Many people are taking vacation time this weekend and we have some ideas on how to spend it.
[dropcap]Whoever said summer was a time for relaxing didn’t have children running around, out of school, getting into every form of mischief they can imagine. Summer is grueling. I struggle to get in ten minutes of actual work each day, between preparing food, doing copious amounts of laundry, bandaging cuts and scrapes, and retrieving a hound dog whom I’m ready to rename Houdini for his unexplainable ability to escape the yard. [/dropcap]
I keep seeing different articles on summer reading lists and I’ve yet to actually read any of those lists to find out what I’m supposed to be reading because my summer isn’t nearly as leisurely meandering as everyone else’s. Why bother picking up a new book when I know I’m not going to get past the first paragraph before hearing, “Daaaaaaaaaaad!” from the one direction I hadn’t been looking? I love reading, but I have to wait until the kids are back in school.
The problem with this problem is that there are a lot of articles I would like to read and fear missing. Books will be there come September. Online articles, though, frequently disappear after a few weeks. One has to really search to find them, if you can remember what the article was about in the first place. Fortunately, there’s a solution for people like me; it’s called Pocket.
Note: This is an uncompensated and unrequested endorsement. Think of Pocket as an online file cabinet. Using a convenient browser extension, when one comes across an article or website they might want to explore but don’t have the time, one simply saves the article to their Pocket account. Pocket saves the links and even allows you to categorize them with tags if you wish. One can then go back later, on any device, and read once you’re not quite so horribly distracted. Think of it as bookmarking well organized and efficient.
What I really appreciate about Pocket, though, is the email I get every afternoon suggesting articles that I might not have found on my own. They cover a wide array of topics, including a lot of new research and trending issues, and are typically well-written, intelligent pieces with information that is either helpful or, at the very least, makes me feel just a tiny bit smarter.
Those emails are the source of my recommendations for the coming long weekend. You don’t even need a Pocket account, though I strongly suggest signing up for one. You’re going to have some downtime over the next four or five days. This is a good opportunity to catch up, maybe learn a thing or two, and enlighten your brain before returning to the madness. Take a look at these and see if they don’t leave you better than when you started.
The Wellness Epidemic by Amy Larocca. From Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop to the lady selling essential oils out of her home, America’s fascination with wellness is a billion dollar industry that is often not based in science and research and more on convincing yourself that you feel better, even if you don’t. Larocca attempts to take an objective look at the industry in this long read from The Cut.
What Jobs Will Still Be Around In 20 Years? by Arwa Mahdawi. Two of my three sons are finding it challenging to decide exactly what to do with the rest of their young lives. As a parent, that concerns me. I want them to have more than a job. I want them to have a career they can enjoy. The problem is, 47% of American workers could lose their jobs to automation within the next 20 years. This raises the question of what jobs are safe and what skills are necessary to survive in the future? Parents and young adults alike are going to find some value in what is said here, even if it dashes a few dreams.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Selects the Eight Books Every Intelligent Person on the Planet Should Read by Maria Popova. You know you’re going to eventually have time to read more books. The question is which books are going to actually provide you some benefit. There are plenty of lists running around for the summer, but if you really want to make the most of your reading time, Neil deGrasse Tyson has a list that is packed with must-reads. I have to warn you, though, reading these books may very well change your opinions about life on this planet.
Before The Internet by Emma Rathbone. Remember what life was like before the Internet? If you were born after 1990, you likely don’t have a clue how people survived without being plugged into some social-neural network 24/7. Ms. Rathbone takes just a few lines to remind us of what it was like when we didn’t have Google at our fingertips, or our entire life history in a searchable database. Remember, and then maybe reconsider a few things.
Meet the chef who’s debunking detox, diets, and wellness by Tim Lewis. Remember that article above about the wellness epidemic? Much of that has to do with diets and nutrition and a very large amount of that information is pure horse shit. But when your friend is posting about how wonderful her new diet is, where do you go to find evidence refuting her claims? Anthony Warner, aka the Angry Chef. Take a moment and see what he’s doing. As a diabetic and someone who is very concerned about the food I eat, this was helpful reading.
How to Cut Back On Playing Video Games by Patrick Allan. I’ve never been a fan of video games. I don’t like them. When I do try, just to stay relevant, I don’t do well. Yet, the most frequent complaint I hear about teenagers and young adults, mostly males, is that all they do is sit around playing video games and no one can get them to break the habit. Marriages and relationships have ended because someone can’t put down the fucking controller. This link is as much for my own sons as anyone. We’re not asking you to quit, just cut back and show a bit more responsibility.
Are you forgetful? That’s just your brain erasing useless memories by Angela Chen. My paternal grandfather died of complications due to Alzheimer’s disease. As my already addled brain sometimes leaves me confused, displaced, and forgetful, I tend to worry. Where did I set my sunglasses? Why don’t I remember that conversation you claim we had? Those things bother me. This article helps explain that our brains were never meant to remember everything. I still worry, though.
The Paradox of American Restaurants by Derek Thompson. Food in American restaurants is supposedly getting better. Yet, despite that fact, the restaurant industry continues to struggle. We see popular dining establishments closing less than a year after they open. Why? Derek Thompson takes a look at the causes (without blaming Millennials) and why the future may be one of take out.
That should be enough of a list to get you through the weekend or at least allow you to escape the pain of sitting with inlaws for a couple of hours. For more, check out Pocket and sign up for the daily emails. Stop missing the information that can make you smarter.
What A Fool Believes
What he sees he don’t believe
The Short Version
While the president and those sympathetic to him rant on about fake news and lying reporters, the true onus is on citizens who are far too willing to believe anything they read or hear based on their existing biases. If the narrative of a story supports their belief system, a person is more likely to believe something at face value without checking for validation of the source.
The Dirty Details
I have been a fan of the rock group The Doobie Brothers since I was in high school, which as a very, very long time ago. One of the band’s biggest hits, penned by Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, is What A Fool Believes. The song is about a guy who refuses to accept that the girl for whom he longs wasn’t into him back in the day and he still doesn’t stand a chance now. Yet, he keeps believing, despite all the evidence to the contrary. He, therefore, is a fool.
The song is catchy enough to make abject desperation sound attractive. Take a listen.
I’m going to guess that anyone over 30, maybe younger depending on one’s life experience, knows someone like this. You can’t tell them anything. They have their mind made up, whether it’s about a girl or the quality of food at a restaurant or how “dope” their first car was. We see them trying to get a girl they’ll never get, or still trying to relive 1979, and we just shake our heads. There’s nothing anyone can do to sway their course.
When a fool latches onto a belief, they don’t let go no matter how much evidence to the contrary one presents them with. Facts are irrelevant. Like the guy in the song, they keep replaying the fantasy in their mind and even as she stands up to walk away, he doesn’t realize his mistake. Fools never do. They’re blind to what is so obvious to everyone else.
Part of the problem with people like this is that we have always tolerated their foolishness. So he wants to pine for a girl that he can’t have. Okay, just let it go. What harm can it do to let him have that fantasy?
Yet, one fantasy leads to another. Fools surround themselves with the tales they want to hear, blocking out reality piece by piece until they are totally out of touch and disconnected. Eventually, they are no longer able to function within society. At that point, we often stop calling them fools and start calling them crazy, which is a bit insulting to people with real mental illness. With such a strong disconnect from reality, these people become a danger to themselves and others.
How bad can it get? Let me show you what happens when a fool is confronted with reality (with apologies should an ad run in front of the embedded video):
See what he did there? The deflection is first, “Well, that was just information that was given to me,” and then seconds later, “I saw it around somewhere.”
Let’s not be confused by the facts, is what the president means to say. He doesn’t even get the number of his own electoral college votes correct. For the record, that number is 304, not 306, and yes, it matters because it’s the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie. As for the claim that his victory was the biggest? Again, let’s not engage in any form of information other than the facts:
That last one, Bush Sr.’s 462 electoral votes, is especially important because the president attempts to head off the reporter’s facts by saying interrupting with “among Republicans.” No sir, not even among Republicans.
One has to wonder why the president continues to engage in this electoral college penis measuring contest when time after time he’s proven to lose. His victory is not the largest. Not even close.
Oh yeah, the song explains that, doesn’t it?
He came from somewhere back in here long ago
The sentimental fool don’t see
Tryin’ hard to recreate what had yet to be created
Repetition. That’s the name of the game. Building off the concept that if one repeats a lie often enough that it becomes truth, the president and those around him continue to claim their victory was large because they want the lie to become truth. Repeat. Rewind. Repeat. Rewind.
Fools believe some incredible things and we’ve tolerated them for years and years. Only now, with fools in charge of the government, what a fool believes can actually put the rest of us in danger.
Let’s take, for example, the whole concept that we need clean drinking water to live. Only a fool would believe anything different, right? The amount of evidence is overwhelming. I mean, all we have to do is point toward Flint, Michigan as an example, right?
But then, THIS happened just this week:
Because, you know, who needs clean water when it puts a few hundred (not thousands) of jobs at risk?
What a fool believes, he sees
No wise man has the power
To reason away
What it seems to be
Is always better than nothin’
And nothin’ at all
Foolishness isn’t limited only to certain heads of state, of course. There are fools all over the place saying all kinds of crazy things. Let’s consider this fool for a moment:
Take a really good look at those pictures. I dare you. Try to not laugh too hard, I’d hate for you to hurt yourself. If you think you’re seeing a depiction of really burly humans fighting really small dinosaurs in gladiator-style combat, you’re not mistaken. That would be exactly what Ken Ham and the fools at Ark Encounter believe.
Never mind that dinosaurs were extinct more than 64 million years before homo sapiens ever began evolving, let alone learned how to work out and get all buff. Fools can’t be bothered with things like science because it gets in the way of their fantasy. In fact, fools like this do their best to demonize science so that they can believe whatever the hell they want without those nasty little facts spoiling their totally unrealistic story.
Now, it would be one thing if we were pulling stories from, say, twenty-five years ago. Something pre-Internet where there was no wealth of factual information not only at your fingertips but sufficiently indexed so that you can find it in a reasonable amount of time. AKA: the Dark Ages. We’re not going that far back, though. Everything I’ve mentioned so far has happened this week! And guess what? I’m not done! There’s still more!
This next one really pains me a bit because it involves someone whose work I’ve respected for a very long time. I’m going to post a video that is over an hour long. Watch as much of it as you wish. However, be very much aware that these are fools talking.
Please, allow me to fast forward through the horseshit for you. What is being claimed here is that vaccines, you know the shots we get starting at birth to prevent really horrible and deadly disease, are dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that famed actor Robert De Niro, and cousin that always pops up looking for free food Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., are offering a $100,000 reward for anyone who can “prove” that vaccines are safe.
Dear Mr. DeNiro, Here’s your proof: How many people do you know with polio? None, correct? There’s your proof that the vaccine works. Please give Dr. Jonas Salk the reward. Okay, since he’s not around, perhaps the Salk Legacy Foundation could use the funds. The science has endured over 60 years of continued research and still shows to be effective in defending us against disease.
Now, does every vaccine work with such a high rate of efficacy? Nope. We’re not silly enough to believe that, either. What we do believe, though, is that, among the general population, vaccines are the best way of preventing common forms of disease.
What’s scary about this particular set of fools is that they’ve been telling this same lie, perpetuating this same fantasy, for so very long now that people whose opinions we once respected are being taken in. If otherwise intelligent beings can be fooled, what does that do to the very large portion of the population for whom intelligence is a pipe dream? Those are the ones who fail to vaccinate their children, thereby putting all the other children around them at risk. These people aren’t just fools, these people are dangerous!
There are times when I am tempted to think that the Internet is nothing more than one giant tabloid. The kind of things that fools are willing to believe is extensive and, quite honestly, embarrassing to the human race. When we have mountains of evidence supporting the facts and we still refuse to believe them, can our own extinction be very far behind? I remember laughing at the people we would see picking up tabloids at the grocery. I can’t laugh at all the people reading the same kind of nonsense on the Internet because there’s too many of them! I’d crack a rib from laughing if it wasn’t so scary at the same time.
What gets me is that young people, people who have had the opportunity to be educated in such matters, are still believing in some of the same fairy tales that were common when I was a kid. Again, sticking with things that happened just this week.
No, I didn’t blur the names. Fools need to be called out on their foolishness. Part of what bothers me is that this is such an old myth and has been disproven so many times that it isn’t even funny. Yet, just as with everything else we’ve listed, people are still believing this nonsense. The whole issue of chemtrails goes back to 1958 when NASA started using lithium in the launch of certain rockets in order to better observe certain atmospheric conditions. Conspiracy theorists twisted the science and ran with it.
NASA is now and always has been very open about the vapor trails they use, what’s in them, the amounts used, and why the use is necessary. They have an entire section of their website devoted to this funny thing we keep mentioning called the facts.
What might be even more disturbing from Amee’s post, however, is the belief shared by many like her that the government is trying to kill us. Kill us all. Dead. I have some problems with this concept.
First, if jet vapor is the means of dispersal for whatever poison is being spread among us, it’s not working. We are, generally speaking, living longer and healthier than any generation before us. So much so, in fact, that the leading causes of death in the US are our own fault due to silly things such as overeating and lack of exercise. We are doing a much better job of killing ourselves than the government is.
I’ve been watching jet vapor trails since I was a small boy. If anyone was in a position to be poisoned at an early age, it would be me. Yet, here I am, perhaps not the healthiest person in the world, but what ails me is in no way the result of any kind of external poisoning, either by the government or that cook I accidentally insulted back in SoHo.
The nonsense surrounding ways in which the government is allegedly trying to poison us is nothing short of insane. Do a quick search and you see claims that the government is really heavily involved in this whole trying to kill us scheme. They’re allegedly using:
On and on this list goes and it leaves the logical mind thinking that if the government really is trying to poison then, they’re really, really bad at it. Why would I say that? We’re all still alive. We have more centenarians living now than at any time in the past two thousand years. In fact, we’re so very good at staying alive that we have exceeded the planet’s level of sustainability for all of us. We passed that point back in 2009.
Oh, and let’s not bother thinking about the lack of logic in trying to solve the world’s overpopulation problems by killing off Americans. The population of the United States is largely insignificant on a global scale that encompasses some 7.5 BILLION people. Now, for those of you who are not stellar at math, the current US population is only around 375 million, so we don’t even take up the .5 in the global calculation. If one is going to perform a mass genocide in the name of sustainability, one needs to start on a different, more populous continent.
She musters a smile for his nostalgic tale
Never comin’ near what he wanted to say
Only to realize
It never really was
The frightening thing at this juncture is that the list of fools goes on and on. We’ve not even touched on those who still believe things such as trickle-down economics or that a “paleo” diet is healthy. There are hundreds of belief systems that are nothing more than pure foolishness and believed by pure fools. Trying to list them all would be exhausting and, quite honestly, I have better things to do.
People whose wisdom far surmounts mine have written of fools before. Perhaps we would do well to heed their advice:
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. -Voltaire
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. -Plato
The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places. -Bryant H. McGill
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell
Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it. -Benjamin Franklin
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite. -Arthur Schopenhauer
And then, there’s the Doobie Brothers, who know what a fool believes. And every time there’s a White House press conference now, I keep hearing that song in the back of my mind.
Immediately followed by this:
When will they ever learn?
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