Now you see it. Now you don’t. Total control of everything on the YBR. Will there be consequences?

I like gadgets, but I love tricky gadgets. I should start calling my cell phone “Merlin” because it is magical. It does just about everything. I am intrigued by the “lens” tool. You take a picture of a flower you’ve never seen before and instantly learn what the flower is called, where it grows, etc. Amazing.

The photo erase tool is also as amazing, but in a different way. I took the top picture of a woman who was setting up for a celebration of the Feast of Our Lady of LaVang at the Carmelite Shrine where I work. I then used the magic eraser tool available on my phone. The woman in the orange dress is…gone.

The revised picture is real…isn’t it? If I trash the other photo with the woman in it, the real photo (a truthful photo), all that will remain is the photo without the woman.

We can debate the use of such a tool until the proverbial cows come home, but that’s not what I’m really talking about. I’m talking about how we can magically erase things from our memory to suit other purposes. Instead of dealing with things as they really were/are, we can alter the reality to better suit our (agenda-driven) narrative.

People on the left and far left do it. People on the right and far right do it. And they often do it to change the narrative that works for them as they tell/sell their story to “their” followers.

Sometimes that which gets erased is not always the same “sticking point” that gets erased in another “version” of the story.

Our ability to render different realities is not something new. You never needed an app to change a part or parts of the “truth.” It’s human nature. Honestly admitting that we do it is not human nature.

Until we all admit we are “guilty” of altering reality, we will have people out there who believe Donald Trump was denied the presidency and that Joe Biden had no idea whatsoever what his son was doing.

Until we take a deep breath and are willing to look at things as they really are…or at least admit that we tend to overlook things that “ruin” our story, we will never walk the yellow brick road…together.

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The slow demise of unvarnished facts on the YBR. Is truth on life-support?

I am neither a scholar nor a sage. In truth, no one gives a rat’s ass what I have to say, but say it I will even if no one reads this blog post.

In the spirit of being transparent, I will admit without embarrassment that I am a fact-checker despite the fact that I am continually told that I should not let facts get in the way of a good story. Should it matter if the family event happened on Thanksgiving in 1982 or if it happened at Easter in 1983? It shouldn’t matter as long as the purpose of the story is told as folklore, but not to “prove” something of some importance. That’s when facts matter. But, what is just as important (in my opinion) is if the facts are
unvarnished and not tainted with prejudice. I would also add that a fact not told is as bad as a lie.

I am an ardent believer and supporter of “facts” when those “facts,” after being scrutinized without prejudice, are deemed to be “unvarnished.” Then and only then can a just “argument” be made.

Arguments are actually meant to clear the air and bring about change that is true and just. Unfortunately, arguments today fail to take “all” the facts into account. Despite the “fact” that I might want something to
be “true,” I have to be willing to fully evaluate the unvarnished facts before what I believe is actually true,

I love to harvest facts. I harvest them by listening to different voices. I do not limit my reading and research to one set of “beliefs.” Of late, I am of the opinion that we have lost the ability to find out what is
true. We are more interested in “proving” our point, instead of finding or learning the truth.*

The airwaves, internet, and print are filled with stories coming out on the June Sixth hearings and the Hunter Biden Laptop. In both cases, I don’t believe either the arbiters of the hearings or the investigators of the laptop are out to find out what is true. I fear that in both cases the decision of what is “true” was decided long before any hearings or investigations began.

We have become so divided that to use a trite expression we can’t see the forest for the trees. I listen to the ladies of the View and to the WABC radio hosts. etc. While I admit to being “View-sided,” I don’t take sides before I can harvest the facts. The problem with many facts is that they are not sagebrush. Facts have long roots that run deep. There is no denying, again in my opinion, that what happened at our Nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a travesty. The how and why it happened needed to be investigated. But, instead of an unprejudiced hearing, a mob mentality often tainted the proceedings. 

There have been a plethora of “facts” divulged by the “witnesses” at the hearings. Is what they said the truth and nothing but the truth? Or were some of the “right” questions not asked because the answers might have challenged some of the other facts? 

The same logic applies to the Hunter Biden laptop investigation. If the investigators are only out to prove they are “right,” more than likely they won’t be asking questions that don’t fit their scenario.  There is, I “believe,” a greater truth in all that is happening today. And that truth is we are so divided and so angry that we have become blind to the truth. Hatred is killing all of us. If we can no longer be objective when it comes to finding the truth, we will be a nation built on a mountain of opinions.

And that I believe is our current state of affairs. Statements are made by politicians, broadcasters, and people in the media in a “factual” tone. Many of us take these statements to be solid, unvarnished facts when in truth they are not.

Call me an “unbeliever,” but when facts are thrown at me, I need to do some homework. And even then I often need to do more “fact-checking.”

OZ NOTE: To tie this into the YBR. Emerald City was not green. When the young man who landed in Oz after a balloon mishap was declared the Wizard of Oz, he set out to build “his” city. Since he loved the green of the Land of Oz, he called it the Emerald City…but since it was not green, he made all the people wear glasses with green lenses. The people never took them off. The fact that Emerald City was not green didn’t matter to them. Hmmm. Does that sound like us?

*I use the word truth here with some hesitancy because “truth” is a philosophical/religious construct. It is about “self-evident” matters. Truth and true are not the same things.

 

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Which way do we go on the YBR?

All Dorothy knew after falling into Munchkin Land was that if she wanted to get back home she’d have to go to Emerald City where she’d have to ask the Wizard to help her. She didn’t have a GPS. She didn’t think she’d need one since all she had to do was follow the Yellow Brick Road. However, she came to an intersection where she had to make a decision. Which way should she go? She posed the question out loud. To her surprise, her question was answered when the Scarecrow told her she could go “that way” or she go could go “that way.”

Following some small talk with a self-acclaimed “brainless” creature she and the Scarecrow were off to Oz. Did you ever wonder why they chose to go in the direction they did? As luck would have it, they chose the right” road because it did lead to the Emerald City. But, how do we know that the two roads she didn’t choose might have also ended up at the gates of the Emerald City? Considering the ardor of her journey, might the roads not traveled have been better for her? Had she chosen to follow either of the other roads she would more likely than not have ever met the Tin Man and the Lion. But…who knows who she might have met.

Aren’t we all like Dorothy? We are told to go and live our lives. We set out on a road that is usually straight and narrow. It’s not until we come to an intersection when we have to make a decision. Which road do we take? Unlike Frost’s poem where the traveler has to choose one of two roads that diverged in the woods, our choices are not always that limited. And as we get older we realize there are consequences that go along with the road we choose.

I fear that when it comes to politics our roads are Frostian. While we are not forced to take one political road over another, we are limited. For some reason taking the left road puts us on the Democratic path, while going right we are following the Republican path.,

As long as I can remember, it did matter what political path you chose. In fact people identified with the road. They would die on that road. They would support any candidate of that road’s persuasion…no matter who or what. They would grow to loathe those people who elected to choose the other road.

I am not stuck on the intersection. I just have chosen not to choose one of the two roads because it seems that once your choose a road you must pay full and total allegiance to all that road stands for.

And that I think is why both of the big roads lead to hell. Because people are either following the Democrat Brick Road or the Republican Brick Road they are blinded by the light.

Did I ever think Trump was worthy of the office of President of the United States? No. Did I think Hillary Clinton was worthy? Not so much. The only difference between the two of them, for me at least, had to do with their character. I didn’t trust either of them as political leaders because I personally don’t believe in any politician. I think all of them are full of BS. They are consumed by power and control.

As repulsed as I was by Trump’s character, I didn’t hate him. That doesn’t mean I thought he was good for the country. That only means that our fragile electoral system had put him in the White House. I had faith in our three branches of government with its check and balances.

I did not like the fact that the Democrats set out to defeat him after he “won” the election. But, I was also smart enough to know that it was a big numbers game that had more to do with the number of Democrats or Republicans in the House and Senate than it had to do with those same people representing ALL their constituents. And while voters can vote a Republican/Democrat in or out in Congress, an appointed Supreme Court Justice is horse of a different color. Giving Trump the power to nominate a SCOTUS member was anathema to “Democrats.” It was just another thing that elevated the hatred between the two parties.

Party politics is, in my opinion, what has polluted our spirits. The pollution has flooded the news networks, cable shows and all forms of social media. We are drowning in hatred. Instead of anyone throwing us a life preserver, we are being pulled underwater because we have allowed a political party’s ideology to fill our pockets with heavy stones.

As tragic as the Covid pandemic is, hatred is worse. There is now vaccine for Covid. Is there one for hated?

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Forced to take sides? Does it matter what I have to say on the YBR?

What happened in Washington, DC on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 will go down as one of the darkest days in not only American history, but in world history as well. A billion people have flooded social media forums with gazzillions of words expressing their opinions about the storming of the Capitol. I have not taken to facebook, twitter, instgram, tik tok or any other platform primarily because nobody really gives a damn what I have to say. Especially since there are more than two sides to this, and most issues. In my mind, issues are like multigons because they have more than two sides.

But, we seem to live in a world where there are only two sides, and depending upon which side you are on, the other one is wrong.

Unfortunately I have a fatal thinking disease…and not because I over think, but because I was trained to think deeply and broadly. In my experience, people prefer to prove they are right, not because they are open-minded, but because the “know” the other side is wrong! How do they know? They know because they know. They know they are right because they are always right.

Because I come from a more liberal-minded school of thought, the vast majority of my 130 FB friends go from liberal to very, very, very liberal. Not a posted word from them has an ounce of “the other side.”

Because most of my 130 FB friends are better versed at opining their democratic views…and because my opinion really doesn’t matter, I have taken to my own little blog because I only have a handful of followers and a blog post is like whistling in a hurricane while posting on FB is like standing on a mountain and saying “look at me world.” And the post will get 43,000 likes in thirty seconds.

I am also using my blog because it’s like talking to myself. And while I rarely take myself seriously, this will give me an opportunity to run wild with my thoughts despite the fact that nobody gives a damn.

I want to end this first installment by saying I was appalled not only by the horrific actions of the mob who stormed the Capitol, I was doubly appalled by Donald J. Trump’s actions and inactions.

But…just because I was appalled by the president’s behavior, that doesn’t mean that my thinking is hexagonal. I am not “here” to point 11 fingers of blame at the “guilty.” There’s much more to the story than that.

See you on the next installment.

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