COLLATERAL MISINFORMATION

When someone alters a [Wikipedia] article to win a specific argument, anyone who reads the false article before the "error" is corrected suffers from collateral misinformation, as in: "I changed the scientific classification of red foxes last night in order to win an argument with Judy. I hope some stupid High School student didn't suffer from collateral misinformation."

Collateral misinformation is much of what we have heard by the current Administration since George Bush's handlers got him to campaign to become President. Is it no wonder middle class people in the US have been confused, confounded, disappointed, impoverished, misled, apathetic, while watching the rich get richer, their sons, daughters, husbands, fathers, friends, etc get maimed or killed in the longest war that should never have been. These losses seem to be accepted as collateral damage resulting from the collateral misinformation.

An Opinion Research Business survey shows that as of 8/07, there were 1, 033,000 violent deaths in Iraq. On February 1, 2008, an article appeared in a blog by an Iraqi whose profile reads:

khalid jarrar

Location: Baghdad, Iraq

I am pro God, I am pro life, I am pro humanity, I am pro truth, and when the American government chooses to be against all that then damn it: i AM anti American-government.

Some of you may wish to read some other of his blog entries.

Using Google you might want to research some significant statistics. There are currently an estimated 4.5 million orphans and only less than a thousand under government care. I t has been written about before, the conjectures about the psychological damage to these children and what they will grow up to have to survive on their own with little knowledge of the world. Is lack of information any worse than collateral misinformation? It is not an either/or choice but an interesting question?

It intrigues me to think that there must be many other sources of collateral misinformation. I believe the distortions that arise on the media must be a form of the same. Perhaps some of you, my readers, will come up with other examples? I certainly hope so. I do a lot of talking to myself when the comments slow down.

THINGS THAT CANNOT BE CHANGED

Today, the snow storm that hit Texas finally reached us with rain. When your roof has leaked and you haven't been able to get a roofer to come take a look at it, the falling barometer can look pretty ominous. The problem escapes me. The first time it leaked water into my house recently, I discovered that it when I heard dripping from the chandelier a few feet away from me in an adjoining room. Since there is a room above the chandelier, I checked upstairs, and sure enough the floor had received lots of water as the rain ran along the metal track on a closet and dripped down.

After putting a couple of waste baskets under the drips, it eventually stopped. Being a procrastinator I never took the two waste baskets away. A few days ago when it was very windy and raining, I heard the same ominous drip from the same chandelier. Upstairs, the two waste baskets were still there and one was half full of water--- but the floor was dry. Several days passed as i tried to think of someone I might call. By the time I could locate someone to figure out the problem, it has begun to rain again. So far I hear no tell-tale dripping. Does that suggest that it happens only when it is windy? I can only hope that it might be an overflowing gutter (not having cleaned them in more than seven years) but I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach to check. I am looking for someone who will install those gutter guards that don't allow leaves to get in and rot and clog the drain pipes and backup water under the eaves and all those terrible things that Nature forces on us.

It is impossible to make a house free of problems. There is no way to anticipate that will change in my lifetime. Just as with our bodies, we can do some preventative maintenance but wind and weather, fire and accidents, wear and tear, careless usage, all present the necessity for constant vigilance towards the care and feeding of the house.

Now I have to sit and be patient until I get called back on the requests I have made to have the gutters and roof checked and the leaking stopped. When that problem gets solved I will wait for the next one to appear. And so it will go until I cease to exist because I know that I cannot change the fact that I will cease to exist long before a trouble and maintenance free house is invented.

CHANGING YOUR MIND

Changing one's mind is interpreted so differently in varying contexts and not easily seen simply as an act of determining that you might have possibly been wrong and now see things from a another perspective. If you are discovered having changed your mind at some point while campaigning for office, you are a 'flip-flopper'. If you are about to convert to a different religion, you are hailed as finally seeing 'the light'. If you are a shopper, you can return a product fairly easily with no penalty, no big deal, no need to explain unless you choose to.

When you marry, the religious service often demands that your decision be for life. You are even expected to guarantee that your feelings will never change, yet our courts are now accepting that it is better for a couple of adults, and often even for their children, to allow people to divorce for irreconcilable differences, having accepted that people can change their minds and feelings.

There are people that are unable to make up their minds, and others who once they make up their mind, in face of all sorts of proof that they are clearly wrong, cannot change their position. We may call these people 'rigid'.

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? — John M. Keynes (In reply to accusation of inconsistency: The Economist, 1999-12-18, p.47.1) So then, what about the people who have the facts put before them in an incontestable form and still cannot change their minds? From the blog of an academic comes. "I certainly believe that the ability to change one's mind in the face of new evidence, or new interpretations of old evidence, is an important characteristic of an honest thinker."

Some people think faster than others. Especially slow are people with clinical depression. Their inability to change their mind may be less based on facts than on their inability to make a decision. I find Tim Russert's recent questioning offensive as he puts questions to people, bombastically, demanding an answer to a hypothetical question of his invention and, when the interviewees hesitate, harangues them as refusing to answer his question, accusing them often of changing their minds from a previous view ( indeed they may have shifted positions in light of new information) and reads quotes from what they may have said years ago without a total context.

Another group which 'change their mind' is that in which people feel forced into agreement whether they believe or not; those who assume they were in the wrong because they didn't agree with a higher authority, etc. Politician's have been observed as changing their minds to be in tandem with the people whose votes they are soliciting. Witness Romney's position while campaigning for Governor of Massachusetts as one who believed in a woman's right to choice and his sudden change to a pro-life position when running for the Presidency where the voter base was against abortion. Sometimes the sheep don't have the wool pulled over their eyes, Sometimes they do.

Finally, I would direct you to an article When Changing One's Mind Spurs Hardening of the Heart In it, "Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert says he has changed his mind about the benefits of changing one’s mind. In 2002, a study showed him that people are more satisfied with irrevocable decisions than with ones they can reverse. Some are able to make a decision and not look back to what they 'should' have or 'might' have done. Gamblers need to think this way to survive their losses. In all, changing your clothes or even your job may be easier than changing your mind.

MORE AMERICAN JUSTICE

Yesterday I used the metaphor of our country being raped by the current administration and its policies. Today I add and quote the following from an article by Steven Benen from the Carpetbagger report. It begins: "Back in December, we learned the painful story of Jamie Leigh Jones, who says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad. Jones filed a lawsuit, arguing that she had been raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally." The complete article offers the concrete example.

Diplomatic immunity is problematic enough, but this administration cannot be held responsible for it. Written in 1961, it should be considered for revision under conditions of sexual violations, especially with children. In an article which describes some instances as 'impunity' rather than immunity, we can see some outrageous situations about which nothing more is done than creating another helpless victim.

THE POLITICAL HORSE RACE

Tonight the talking heads on TV have been reporting as though this is a game. My former idol, Keith Olbermann has toppled off his pedestal, in my eyes. I miss the straight talking man who wrote letters to President Bush and read them with a firm tone, sincerity, and the blunt truths. I have long since abandoned all hope that Chris "Tweety" Matthews is an unbiased, competent news reporter. It seems something has gone to his head and coming out of his mouth in a most undesirable way. I presume it is that Washington sense of power and entitlement that we heard in Cokie Roberts when Bill Clinton became President. The derision in her voice as she laughed that he thought he could come in to Washington and change things!! If only the audience were not a bunch of sheep who don't stand up to these talking heads and let them know that they really do not run, but rather ruin, the country (with their opinions given as fact), as though they know more about how to run the country because they have been in Washington longer.

Perhaps I should be more sympathetic to their plight, that they have to make sounds come out of their mouths all the while the camera is on them and running. However, I cannot feel sympathetic. Chris Matthews take his own opinion so seriously that he talks over his guests constantly. He asks the questions, answers them, all in a breath...often leaving his guests totally looking like a deer caught in headlights. They don't seem to know what to say or do.

However this day's elections result, let us hope that the country will soon be better off than it has been in the past eight years while it has been being raped by the present administration. This may not have been noticed by many because the country's virtue had long been lost and very few screamed loud enough to be heard in the Fort Knox security of the Oval Office.

There is not much left but to wait, watch and see....but can we last until November? That leaves us with an 10 month gestation period before we can learn who the new parent of the country will be. We will be very exhausted, impoverished, and anxious about the future of the country that is slowly committing suicide, with little support or hope for recovery.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

As though we need any more information to demonstrate how little Americans know about the middle eastern cultures, an article appeared today in BBC News.

Last Updated: Monday, 3 March 2008, 16:57 GMT

Iranian to pay 124,000-rose dowry

An Iranian court has ordered a man to give his wife the 124,000 roses that he promised in her dowry, after she filed a complaint to claim it, reports say. The husband said he could only afford to give five roses a day. The woman said she was claiming the dowry because her "very stingy husband" would not even pay for a cup of coffee, according to the E'temad newspaper. The court has seized the man's flat until he produces all of the roses. Under Iranian law, a woman can claim her dowry, or mahr, at any time during a marriage or when getting divorced. The gift becomes the property of the wife to do whatever she likes with. It is required in order for the marriage contract and the marriage itself to be valid. You may read the rest of the article, if you wish. "Culture, a shared set of traditions, belief systems, and behaviors, is shaped by history, religion, ethnic identity, language, and nationality, among other factors. The Middle East consists of approximately 20 countries, with many different religions and a variety of ethnic and linguistic groups. Given this diversity, we should not be surprised to find a multitude of different cultures coexisting in the region." Far fewer Americans would have been killed and maimed, lives ruined as well as those of their children and loved ones, had the Administration used good sense in learning who they were out to conquer. In the greedy rush to gain control of the oil in Iraq (that was supposed to pay for the war, according to Wolfowitz His current profile , to anyone who is aware of his past judgments, does not look as good as his rhetoric) destroyed far more than they could have gained. The unprepared planners would have us believe they 'saved' us rather than destroying our country's reputation, economy, trust in leadership, infrastructure, educational resources, and other necessities here in the US. It is difficult to comprehend that there are still those in the US who haven't noticed that the Emperor wears no clothes. Will the great nation we once could be proud of ever return to its former state? The patient is too ill to recover in my lifetime, I fear.

PANDORA'S BOX LEFT WITH ONLY HOPE

The Greek myth of Pandora is rather a good metaphor for the United States at this time in history. Our government, if we think of it as in charge of Pandora's box, opened the box letting all the evils in the world run loose. As with Pandora's box, before it was shut up again, the only thing that remained inside was Hope.

Hope, in and of itself is not a tool. It solves nothing but may be the inspiration to start action that may then become a solution. Hope and Obama are not limited to one another as it seems people have begun to believe. Hope can be within any of us and all of us. However, without doubt, whoever is elected as President of the United States is in a far better position to effect the change being hoped for than an ordinary citizen with nothing but his hope (or prayer, which is the same thing).

Inaction, attended to only by prayer, is a disaster waiting to happen. Real change happens when action takes place, and since there is strength in numbers, the more people pushing for that change, the more likely it is to happen. In yesterday's blog I covered the ways that action can be taken by the three governmental branches. When enough people want change, it will begin to be considered. Witness that it has taken 15 years after the Clinton's first attempt to reconstruct the health care system, to mobilize people to want to fight for it again We are land of people used to instant gratification and do not brook disappointment easily, nor fondness for those who disappoint us, regardless of reality. It looks like Obama has a really good chance of being the Democratic nominee. As such, if he makes it to the White House, it will be due to the disgust felt by so many people, Republicans and Independents, who have changed their 2004 support and moved to support the Democrats. Should he be elected, it will only be a matter of time before the unrealistic expectations set up by the campaigning and people's 'hopes', will topple him off the pedestal people have put him on. No amount of his attempt to say, as I heard him today, "I will make mistakes." Sadly, most people have not accepted that fact and all those voters who heard the campaign promises will expect delivery as quickly as they expected Nancy Pelosi to turn the Congress around. Reality has never been a traveling partner with hope and campaign promises.