Last weekend I met with a woman who is willing to mentor me as a writer. She told me to write the truth for fifteen minutes a day. I tried to reason with her about the perils of truth telling.

"Do you want me to be assassinated?!"

"It's the price you pay for not being a fraud..."

I told her it could get worse. I could get fired from my job and expelled forever from office life where computers and, therefore, the Internet, and, therefore, my Blog, are a staple item, like corn or cotton.

But she had no sympathy.

We all know about folks like Martin Luther King Jr. and the late JC who said something that other people didn't like (like, all human life is equally worthy of love and respect...whatever!). And then there is my friend Mary who is a large African American women who goes around questioning why Black and Latino people all JUST HAPPEN to live in the same neighborhoods where falling down schools JUST HAPPEN to be wedged in between liquor stores, projects, and recycling plants. And she's had threats on her life (though, it might have been about something else)! And while I agree that some Truth Tellers may have irritating personalities (I'm sure JC was a big ole whiner)...reactions are far more extreme than they are towards irritating liars (Bush, etc.) Nobody likes it when you spake The Truth.

Just for today, I can tell the truth...cuz truth = power. Word.