Honesty

Dear God,

This is in today's Washington Post:

Mitt Romney says he "saw" his father "march" with Martin Luther King Jr. Rudolph W. Giuliani claims that he is one of the "five best-known Americans in the world." According to John McCain, the Constitution established the United States as a "Christian nation." Ron Paul believes that a "NAFTA superhighway" is being planned to link Mexico with Canada and undermine U.S. sovereignty.

On the other side of the political divide, Sen. Barack Obama says there are more young black males in prison than in college. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton claims she has a "definitive timetable" for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. John Edwards insists that NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement -- has cost Americans "millions of jobs." Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. boasts about his experience negotiating an arms-control treaty with Leonid Brezhnev.

All those claims, made over the past four months as part of the presidential campaign, are demonstrably false.

Dear Lord, I want to talk to you about duplicity. Lying, I know, is a sin. But is truth-shaping?

Psychologists know that we all lie with neither sin nor shame. Even the most honest among us shape the truth unconsciously. Psychologists call that "shaping" the creation of a narrative truth -- by which they mean the creation of a first-person story infused with feeling, emotion, and history and limited by those same factors. Narrative truth is the highly personal version of events that one believes to be historically true--but that is always at least a little bit a lie.

Which is to say that psychologists believe that we all lie, always. The trick to being honest is to keep an eye on the distortions and to be as forthcoming as possible about them.

Artists, according to this line of logic, lie because they are human. But, apparently, they also lie because they get to. It's called "artistic license." To whit, this is from today's New York Times. It's in a review of a new movie that incorporates straight documentary techniques with fictional techniques, blending the two seamlessly to subtly distort the story. In reply to a question about why he "does not give it to audiences straight," Alex Gibney, the filmmaker, said:

“It’s because I didn’t want to give it to you straight. I wanted to have some fun.”

Lord, I'm a PR guy, a spin artist in my own right, if you will, and I'm wanting to have some fun. I'm wanting this while I'm thinking about how to spin the SEC information someone who calls herself Laughingmama pasted into a comment to my "J. Wayne Leonard Lives Here" prayer. Hint: Look for occasions of the term "Cayman Islands."

Exhibit 21

The eight registrants, Entergy Corporation, System Energy Resources,
Inc., Entergy Arkansas, Inc., Entergy Gulf States, Inc., Entergy London
Investments plc, Entergy Louisiana, Inc., Entergy Mississippi, Inc., and
Entergy New Orleans, Inc., and their active subsidiaries, are listed below:

State or Other
Jurisdiction of
Incorporation

Entergy Corporation Delaware
System Energy Resources, Inc. (a) Arkansas
Entergy Arkansas, Inc. (a) Arkansas
Entergy Arkansas Capital I (b) Delaware
The Arklahoma Corporation (b) Arkansas
Entergy Gulf States, Inc. (a) Texas
Entergy Gulf States Capital I (c) Delaware
Varibus Corporation (c) Texas
GSG&T, Inc. (c) Texas
Southern Gulf Railway Company (c) Texas
Prudential Oil & Gas, Inc. (c) Texas
Entergy Louisiana, Inc. (a) Louisiana
Entergy Louisiana Capital I (d) Delaware
Entergy Mississippi, Inc. (a) Mississippi
Entergy New Orleans, Inc. (a) Louisiana
System Fuels, Inc. (e) Louisiana
Entergy Services, Inc. (a) Delaware
Entergy Power, Inc. (a) Delaware
Entergy Operations, Inc. (a) Delaware
Entergy Enterprises, Inc. (a) Louisiana
Entergy S.A. (a) Argentina
Entergy Power Development Corporation (a) Delaware
Entergy Integrated Solutions, Inc. Delaware
Entergy Pakistan, Ltd. Delaware
Entergy Power Asia, Ltd. Cayman Islands
Entergy International Holdings Ltd. LLC (a) Delaware
Entergy International Ltd. LLC Delaware
Entergy Global Power Operations Corporation (a) Delaware
Entergy Power Operations U.S., Inc. Delaware
Entergy Power Operations Corporation Delaware
EP Edegel, Inc. Delaware
Entergy Power CBA Holding Ltd. Bermuda
EPG Cayman Holding I Cayman Islands
EPG Cayman Holding II Cayman Islands
Entergy Victoria LDC Cayman Islands
Entergy Victoria Holding, LDC Cayman Islands
CitiPower Trust Australia
CitiPower Ltd. Australia
Entergy Power Edesur Holding Ltd. (a) Bermuda
Entergy Power Marketing Corp. (a) Delaware
Entergy Power Holding II, Ltd. Cayman Islands
Entergy Power Operations Holdings Ltd. Cayman Islands
Entergy Power Operations Pakistan LDC Cayman Islands
Entergy Nuclear, Inc. Delaware
Entergy Power Cayman Investments, Ltd. Cayman Islands
Entergy Power Peru S.A. Peru
Entergy do Brasil LTDA Brazil
Entergy Technology Holding Company (a) Delaware
Entergy Power International Holdings Delaware
Corporation (a)
Entergy Power Generation Corporation (a) Delaware
Entergy Power Saltend, Ltd. Cayman Islands
Entergy Power Chile, Inc. Delaware
Entergy London Limited England
Entergy London Investments plc England
London Electricity plc England

Now, Lord, before you get mad at Entergy for creating a narrative truth about being a good taxpayer while setting up off-shore holding companies that are typically used as vehicles to avoid taxes, let me remind you that offshore holding companies are perfectly legal.

Still, here's one thing Hillary Clinton had to say about them:

In 2004, Hillary Clinton, a New York senator, said she wanted to close the "loopholes" for "people who create a mailbox, or a drop, or send one person to sit on the beach in some island paradise and claim that it is their offshore headquarters."

Why does Entergy have Cayman Islands holdling companies if not to avoid paying taxes? I do know that Entergy has been complaining about taxes. I do know that Vermont Yankee took the town of Vernon to court when Vernon tried to assess the plant property at a value that reflected the 20% power boost.

Now, Lord, I'm sure to be asked sooner or later about the whole Cayman Islands thing. Help me out, here. Can I say this?

"That information is old. It's from a 1998 filing."

Well, the Laughingmama info is from a 1998 filing. Pointing that out will shut everyone up, right?

Um. Yes, sir. Newer information (current as of September 30, 2001, and it seems to be a slide presentation used internally by Entergy New Orleans) does show plenty of holding companies in the Cayman Islands.

Yes, sir. 2001 was a long time ago. No, sir. I'm not being lazy about finding a simple list from a later year. It seems that by 2005, anyway, the SEC forms were reconfigured and the lists of subsidiaries were put into Exhibits that aren't all that easy to locate on the web. Anyway, it's harder to get a straight list of Cayman Island holdings owned by Entergy as of their 2005 filing from SEC Info. But, at SEC Info, a search for the word "Cayman" in "Exhibit 1 to Entergy Corporation's Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 filing made in File No. 70-9123 on February 24, 2005" produces:

EGT Holding Ltd (Cayman)(100%)(a new subsidiary)
Entergy Global Trading Holdings, Ltd. (Cayman) (100%)(a new subsidiary)
Entergy Power BJE Holding Ltd. (Cayman)(100%)(a new subsidiary)
Entergy Power Operations Holdings Ltd. (Cayman) (90.9%)(a new subsidiary
EPG Cayman Holding I, and EPG Cayman Holding II
Entergy Power Damhead Creek Holding II, Ltd. (Cayman) (100%) (a new subsidiary)
Entergy Power Damhead Creek Holding III, Ltd. (Cayman) (100%)(a new subsidiary)
Entergy Power Damhead FinCo 1 (Cayman) (100%) (a new subsidiary)
Damhead Finance LDC (Cayman)(1%)(a new subsidiary)
EGT Holding LTD. (Cayman)(100%)(FUCO)
Entergy Power Hull Holding, Ltd. (Cayman)(100%)(a new
subsidiary)
… and more.

Yes, sir. I am too lazy to type them all.

Lord, I am trying--very hard--to find the 2006 filing info on the web. I'll post an update if I do.

Anyway, it looks like I can't just wave off the Laughingmama info. So should I say:

"Like any best-and-brightest American corporation we are becoming un-American in good measure in order to be able to afford paying our brave CEO $15 million in a single year? And enrich our stockholders, as well?"

That would be the "accountant's truth" if I can coin so catchy a phrase (which I cannot because it was coined by Werner Herzog and actually cited in the New York Times film review to which I referred earlier). Or should I say:

"Go bugger yourself for making me do all this web research in the first place?"

That would be the "ecstatic truth." (That's another Werner Herzog term; it describes the pleasure the artist generates in himself and his audience by lying.)

Going for the ecstatic truth here would overjoy me. So can I? Without sinning?

One benefit: If I did say the bugger thing, and if whoever did the asking went ahead and buggered himself, it would create a new historical truth for the situation. And, honestly, that could even be art.

Amen,

Fake-Rob