By mid-February after DIFFA’s silent auction at Reunion Station, an uneasy rumor started making the rounds that the Queen would not be appearing after all. Surely not!

Before you could slam that rumormonger’s mouth shut, the rumor became reality . . . the Queen had to “cancel all March engagements.”

This “development” is a nightmare for any organization. Do you proceed with a Winspear full of people and no “big name” entertainment? or do you postpone? The DIFFA leadership evidently opted for the latter.

Checking with Queen L’s schedule, it seems that she didn’t cancel all of her March engagements.

As if that wasn’t an example of multi-tasking in overdrive, the next day she visited with former President George W. Bush, ExxonMobil’s Rex Tillerson, T. Boone, and the head of Kimberley-Clark.

No one would have suspected that during her day with W and the rest of the big boys that she had just received word that she had breast cancer.

Let’s see. Within 48 hours, she had met with the former president, started coordinating relief efforts for a major catastrophe, and learned she had cancer. Seems a little overwhelming, doesn’t it?

This news about her health and her undergoing surgery on February 11 was revealed over the past weekend. According to American Red Cross spokesperson Roger Lowe, the reason for the delay was Gail “wanted to wait until she knew what she was dealing with and what the effect would be on her work before she announced it.”

Luckily, the doctors report the prognosis is “excellent” and Gail has added the Chile earthquake situation to the Red Cross’s “must-do-list.”

That is where a question must be raised. The Dallas Morning News revealed Saturday morning that Craig simply made up the story to impress a fellow amputee in 1996. As Craig helped grow LFL, he made public appearances and the media picked up on the “mob” incident via research. Craig did not deny it. Over the years, people were advised that Craig preferred not to discuss the incident. This “preference” only added to the mystique of Craig’s loss. One cannot help but wonder if doors and budgets weren’t opened to him because of his “silent courage” regarding his victimization at the hands of a mob. (What mob? The only mob in Dallas is the crush of people trying to get into Best Buy on Black Friday.)

But perhaps even greater than Craig’s lost limb is the shadow cast on the actual good that has been achieved since his co-founding Limbs For Life. There are thousands of men, women, and children who have been provided with prostheses thanks to Limbs For Life since its founding in 1995. These great accomplishments are still in place. However, the pristine reputation of the organization has been tainted, not destroyed.

Lessons Learned From This Situation

1. Don’t give life to a lie. Craig’s embellishment of the truth years ago took on a life of its own through his silence.
2. If a lie is birthed, kill it immediately by owning up to the truth and apologizing to those affected by it. Craig admits that his silence over the years let the lie continue and appear to be the truth.
3. Don’t compound the original lie with follow-up lies. There is a reason for Sir Walter Scott‘s “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise (sic) to deceive!”
4. Don’t complain about the media’s behavior. While it may be true that the media tends to get into a frenzy mode, it’s only feeding on what you’ve provided. Plus, you’ll make an even greater foe that will continue to hound you.
5. As painful as it was for Craig to admit publicly and to be showcased in a newspaper article that will live forever, he must be greatly relieved that his dirty little secret is finally out in the open.

When Craig started his life of a fib, it was a different world. Today in this day and age of Internet accessibility to information, lies can easily be uncovered. If you have lied, correct it immediately without being “caught.” Yes, your lie will color your reputation, but Americans are a very forgiving people. If you immediately admit your mistake and walk the straight and narrow, they will eventually embrace you and give you a second chance. If you allow the lie to live and deny it’s being a lie, your betrayal will never be forgiven nor forgotten.

Finally, there are those who have described the source of Saturday’s DMN article as a disgruntled former Dallas police officer. Let’s take a deep breath and admit something. If you were a member of the force and heard that someone was claiming to have been one of the brotherhood who had suffered loss in an act of duty, you’d probably be pretty disgruntled, too. There are unfortunately too many officers who have truly suffered harm and death honorably to have someone weasel their way into this group. This officer did what Craig should have done years ago — kill a lie and let the truth live.

Perhaps Craig might consider apologizing to the Dallas Police Department, too.

“American Red Cross chief executive Gail J. McGovern was about to give a fundraising pitch to a roomful of Texas millionaires when news of the earthquake in Haiti reached her by text message.

She knew right away that this would be her first real test as chief of the renowned relief organization, which had fallen into debt and disrepute after missteps after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Katrina. But she wasn’t about to abandon her talk to donors at the home of a concrete-paving magnate, an estate modeled after a French chateau.

Without “an eyelash out of place” — as one Dallas charity blogger noted — McGovern went on coolly with her prepared remarks, making scant mention of the disaster then unfolding. And she stayed and mingled afterward, charming the wealthy crowd with a self-deprecating anecdote about her first meeting as Red Cross chief with their home-town son, George W. Bush. (She’d burst into tears telling him that she’d dropped her kid off at college the previous day.)”

SweetCharity covered the party at the Schlegel estate and enjoyed her chat with Annie.

Locals are chattering about which groups were taken in by the chap. So far, the nonprofit sector has been silent about possible victimization. Heidi Dillon‘s Fashionistas evidently escaped unscathed from a Mordie event earlier this month. Let’s keep our manicured fingers crossed that none suffered from Mordie’s alleged conning.

And it seems that visiting Rogues’ Gallery author Michael Gross, who was photographed with Mordie back in September, was taken aback by the bleached blonde at the Adolphus book signing. Now Michael is not a tourist to the high profile set. No indeed. He’ s made the literary rounds with the likes of the 740 Park Avenue set to Helmut Lang. In other words, he’s been around the character block and can spot a questionable character immediately.

So, imagine after attending a cocktail party at Laura Hunt‘s the night before, Michael finds himself at the Adolphus book signing with Mordie suddenly cozying up for a photo with him. Ever the gentleman Michael sensed Mordie seemed shall we say out of step with Dallas social folks:

“I must admit that Mordan was not what I had expected. But the other guests like Linda (Ivy) showed the graciousness that people associate with Dallas.”

By the way, Michael’s book Rogues’ Gallery is exceeding expectations despite the headwinds of the economy and the campaign by the Met to blacklist it. Thanks to a word-of-mouth wave, it’s becoming a publication sensation.

Because SweetCharity has absolutely nothing to do (please note the sarcasm in that last comment), she put on her Jessica Fletcher thinking cap, dug around, and discovered some of Mordan’s socializing in Dallas.

It seems that that over-the-top Mordan had been playing in the Dallas social world since the fall. Dimples wrote up Mordan’s launch of SFR International Magazine at the Casino Party benefiting Make-A-Wish and the Children’s Medical Center on Friday, October 30, at The Ashton. Celebrities like Billy Zane were on hand.

Then there was Mordan’s very public grip and grin appearance in Dallas at the Adolphus for a luncheon/book signing of Rogues’ Gallery with author Michael Gross (Why does that title seem ironic?). Faux blondie boy Mordan wrote a gushing, if not slightly grammatically-challenged, article for SFR Daily about Michael, the fabulous ladies of Dallas, and how much he enjoyed our quaint little town on the Trinity. Why there was even a photo of Mordan with Michael and the likes of Linda Ivy. Michael looked like he was searching for an escape route; Linda and the gals looked fashionably healthier than Mordan. You really should have checked the article and photos out because they  are MIA from SFR Daily‘s website, but so is most of SFR Daily.

BTW, if you dug into the SFR website, your little eyebrows rose higher than a brow lift. Okay, so the headquarters in Roma were pretty international, but having a “R. Murdoch” as an executive pushed things out of the reality world.

The word is now leaking out that Mordan’s story of being a Greek heir, who had been rejected by his wealthy papa due to sonny boy’s being gay, was a ruse. (Actually, if such father had existed, he would have disowned the kid for just really bad taste in clothes.) The investigative types are discovering the guy is just a schmuck named Michael Manos from Poughkeepsie, whose favorite hobby is parole jumping. No, kiddies, that’s not a new exercise to lose weight.

With the arrest of Mordan/Manos by Texas marshals in San Francisco, let’s hope that this action puts potential scam artists on notice: Don’t mess with  North Texas nonprofits and businesses or we’ll send our Tommy Lee Jones after ya’ll.