Information Overload-Caveat Lector

It seems to me today that the Information Highway known as the Internet is doing its job to the proverbial nth degree. That means we, if we are the plugged in sort, are subject to so much information that it is difficult to figure out what’s real, what’s unreal, and what really matters.

At any given nanosecond we are pummeled with whatever information the media gods think will give them the highest ratings. So, we get everything from police shootings and drug deals to potential flu endemics and little Johnny’s runny nose. Those who feed the Internet aren’t really trying to enlighten their audiences as much as they are trying to bring back old “customers” and generate new ones, that is to garner ratings. More hits on the site means more money from advertisers.

Funny how things like that never change, isn’t it?

The media machine—so called journalists—spend their time finding new and exciting fodder for their web monsters and little time or care goes into checking the facts, or what politicians call “vetting.” So, like the commercial says, “Everything on the Internet is true because I read it on the Internet. Bonjour!”

Even what appears on the Internet under seemingly legitimate sites, which will go unnamed to keep me from getting sued, needs to be processed through one’s own veracity meter to weed out the stink factor. How often has an organization in its desire to be the first one to get the message out had to retract their statements later on? I would say it’s a daily occurrence.

The drive of the media to be the fastest with the mostest pushes aside things like accuracy, fact checking, and confirmation. Where in the old days of newspapers, getting two or three supporting statements was considered normal, today justification to print a story in paper or digital form seems more driven by how many readers will this bring to our site.

That’s not to say such things have never happened before.

Perhaps one of the more famous newspaper “Ooops Moments” came in 1948 when the Chicago Tribune printed a banner headline that stated Dewey Defeats Truman, referring to the presidential election that actually went to Harry S. Truman over Thomas E. Dewey.  But the polls all seemed to indicate that Dewey would win the election, and the Tribune took what I am sure someone thought was a small gamble, and printed their now infamous headline.

Those things have happened and continue to happen. There are also egregious errors in the print and digital media that astound the eye and ear. In my very first job at a newspaper working for The Bradenton Herald we had an error standard that we tried to meet. We tried not to have more than three mistakes on any given page of the paper. You might not think that three mistakes are very much, but for us it was the gold standard. Things like typographical errors, bad mathematics, double-entendre headlines that can be construed differently from the writer’s intent are common in newspapers. They even have websites with collections of media mishaps, just Google newspaper errors and see the collection that comes up online just for last year alone.

My point here is that people make mistakes. And mistakes happen mainly because we are prone to error. When it comes to the Internet the problem is that everything gets on the Internet. So you can never live down something like the Tribune’s Dewey headline. Like Las Vegas what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. The problem is the Internet is never closed and anything posted there tends to stay there—FOREVER!

Which of course brings us back to the one person who has ultimate control over what they read, see, or hear on the Internet—you! It seems like common sense to filter the stuff on the information highway through some kind of baloney meter, but some people tend to be more gullible than others. That’s what keeps Ponzi schemes and other frauds in business. How many times have you heard about someone getting bilked by responding to an email or losing their life’s savings because someone took advantage of them?

It happens all the time. And, now with the great equalizer, the computer, it’s even easier to take advantage of people and rob them of their life savings. So, not only is the Internet a bad place to get news, it’s also a bad place to put your faith in people.

So who can you trust?

Well, nobody really. The media has its own agenda. Whether you are a fan of CNN or Fox is driven by which angle you prefer. Both present the news, but the writers today tend to put their own opinions into their work.

You can be sure that a certain writer is going to make the story fit his special agenda. And, it’s not only in BIG media; you can also find it in the smaller newspapers, too. So you have to be sort of a filter to decide what is news and what is spin, or opinion mixed with news. For those who remember him, there are no Walter Cronkite’s out there providing just the facts and allowing us, the readership or viewership, to formulate our own opinions. The media believe that the general public is too dumb to form an opinion, or at least the one they want you to form, and are more than willing to lead you down their path.

To steal Cronkite’s sign off, “And that’s the way it is.”

Bang! Bang! I got you!

In the admittedly juvenile behavior of youthful males, the idea of shootouts and cowboys and Indians is paramount to their psyché. When I was that age, say six to about 35, running battles with finger guns or air bow-and-arrows was as common as a PB&J and milk lunch.

World what would we do if we couldn’t act out our favorite moments from some western or even the latest adventures of Superman or Batman? We had no choice; we had to do it. Any stick would easily become an assault rifle, and the old red wind-barrier fencing made great swords, already adorned with blood from the stain. What was even better was that as your hand would sweat some of the red paint would end up on your hands and hopefully trickle to your elbow. HooHah!

To this day, I remember my older brother Mike, saying “Let’s play cowboys. You be the good guy and I’ll be the vomit (sic).” Yes, he meant varmint, but as most young kids are, he was much more familiar with the other term and sometimes things get a bit misconstrued.

Still, running around the local neighborhood and hiding out behind a tree or a shed waiting for our friends (now made into enemies) to come around the corner and fall into our trap was just what we did as kids. Sure there were accidents, like the time I dropped the plastic stock on my dart gun on my friend’s head thinking I was Colonel Travis and saving lives at the Alamo. Which reminds me by the way, “Sorry Joey.”

Even as the years progressed, the idea of shootouts and using the forefinger as the principle weapon was epidemic. Maybe it was Charles Bronson who made it the mainstay it was errrrrrr is. Think back, if you can, to those movies he was in called “Death Wish”—long before “Die Hard” came around. And now that I think of it, don’t you think maybe the names we have on our movies has something to do with this problem?

Anyway, there’s a key scene in the first Death Wish movie right near the end. It’s when he is “asked” to leave New York and opts to change his locale to Chicago. “Paul” (Bronson) has just gotten to the Windy City and as he steps out on the street, he walks into a scene where a bunch of “toughs” has just knocked a couple bags of groceries out of an older woman’s hands and onto the ground. Paul stops and bends over to help the woman collect her groceries. As he is doing so, one of the “bad guys” turns and gives him the evil eye. Paul stops what he is doing and takes a look at the guy, then lifts his right hand, makes the proverbial index-finger-thumb-pistol and trips the trigger. Don’t remember that image? Oh well….

Even as a soldier we played games with weapons, I know that may seem obvious since we were soldiers once. But one of the games we played was who could draw their .45s fastest. We even had holsters, but anyone who ever tried that trick knew the holster was no helper. The best place to keep the .45 was in your waistband. From there, it was one quick move of the wrist to open fire. I mean, what else did we have to do between rounds at the rifle range?

Anyway, the finger-thumb pistol is so ubiquitous for young males that I believe it is probably part of our genetic code. No question somewhere in that pile of DNA strand there’s some sequence tied up in double helix that relates directly to thumb-forefinger weaponry. It’s the one place where nature and nurture are nearly indistinguishable. It would even prove wrong John Locke’s theory of the tabula rasa (blank slate); meaning everything we know is learned and not inherent.

Still in this day and age even this somewhat childish action has been blown out of proportion. Take for instance the recent incident involving an eight-year-old Prince William County boy who recently had his disciplinary records wiped clean of such a dastardly thing as pointing his finger-gun.

After having been suspended from Minnieville Elementary School for “threatening to harm self or others,” the family retained the services of a lawyer to keep the principal from including the incident in the boy’s disciplinary record. To me, it seems absurd that such a thing would even be a matter for a principal or any school administrator to be involved in.

The infraction, although basically harmless, is considered in the same category as bringing a real gun to school. Further, the boy’s actions were in response to another child who had pretended to shoot him with a non-existent bow and arrow. So where is his punishment?

Boy have we come a long way in this society. To think a child could be ridiculed and slammed for life over something as simple as playing seems to fit the ideology of our times. In this case, it only takes a bit of common sense to figure out who’s the good guy and who’s the vomit.

Valentine's Day--Blegh

When I was a child I used to love Valentine’s Day. My mother would bring home a box full of paper Valentines, which I would sort through and then decide which of the lovely lasses in my class would get the “best” ones. And in truth, when you get a Valentine they are all the best, unless someone sends out one that is particularly snarky.

But in the end they all wind up being a variant of “Be Mine, Valentine,” it’s just the pictures that are slightly different. And so I would plow through the box giving one to Cathy, and one to Joanne, and one to Mona. But always the first ones went to those special girls; the ones who could make you smile just by sitting at their desks or standing around on the playground.

In those early days before the girls started building their cliques in middle school, it was fun just to hand out the cards. For me, who believe it or not was rather shy, it was a simple matter of leaving them on the girls’ desks. Sometimes I didn’t even put my name on them.

But there were always a few special ones. Everyone had their own Denise K. or Kathy D. I am sure, and that’s how it was for me. Sure no one takes those things seriously when you’re in the fourth grade and it always seemed odd how the girls would count their cards, as if keeping score. The girl with the biggest stack was the winner, at least in terms of popularity.

Over the years I grew out of that sort of innocent sentimentality. Life and to some extent further education drove a bit of the sentimental expression out of me and out of my mind. I became more interested in understanding the idea behind love and not the idea of love itself. Valentine’s Day became relegated to the back lot of the holiday bin in my brain. And so it stayed for many years.

At that point something very odd happened. I was finishing up graduate school at Hollins University, working on an MA in English Writing. Jackie, my wife, and I had been dating for a few weeks, and for the first time in years it seemed like I might have a viable relationship that might make it past the three-week rule. Most men know that rule, three weeks with a girl and then you disappear.

It’s almost like a buffer. If you hang around more than three weeks, it’s like you have made some sort of tacit agreement to try to keep the relationship going. God knows we men don’t want to get caught up in a long-term relationship like that.

We started to date in January of 1987. At first it wasn’t too serious, she would tell you even today that she thought I was too short and might make a better boyfriend for one of her girlfriends. And that’s pretty much where we were when I left Roanoke for a couple weeks to attend, among other things, my brother’s wedding. So when I came back and we got together again we were approaching that three week point.

Now if you know Jackie, you would know that she loves all those holidays. Birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas are all hallowed days in her book. They are meant to be revered and celebrated. But over the years, like Scrooge, I had drawn away from those kinds of events, although I still like to celebrate St. Patty’s Day but that may be due to other influences.

Shortly after I got back from Florida that dreaded holiday rose up on the calendar. Valentine’s Day. To me that year it seemed more like Commitment Sunday at church. It was the day to commit. At first I wasn’t too sure if suicide was part of the equation, but I wrestled with the idea of not just whether I should get her a V-Day gift, but what it would mean if I did.

You wouldn’t think that something so simple would have that big of an impact. I had always been very blunt about things and could easily walk away from anything pretty much anytime I felt like it. And that was the choice I faced. If I chose to buy her a gift I felt that was pretty much committing to a relationship. If I didn’t, then I should just walk away and go find another pretty face in the crowd.

For a person who had lived most of his life alone, it was a tough decision. I labored over it, even right up until the hour before we were to meet that fateful day 27 years ago. Finally I figured out what I had to do and went to a nearby department store and picked up a pair of relatively cheap Teddy Bear earrings. She probably still has them.

Sure it wasn’t a diamond, but it was a symbol of my commitment. Remember, I was not a very sentimental person. I wish I knew whatever it was that drove me to make that decision, because as things turned out it was the best decision I had made in my life. I would have never thought our relationship, or for that matter any relationship involving me as a principle, would have turned out as well as this one did.

So to Jackie, Happy Valentine’s Day, and now you know the rest of the story.

Blogger saves Groundhog Day

Late Friday night after putting the finishing touches on my Colonial Heights vs Prince George basketball story for the Hopewell News and while readying myself for a long winter’s nap, I heard the unmistakable whine of my emergency services cell phone. I knew it was trouble, because it rang my special ring tone reserved for national emergencies.

You see, unbeknownst to many people, yours truly is often called in when those in charge are at their wits’ ends about some project or issue that is particularly cumbersome, difficult, or just plain ignorant. Let me assure you, no one is better suited to handle ignorance than me. If you don’t believe that, I offer as proof a second opinion from my wife, Jackie, who has known me for nearly 30 years.

“It’s true,” Jackie said. “When it comes to ignorance there’s no one like David.”

See, I told you so.

Anyway, here I am after midnight on a chilly Friday night when the cell goes off with my “We are the Champions” ring tone blasting. Nothing like that old Queen lullaby to let me know this is an important call and that I may be pressed into emergency duties right away. So it looks like there might be no sleep for me tonight.

Quickly, I stifle the ring tone and press the cell phone to my ear.

“Yes?” I say with a tad bit of tribulation in my voice.

“Is this you know who?” a vaguely familiar voice crackles through the speaker.

“That depends,” I state affirmatively.

“Well, this is Bob Roberts up at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania,” he said.

My mind races to put those two thoughts together. Bob Roberts? Mmmm, I think. Then it dawns on me, Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania is the home of that most prestigious of prestidigitators the one and only Punxsutawney Phil. Quickly my mind spins what could be the problem? Why would Roberts be contacting me at such a late hour with dawn coming and Phil needed to perform his miracle of setting the seasons back two weeks?

“Oh and how might Phil be faring these days?” I ponder aloud.

“Well, that’s just it. Phil is in dire straits and in six hours it’s going to get pretty bad up here on the Knob if we can’t get things back in order.”

“How so?” I say.

“Well, we aren’t certain exactly what is going on, but for some reason we can’t get Phil to come out of his burrow. We are living on burrowed (sic) time ourselves right now, with the dawn getting ready to break and all. If Phil won’t come out, we will be the laughing stock of Pennsylvania,” Roberts declared. “We need your help and we need it yesterday.”

“Well, you know, I’ve been pretty busy myself. Action heroes can’t just sit around loafing the day away and waiting for that next emergency. I mean, it’s not like that hero stuff goes on every day. Most of us have to keep a day job in order to make it to the next calamity,” I explained.

“Well, I know it can be hard, especially in this economy,” he said. “But we really need you to come up here and get us out of this bind we’re in.”

Amazingly, Roberts knew exactly the right things to say to me to evoke my sense of patriotism. Something certainly had to be done. Somehow, some way we had to get Phil out of his burrow. At the time, I had no idea how we might make that happen, but I knew my services were needed and that the country, democrats, republicans, tea partiers, and Trekkies alike were in dire need.

“I’m in,” I said.

“Great, we have a chopper on the way to get you,” he said.

It’s quite a way from Colonial Heights to Punxsutawney PA, in case you didn’t know. Punxsutawney is north east of Pittsburgh. In seconds, the helicopter landed in front of my house like a medevac chopper. In no time at all, I was aboard and we are off on our way north by northeast.

No one talked as the chopper clipped along at a solid pace and we sat in our own thoughts. It seemed like it only took minutes to get to Gobbler’s Knob. We were out the door before the chopper’s skids touched down. We hadn’t much time and the vague hints of dawn were already cresting the mountain ridge to the east.

“Hi Bob,” I said. “What’s the plan for getting Phil out of his digs?”

“We were thinking we might be able to get him out by scaring him,” Bob said.

“Scaring him? Are you sure that’s the right way to go about this?” I asked

“Sure. You should see him scramble when the sun comes up. He’s nearly impossible to hold onto when he sees his shadow. If you saw that you would understand why it might mean six more weeks of winter,” Bob explained.

“Ok, so what should we do? I think some fireworks might work,” I offered.

“Oh, no nothing like that. He might get hurt and we can’t have that,” Bob said. “What we thought was that a really huge ground hog might get the job done instead.”

“Oh, so you want me to go find some gargantuan ground hog?” I said.

“Well, not exactly,” Bob said. “Step into my office.”

Inside Bob’s office I noticed a huge rug on his desk. It looked like a cross between a bear skin and a 1920’s raccoon coat. No one needed to explain anything more to me. Bob wanted me to stand in for Phil, plain and simple. Bob would hold me up and I would look around for my shadow. Great idea, I thought.

“Here put this on,” Bob said.

“But Bob, I can’t do that. It would be a forgery, it would be a lie, it would damage my reputation. It would change the psyche of the American public forever. No sir, I cannot in best conscience stand in for Phil,” I said, declining what I thought he was suggesting.

“Stand in?” Bob said. “We never thought of that at all. We just thought that if you donned that suit and walked up to Phil’s burrow the thought of you climbing in would frighten him and he would dodge out of his escape hatch and we could catch him.”

Anyway, that’s the real story behind Punxsutawney Phil declaring an early spring last Saturday.