Y’all, We Just Have to Do Better

I don’t say this to be unkind, to be condescending, or to be disrespectful of cherished values...I say this because our survival may depend on our waking up. If someone tells you the earth is 6k years old, that person is either a moron, a crazy person, a jokester, or a very sheltered and naive person who has been woefully misinformed. In any case, s/he is WRONG. Who cares? We all should, because if we ignore reliable science on matters like the earth’s age, then we’ll ignore science about climate change, gender identity, sexual orientation, childhood/adolescent/adult development, dementia, immune suppressing diseases...stuff that really matters. You get to have your god, your religion, your rituals, your myths, your values, and your dreams (I am very thankful for my own), but you must also be open to learning, to reason, to peer reviewed information, and to ideas that offer solutions other than “hate/fear those brown people or those queers or those non-Americans over there.”

Children are in cages. Families are torn apart. Refugees fleeing for their lives are being turned away (or turned back to the hells they escaped). The environment is under attack. Same gender loving people and gender non-conforming/non-binary/transgender/two spirit people are having their families, their lives, their very identities threatened. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to be smarter than we’ve been. And it is certainly time to participate fully in our democracy. Apathy is hurting us even more than the dedication of the unenlightened.

The earth isn’t flat and it isn’t young. Living, breathing, named, thinking, socially interactive children matter at least as much as fetuses. The earth isn’t invulnerable. And ignoring these facts has put our collective butts in a sling. Please, let’s do better.

Not Liking the News Doesn't Make it Fake News

News is news. If something happens, or if there is strong evidence to suggest something may be happening, and it is reported, that is not "fake" news. Now, commentary about the news can be biased, leaning to the left or right, and it can be verbalized in a way (with "dog whistle" words) that is meant to stir interest or even emotion in certain groups, but if a thing happened and it is reported, that is simply "news."

To try to discredit the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, MSNBC, PBS/NPR, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Mother Jones, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, The Independent, or even Fox (whose commentary I detest, but if they say a plane landed or an earthquake occurred, it probably did...when they say it was all a liberal conspiracy-that is commentary we can call b/s, but the news part is just news) as "Fake News" is ridiculous. Calling major news outlets "fake" is just a way of trying to keep the populace ill-informed and ignorant. Let's not fall for it, please.

By the way, there is "fake" news...they are tabloids (Enquirer), racist blogs, YouTube videos that any dweeb can post, etc. If they lie about a thing happening (pope runs prostitution ring out of Sistine Chapel, Big Foot top donor to the Clinton Campaign, Pat Robertson considered for Ambassador to Heaven)...then that is fake news. But those with long histories of journalistic integrity are not fake news, even if what they report isn't to (y)our liking.