"CAT on a HOT TIN ROOF." For Christine Judd, a lesbian. I honor her courage.

and all that "Mendacity!!! "What is that anyways???..." "Mendacity."

The American Dictionary quotes its meaning as, "lying, untruthful."

Paul Newman portrays Brick Pollitt in Tennessee William's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."

An ex-football player, who drinks his days away over his best friend's suicide and becomes bitter to his wife.

Is also favored son of patriarch "Big Daddy Pollitt, a mendacity-loathing millionaire, sums up mendacity: "The hell with all lies and liers!!"

Brick's disgust with complicated rules of social conduct in Southern Society and culture.

Hmmmmm...Those social mores could very well apply here on this planet and not just in Tennessee's plays.

Hypocrisies, pretenses, greed. "What's good for me isn't for you." "The haves, and have nots."

BULL!!! I say! Just like Big Daddy.

A phrase he uses frequently to describe his aversion of mendacity . So I say,

BULL!!! We're tired and refuse to conform to the hypocrites of society. Tyrants who try to break off chunks of our souls with their prejudices, money and propaganda.

BULL!!! To comfort from organized religion. BULL!!! to churches holding political power & wealth only to keep people in line. "BULL!!!" They can't even keep themselves in line!

All the clergy's sex-abuse, secret passions of children, teenagers and sweeping it under the rug, in the name of "GOD???!!!

"Where's the morality in all the pile of BULL!!!, "HUH????? "What kind of truth is that?!!"

These perpetrators/sexual predators of the church always hiding behind "guarded walls,"

BUT we see the shadows of the head and horns of the Devil.

Alluding to something dark & sinister, And "OOOOOOOH," the smell of mendacity that reeeeks through the Vatican, "The Holy See."

"All The Clergy's Men." "Now.. wouldn't that make an interesting book of mendacity;}

"BULL." It's what makes the world go around... Which goes back to the movie,

"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and Big Daddy Pollitt who is portrayed by the great Burl Ives says, as he converses with his son Brick:

"Disgust???!!!" "Mendacity???!!!" "Look at all the lies I gotta put up with!"

"Pretenses, hypocrisies, church...It bores me! "All those swindl'in lodges & social clubs, money grabb'in auxilliaries."

"Boyyyy----- I've lived with mendacity why can't you live with it???!" "You've got to live with it...There's nothing to live with but mendacity is there?!"

Well Big Daddy, your right and your wrong. I suppose its like the lesser of two evils. You go along with it OR...you live with it, but only outside your home.

Yes this world is like one gigantic cage of mendacity, and we, living with its occupants; hypocrites, oppressors, social mores. The rot, the decay and disgust of it all!

Most of "them" oblivious to it-- and most of "us" numb from the prejudices of it.

I think "Maggie the Cat," Brick's wife portrayed by the beautiful, sensuous, Elizabeth Taylor, said it best, although she was speaking of her relationship with her husband: "I'm not living with you, we occupy the same cage, that's all."

"Yeah, I couldn't agree more. This world is one big box furnished with bars and the only comforts, the demons of society; Hatred, anger, violence, cruelty, AND mendacity.

What has happened to our symbol of life? Did society abandoned it, tossed it into the great Sea?

It's almost as if we are like Adam & Eve banished, exiled, from the Garden of Eden because "we" bit the forbidden fruit?

Beguiled, ever so subtle by the govern snake, the great oppressor who gets rich from the sweat off our backs.

And oooohh how the blood and the venom start to bubble & boil................

What can we do? What will we do?? I reflect on what Brick said to Maggie, and her reply, I quote:

"What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof? , he asks with a smile and a smirk.

She looks him dead in his eyes and replies ever so witty, "Just staying on it I guess....long as she can."

Maybe we should heed to Maggie the cat's metaphorical advice and remember who we are.

A great people made up of many cultures , creeds, full of dignity, pride, and respect.

Whose ancestors are like a great bridge extending from one descendant to another. Keeping our blood bonded, through space and time.

Let us not be possessed by the anesthetizing serpents and demons of society, tempting us to give in.

Let us never surrender to the downward spiral of chaos and confusion. Let us never "jump off..." Never!!!

And then maybe one day, just maybe... society will find its morals, its soul that it abandoned so long ago. Maybe the great sea will waif up what was lost and finally cast away the serpents & demons of this mendacious world.

I dedicate this to Christine Judd, a lesbian who stood up to mendacity, with pride and honor.

Christine who "was" the Athletic Director and Dean of Students at Cathedral High School in Springfield, Mass.

She was forced out of her job after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield found out she had married her longtime partner this past summer in August, 2010.

The anxieties, struggles, and animosity from others be they as they will, we will never give up, never give in!

We will continue the journey, remember our brothers and sisters of different creeds & cultures that walked before us; the hard choices they/we stand for when traveling on the road of life.

With every breath we are given the chance to begin again.

AND--- that is why "they" cannot win.

~LJS