There are two sides to every story. Then there’s the truth.

Last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Cal Thomas remarked “I failed to live up to one of my highest principles...I am not supposed to behave like that. One of the principles in which I believe is not to engage in name-calling; which, to my shame, I did.” (“Naples Daily News,” February 19, 2012.)

Animal lies fall into the same name-calling category.

Many people today would claim that they owe nothing to anyone, except to themselves. They are concerned only with their rights and they often have great difficulty taking responsibility for their own actions. Hence it's important to call for a renewed reflection on how rights presuppose duties, if they're not to become mere license.

Nowadays we are witnessing a grave inconsistency. On the one hand, appeals are made to allege rights, arbitrary and non-essential in nature, accompanied by the demand that they be recognized and promoted by public action; while, on the other hand animal rights remain unacknowledged and are violated with impunity. Common sense would tell you that the most important characteristic of an organism is capacity for internal self-renewal known as health.

There are two organisms whose processes of self-renewal have been subjected to human interference and control. One of these is the animal; the other is land to signify plant-based organisms.

The effort to control the health of land has not been very successful. It's now generally understood that when soil loses fertility, or washes away faster than it forms, and when water systems exhibit abnormal floods or shortages, the land is sick.

Other derangements are known as facts, but are not yet thought of as symptoms of land sickness. The disappearance of plant and animal species without visible cause, despite efforts to protect them, and the eruption of others as pests, despite efforts to control them, should be regarded as symptoms of sickness in the organisms. Both are occurring too frequently to be dismissed as normal evolutionary events.

Liam Neeson's hit film "The Grey" portrays wolves as remorseless man-eaters. In "The Grey," Mr. Neeson's clinically depressed wolf-hunter survives a plane crash in the frozen tundra. Then a pack of humongous, vindictive, ill-tempered wolves sets upon him and a few of his GPS-less colleagues.

Actually, they're animatronic wolves, the size of teen rhinos and thus far scarier than real wolves, which often look kind of scrawny. Wolf lovers argue that “The Grey” perpetuates the myth that wolves, given half a chance, will hunt humans--an idea playing right into bands of ranchers in the southwestern states who will use any excuse to kill the shaggy beasts.

For some time I've been noticing implausible or unrealistic scenes in movies involving animals. A man cannot turn into a wolf just because a feral creature in the Himalayas bit him, the way Anthony Hopkins does in "The Wolfman." This gives feral creatures in the Himalayas a bad name.

The Internet and special interest groups have conditioned us not to think through problems or to look at long-term issues. That's true weather you're Cal Thomas or Liam Neeson or an everyday person. Thinking no longer is a consideration!

Nature isn't at all complex; however, the lies get to you at times!