Opus 2026-271: Click Bait: Tick Bait

Logic can be a dangerous thing.  At first I just scrolled by this bit of click bait:

“Farmers notice spike in ticks while Lyme disease vaccine is entering market by Pfizer.”

I think the idea that was being planted was that Pfizer has been sending teams into the fields of America releasing millions of ticks to create a need for their vaccine.  I guess it is possible.  It is certainly one explanation for the correlation.  I would suggest a bit more investigation is in order.  I will not do it because life is too short but if you are inclined, go ahead.

You might investigate if this is similar to winter coats being introduced in fall.  Or maybe if you are into bugs, mosquito repellent is ordered as winter is coming to a close.  What better time to market something that when people are concerned about an issue.

You might investigate to see if there is a spike in ticks every year at the same time.

You might investigate to see if this vaccine has been marketed this time of year for the past 50 years.

You might even look into whether the claim is true.

Keep in mind one of the principles of the scientific method:  Correlation does not mean causation.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-263: An Opportunity

The recent conflict with Iran gives us an opportunity to grow as citizens in a republic that still allows many liberties.  The actions going on and the motives pushing things are one focus of our attention.  The problem we have is that the “news” we get is so often just a reflection of the writers wishes, not an account of facts.  This is true on both sides of the political spectrum.

This is what presents an opportunity.  We have a real chance to do some serious thinking and honing of our ability to think and process the information we have available.  The media and government have gotten so good at spinning the news that we can’t just sit down in the morning with a newspaper and feel we know what is going on.  I can remember my dad doing that.  I can remember a time when the nation would tune in the evening news and feel like we had a handle on the world.

We were naive.  If you are old enough to remember Walter Cronkite giving the gloomy analysis of the Tet Offensive of 78 and how that spelled a total defeat for America then you are old enough to be a victim of media shaping of history.  The Tet Offensive was really a tremendous victory for America and South Vietnam.  The Communist forces, attacking during a truce when they knew we would not expect it, were still decimated and had to back off.  That is not what Cronkite reported and the nation sank into despair.

We are still too naive.  The spin masters are getting ever better at camouflaging what their real positions are.  If we have a moment of simple acceptance we open ourselves to the fraud.  This demands more vigilance than we often apply.

So what do I recommend?  I thought you would never ask.  First, start with a grounding in principle.  Know your founding documents.  For Americans that involves the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  Christians will add the Bible.  You don’t need to have every jot and tittle at your fingertips but you need to know that when a talking head mentions the government granting us our rights they are giving a deception not a description.  God gives our rights.  The Government is supposed to protect them.  Defining marriage and other moral positions is also clear if you are grounded.

Once you have the basics then always go with the big picture and refuse to do a Chicken Little every time someone declares the end is near.  As an example I would bring up the constant litany of how Donald Trump is failing us.  I would be the first to admit that I do not support some of his big spending solutions.  I am worried that he might get dragged into sending ground troops into Iran.  I am also sure that I can’t believe anything I hear about him being either a saint or sinner.  The big picture is that he loves America with a passion.  He has done the things he promised to do, or at least tried to get congress to get them done.  Has he been married more often than he should?  That is obvious, but you also need to notice that all of his ex-wives speak highly of him and his children seem to be worthwhile human beings.

Go for the big picture.  America has made mistakes.  Why do we have to say that every time we talk about America?  Because we have been listening to the media and academic world that hate America.  The big picture says we are the most noble of civilizations.  We forgive.  We share.  We respond to the needs of the world.  It takes time and memory to embrace the big picture but we owe it to ourselves, not to mention our descendants.

Think big.  Buckle up.  Grab hold.  Scream if you have to, but enjoy the ride. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-445: Thank You Very Much

I listened to two different presentations this past week and I noticed something in both of them that seemed to be consistent with my opinion about the speakers.  They kept saying, “Thank you very much for that answer.”

I’m sure they thought they sounded very sincere, but to me it was pretty obvious that they were like a Southerner saying, “Well, bless your heart.”  If you don’t get out much you need to realize that when a Southerner says that to you, what is really being said is, “How can anybody be that stupid?”  As these speakers would say, “Thank you very much,” anyone with a bit of discernment could tell that they were saying, “How can anybody be that stupid?”   They were also doing a vicarious eye roll.

One of my favorite jokes was a tale that had no point.  You would tell it to see who would laugh at anything.  We might also set up an algorithm that noted how often some people tap on click bait using the words “extreme”, “destroys” and “ultimate”.  That is not a complete list.  I would imagine that such a list already exists and the info is forwarded to people trying to sell you an extension on your car’s warrantee and Nigerian princes.

A simple litmus test for us today would be to see who still functions on the principle “Orange Man Bad” or repeats that Rush Limbaugh was mean spirited.  If that is the level of their discernment then you might not even want to hire them to mow your lawn.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-185: Click Bait: California Miracle

I was checking the headlines at Citizen Free Press and clicked on one titled, “'Fear and anger': California town halls are not going well for Democrats, either”.  Now if you read a headline like that you might, like me, think that finally California was waking up and getting after their Democrat overlords.  You would have thought wrong.  The article came from something called SFGate.  I imagine they are getting extatic over CFP giving them national exposure.  I wonder if the people at CFP even looked at what they wrote.

When you clicked the link it took you to an article that immediately started south.  Here is the first sentence,

“Americans are increasingly concerned about President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s gutting of the federal government, with polls showing a majority of people want Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts to be stopped or slowed down.”

I am willing to admit that I don’t know all Americans but I do read something besides the leftist propaganda machines.  To claim that Americans are concerned about DOGE means one of three things:  They are concerned things are not moving fast enough and there are no arrests yet, you are lying through your teeth to a captive and gillible audience, you are locked up in a padded room and sharing your delusions with the world.

I could be wrong but not as wrong as the author of this article.

If you can stomach further reading the hole they are digging just gets deeper.  If you have a lot of leisure time jump to the bottom of the article and look at the bio of the author.  It says that he is the “cannabis editor” for SFGATE.  What kind of a “news” source would need a cannabis editor?

That should be all that you need to know.  Maybe he was editing when he wrote this.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-018: Hear, Hear!

I had what I would describe as a classic case of gaslighting recently.

If my memory is accurate the term gaslighting comes from a book, movie or play in which the husband kept turning down the gas lamps in the house in small increments and when his wife wondered if it was getting darker would deny it and claim all was well.  I don’t know how that was resolved but it developed the concept of “gaslighting.”  That is my story and I am sticking to it.

I had given a lady a ride to the doctor’s office.  When we settled into the waiting room she took a chair with nothing next to her.  I sat across and down a couple of seats.  Someone she knew was also in the waiting room and they engaged in a robust conversation until the other lady was called into the back rooms.  The conversation was then directed toward me.  I noticed that I had clearly heard and understood the conversation between them but when I was being addressed I had a hard time.  It occurred to me that when she was talking to me she lowered her voice.  When I asked her to repeat something she did not speak more clearly but lowered it again.  She has a history of telling me I need to have my hearing checked.

I will concede that my hearing is not 100%.  I also know that hearing aids do not work very well in noisy environments and so I am not interested in them at this point.  The point is not my hearing but the gaslighting going on to make me think my hearing is worse than it is.

Gaslighting is an effective way of manipulating people.  Be aware.  Strive to not be manipulated.  If you are the gaslighter, pray for mercy and forgiveness.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-442: Hear, Hear!

I had what I would describe as a classic case of gaslighting recently.

If my memory is accurate the term gaslighting comes from a book, movie or play in which the husband kept turning down the gas lamps in the house in small increments and when his wife wondered if it was getting darker would deny it and claim all was well.  I don’t know how that was resolved but it developed the concept of “gaslighting.”  That is my story and I am sticking to it.

I had given a lady a ride to the doctor’s office.  When we settled into the waiting room she took a chair with nothing next to her.  I sat across and down a couple of seats.  Someone she knew was also in the waiting room and they engaged in a robust conversation until the other lady was called into the back rooms.  The conversation was then directed toward me.  I noticed that I had clearly heard and understood the conversation between them but when I was being addressed I had a hard time.  It occurred to me that when she was talking to me she lowered her voice.  When I asked her to repeat something she did not speak more clearly but lowered it again.  She has a history of telling me I need to have my hearing checked.

I will concede that my hearing is not 100%.  I also know that hearing aids do not work very well in noisy environments and so I am not interested in them at this point.  The point is not my hearing but the gaslighting going on to make me think my hearing is worse than it is.

Gaslighting is an effective way of manipulating people.  Be aware.  Strive to not be manipulated.  If you are the gaslighter, pray for mercy and forgiveness.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-432: Jumpstart

I just came through a session of gaslighting.  It’s something I am becoming more aware of, and recognizing it is helping me to deal with life.  I am very susceptible to gaslighting.  It comes from a willingness to see myself as the problem and a lifetime of trying to figure out what I did wrong.  Without minimizing my mistakes I am coming to understand that many of my “mistakes” are simply attempts by other people to gaslight me, or control me.

As I was thinking about that, my mind went, as it often does, to how this relates to God, whom He is, what are His attributes and how He deals with us.  I had a hard time accepting the idea that God might gaslight people.  It just doesn’t seem like something He would need to do.  So I moved on

From there I went to thinking about how we come up with these new terms.  You might know the source of the term “gaslight.  But I thought of the other terms that we like to throw around such as ADD which evolved into ADHD.  It wasn’t enough to say hyperactive, or hard time  concentrating.  We needed some lingo, we needed some kind of a scientific sounding designation so the common people feel like they need an expert.  I seems if you can think up a new acronym, then it’s an open door to government money.  I had a school psychologist who was doing a presentation on autism, and during that he admitted that much of the rising autism is caused by expanding the definition, and one of the reasons they would expand the definition is it will put more children under their umbrella.  The more children under your umbrella the more federal money you got.  You see how that works?

These terms don’t really have much use if they are as simple as gaslighting.  That’s another word for passive aggressive.  Which is another extension of manic depression.  All we really need to do is say that person is trying to manipulate you.  But it gives us a springboard to jump off in our understanding.  It gives us a new word so that we don’t have to go back and explain everything up to that point.  Did you notice how I didn’t explain gaslighting to you?

So some of this jargon has value.  It helps us to jumpstart conversations.  It means we don’t have to go back and start at zero.  We don’t need to explain where we are on abortion if we say we are a Democrat.  Being a Calvinist, if you will admit it, lets people know where you stand on a whole host of issues.  We might be able to start at 50%.  Of course there’s always the danger that we have different definitions but life is full of adventure.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-301: Hear Ye. Hear Ye.

One of the characteristics of getting older is that your hearing has a tendency to go downhill.  It may not be in everyone, but I have a suspicion that it is.  We compensate.  We live with it.  For most of us it is not the end of the world, just a minor difficulty.

My wife is convinced that I am losing my hearing and that I need to be tested with the idea that I get hearing aids.  I know that I don’t hear as well as I used to.  That has been a process going on for years.  I know that my left ear is worse than my right ear.  I also know that hearing aids generally don’t work very well in noisy environments, such as modern restaurants and TV lounges.  My question would be what is the point of having my hearing tested when I am not interested in getting a hearing aid?

An example of the tension took place this weekend.  We were meeting another couple for lunch at a noisy restaurant.  As we waited, my wife said something, and I heard everything very well, except for the last word.  She was sitting on the side of my bad ear, so I accepted the fact that I had missed it.  No problem for me at least.  I asked her to repeat it.  She did.  But I noticed that both times her voice declined in volume as the as the sentence proceeded, so that by the time she got to the end, she was speaking in the voice that you used when you don’t want the NSA to overhear your conversation.  I asked her about that specific word, and she went ballistic about my hearing and how I needed to have my hearing tested.  OK.  I dropped the question assuming that I really didn’t need to know what the word was since she didn’t want to say it clearly.

We were there for an hour and a half, having pleasant conversation across the table and surrounded by the same noisy restaurant.  I did not have any more trouble the entire meal hearing or understanding what was said.  Which brings up a question in my mind.  Do I need a hearing aid?  Or does she need speech therapy?  I am willing to accept the jury is out.  I know that I don’t hear as well as I should.  But I also know that like most people I have a hard time hearing someone two rooms away, around several corners, while the water is running and the microwave is working right next to me.

I have no intention of having my hearing checked, until I have a very difficult time understanding someone speaking clearly directly in front of me in a conversation where we are both not worried about the NSA listening.

Hubris?  Arrogance?  Insensitivity?  No, just reality.

homo unius libri