hee is one that my father recited to me when I was a kid, and I later readed in a book of poetry by the great Nicaraguan poet, Ruben Dario.  In fact, it also speaks to the subject of truth and fairness.

The poems starts when two friendly cats sneak into a restaurant in the middle of the night and they manage to steal a ball of cheese.  They immediately realize that they would not be able to divide the cheese equitably.  They decide to consult with a friendly monkey because they figured that the monkey would be able to do that more equitably because of its innate intellectual capacity.  The monkey proceeds to divide the cheese into two apparently equal pieces, but then he pulls out a scale and weighs both pieces of cheese.  To everybody's chagrin, one piece is slightly larger than the other one, so the monkey takes a large bite from the larger piece and repeats the process.  Lo and behold, the same thing happens again!  Over and over again, the monkey repeats the process until there is only one small piece left.  The cats decide that they would resolve to divide the cheese themselves and be satisfied with unequal parts, but the monkey informs them that the remaining cheese does not belong to them.  He claims the cheese for himself in order to cover the expense of the proceedings. 

Sorry about the mistakes on the last entry, but my computer does not allow for me to edit in this format, unless I start all over again.