My very sincerest apologies for not contributing anything to this blog for over a month. I hadn't even realized it had been that long.
My wife's health continued to decline and pretty much every minute not at work (five ten-hour days per week) or taking care of the necessaries—sleep, eat, meal prep, cleaning, etc.—has been involved with my wife's health one way or another.
She finally gave up and admitted that she needed to be someplace other than home where she could get care and help all day as well as therapy to try to improve.
She hates not being home, and she knew she would, but gave in to necessity. Now we just have to hope and pray that she can improve.
Sorry about the personal note. I wouldn't mention near that much, but by way of explanation for my absence from this page.
I'm going to try to walk a fine line here and discuss communication rather than just writing. After all, writing is only one form of communication, and it is futile unless someone reads the writing. It is futile to talk, no matter how wise and valuable your words, unless someone hears them.
Art, music, drama, sign language—either the formal signing the deaf use or the more informal signs we all recognize, pantomime, all are means of communication. And all need to be "received" to do any good.
As I've mentioned, the fantasy series I've undertaken to write is titled Lying Swords. Not only do the swords lie, but characters lie. Some lie all the time, some lie seldom. Even the heroes lie, though seldom and never to each other.
Lying in politics is something most of us take for granted, but the frequency and boldness of lies has been raised to a new level since early in 2016.
I suppose everyone is familiar with the Mueller Investigation and to some degree with the findings.
Among other things, we know that the President's Press Secretary baldly and boldly lied to the American people, the press, television news, everyone, apparently simply to offer some kind of justification for her boss's actions. She confessed that.
But the bigger lies were those committed by representatives of our country's greatest national enemy—Russia. There is absolutely no doubt that the Trump campaign benefitted from the lies Russian agents presented on social media and other internet platforms.
The Russkis did their jobs well. I recall one brief exchange on Facebook with a young woman who was convinced Hillary Clinton was a killer—that she was guilty in some way of homicide. When I asked her what was her source for that belief, she scoffed. How could I expect her to remember which source out of so many produced those "facts."
I managed not to cry. But as a former teacher, I am appalled that people would simply believe the most ridiculous accusations without even caring if there was any evidence.
As Paul Simon wrote, "A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest."
And Robert Heinlein observed this: "The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa."
Please remember that when you are reading almost anything on line, especially on social media, from conservatives, liberals, or anyone in between, just because it is presented as fact does not mean that it is. It might be a lie. I urge you all to fact check everything...especially the stuff sent to you specifically.
Before there was an internet and the USSR still existed behind it's "Iron Curtain" (a label credited to Winston Churchill) there was Radio Free Europe, where the western nations of democracy, including the United States, did their best to get the truth to the citizens behind that curtain.
And in Russia, the State was the only source of "facts" and news. The Communist Party-run newspaper was Pravda. It is still the primary newspaper and news dispensary in Russia, despite satellite communication and the internet. "Pravda" means "truth." The people of Russian and the other members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were subjected to strict censorship. They only heard or read what the State wanted them to know, and that source of "truth" also constantly insisted that it was the only truth, and that any other source was lying for their own purposes.
Today, every citizen in this country has the opportunity to get their news from multiple sources. They can get two or three different—sometimes opposite—points of view and fact check them all to decide what is truth.
Sadly, many millions of people are too damn lazy to do that.
In the movie Hero, Dustin Hoffman's character says to his son, near the end of the movie, "All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak."
Sadly, that is pretty much true.
People who watch only one news channel, or read or listen to only one point of view, be it only conservative or only liberal, are voluntarily submitting themselves to the same kind of censorship the Russian people had forced upon them for decades.
Please, do the country and yourself a favor. Stop censoring your own source of the facts.
Thank you for reading, please communicate any reaction, if you wish, through the comments offer available here or the contact page, and read. Ditch the radio, ditch the television, even if only for an hour or so, and read.
My wife's health continued to decline and pretty much every minute not at work (five ten-hour days per week) or taking care of the necessaries—sleep, eat, meal prep, cleaning, etc.—has been involved with my wife's health one way or another.
She finally gave up and admitted that she needed to be someplace other than home where she could get care and help all day as well as therapy to try to improve.
She hates not being home, and she knew she would, but gave in to necessity. Now we just have to hope and pray that she can improve.
Sorry about the personal note. I wouldn't mention near that much, but by way of explanation for my absence from this page.
I'm going to try to walk a fine line here and discuss communication rather than just writing. After all, writing is only one form of communication, and it is futile unless someone reads the writing. It is futile to talk, no matter how wise and valuable your words, unless someone hears them.
Art, music, drama, sign language—either the formal signing the deaf use or the more informal signs we all recognize, pantomime, all are means of communication. And all need to be "received" to do any good.
As I've mentioned, the fantasy series I've undertaken to write is titled Lying Swords. Not only do the swords lie, but characters lie. Some lie all the time, some lie seldom. Even the heroes lie, though seldom and never to each other.
Lying in politics is something most of us take for granted, but the frequency and boldness of lies has been raised to a new level since early in 2016.
I suppose everyone is familiar with the Mueller Investigation and to some degree with the findings.
Among other things, we know that the President's Press Secretary baldly and boldly lied to the American people, the press, television news, everyone, apparently simply to offer some kind of justification for her boss's actions. She confessed that.
But the bigger lies were those committed by representatives of our country's greatest national enemy—Russia. There is absolutely no doubt that the Trump campaign benefitted from the lies Russian agents presented on social media and other internet platforms.
The Russkis did their jobs well. I recall one brief exchange on Facebook with a young woman who was convinced Hillary Clinton was a killer—that she was guilty in some way of homicide. When I asked her what was her source for that belief, she scoffed. How could I expect her to remember which source out of so many produced those "facts."
I managed not to cry. But as a former teacher, I am appalled that people would simply believe the most ridiculous accusations without even caring if there was any evidence.
As Paul Simon wrote, "A man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest."
And Robert Heinlein observed this: "The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa."
Please remember that when you are reading almost anything on line, especially on social media, from conservatives, liberals, or anyone in between, just because it is presented as fact does not mean that it is. It might be a lie. I urge you all to fact check everything...especially the stuff sent to you specifically.
Before there was an internet and the USSR still existed behind it's "Iron Curtain" (a label credited to Winston Churchill) there was Radio Free Europe, where the western nations of democracy, including the United States, did their best to get the truth to the citizens behind that curtain.
And in Russia, the State was the only source of "facts" and news. The Communist Party-run newspaper was Pravda. It is still the primary newspaper and news dispensary in Russia, despite satellite communication and the internet. "Pravda" means "truth." The people of Russian and the other members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were subjected to strict censorship. They only heard or read what the State wanted them to know, and that source of "truth" also constantly insisted that it was the only truth, and that any other source was lying for their own purposes.
Today, every citizen in this country has the opportunity to get their news from multiple sources. They can get two or three different—sometimes opposite—points of view and fact check them all to decide what is truth.
Sadly, many millions of people are too damn lazy to do that.
In the movie Hero, Dustin Hoffman's character says to his son, near the end of the movie, "All there is is bullshit, pardon my vulgarity here. Layers of it. One layer of bullshit on top of another. And what you do in life like when you get older is, you pick the layer of bullshit that you prefer and that's your bullshit, so to speak."
Sadly, that is pretty much true.
People who watch only one news channel, or read or listen to only one point of view, be it only conservative or only liberal, are voluntarily submitting themselves to the same kind of censorship the Russian people had forced upon them for decades.
Please, do the country and yourself a favor. Stop censoring your own source of the facts.
Thank you for reading, please communicate any reaction, if you wish, through the comments offer available here or the contact page, and read. Ditch the radio, ditch the television, even if only for an hour or so, and read.
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