This is a great, no nonsense yet humorous look into the 'less than kind' ways people treat each other and the reactions of 'victims'.

I found it to be written in a clear, honest and open style, its humour allowing us to relate to the subject. Its observations into human behaviour are believable, real and oh, so true!

A thorough look into an unusual topic, which may indeed help others and based on well-researched data and theory.

Julie Elizabeth Powell, author of Gone

I wrote this book and had a wonderful time doing it. It was great fun to develop and test a theory of being a shit. I am a professor and believe in the scientific method.

I learned about being a shit through my research on violence, where I saw so many perpetrators throw their children under the bus, so to speak, rather than tell the truth that they abused their children. I saw many of the same things with rapists and murderers. Somehow their victims were at fault.

As I realized how many violent people cover up their unkind deeds, I started to see that the rest of us do it, too, though our deeds aren't as awful--usually--as the deeds I heard so much about in my research.

I decided to write a book about the everyday kinds of unkind deeds that we all are guilty of. My inspiration was Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit. Both Frankfurt and I are university professors, he of philosophy and me of social work. Franfurt wrote an essay. I did research, and the present book is a report on this research. I sometimes think I should have called the book On Accountability and may yet.

I first developed a preliminary theory and then I tested it on a series of stories. I end with a revised and improved theory and in the process discovered principles of how to build bridges after you have done something unkind and dishonest.


This is a humorous look at a serious topic. If we all could do what this book advocates, we'd all be better off and the world would change. I'm not too optimistic in that regard because being a shit gains far too much for enactors to ever give it up.

For those who prefer not to read slang, this book is available in another edition with asterisks at http://www.lulu.com/content/2239317 and in its full flowering at Kindle books and also at http://www.lulu.com/content/1151441.


I had an agent for this book, but the agent was not able to sell it, although I got a lot of enthusiastic comments from editors about its potential. The manuscript was kind of a mess, and the present version is much improved.


It is sure to help you, your put-upon relatives and friends to deal with this ubiquitous human condition. The book will also be a gentle hint to troublesome co-workers, friends, relatives, and neighbors.

For readers who aspire to be shits, this book is a step-by-step guide. For example, it lists a dozen or more proven cover-ups that many readers may never have heard of.

Above all, this book is a response to a pressing social need. It's time we all came clean about cover-ups.

This book is for teachers, parents, spouses, humorists, therapists, social workers, addicts, survivors, researchers,codependents, enablers, politicians, investment bankers, executives, and anyone else with a sense of humor and who wants to think about the human condition.