Stupid? Or Not?

Today a friend sent me an article from the Wall Street Journal by Lance Morrow titled You Are Living in the Golden Age of Stupidity.  The article pretty much describes everything that has happened for the last four plus years as stupid, regardless of political party.  We live in a golden age of stupidity, he says.  It is everywhere. President Biden’s conduct of the withdrawal from Afghanistan will be remembered as a defining stupidity of our time—one of many. The refusal of tens of millions of people to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus will be analyzed as a textbook case of stupidity en masse. Stupid is as stupid does, or, in the case of vaccination, as it doesn’t do.  Every buffoonery of the president and his people was answered by an idiocy from the other side, which in its own style was just as sinister and just as clownish.

Words

When I first decided to post about what went on in our nation’s capitol yesterday, I thought my opening sentence would be, I have no words for the events at the capitol.   But as much a lying seems to be in vogue these days, can’t start out a post with a lie.    Because of course, I have Words.  I always have Words.

How about disgraceful (adj – shameful; dishonorable; disreputable)?   As in: It is disgraceful that the president would stir up a crowd of extremists and send them off to attack the capitol?  (Yeah, he did).   Let’s try embarrassing (adj –  feeling shamed, humiliated, mortified).  As in: How embarrassing it was for the country that was once the beacon of democracy to have the world watch us behaving like a banana republic?   We can talk hypocrisy ( noun – the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform).  As in Can you believe Trump’s hypocrisy sending his supporters to storm the Capitol after attacking the BLM protesters for a photo op?  Here’s a good one: deplorables (noun – those worthy of severe condemnation or reproach).  As in: I disagreed with Hillary when she called all Trump supporters deplorables, but clearly those who attacked the Capitol today were just that.  They were not patriots (noun – one who loves and supports his or her country), as the witless Ivanka claimed, they were rioters (noun – participants in a noisy, violent public disorder) and in some cases, terrorists (noun – persons who use unlawful violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims).   Let’s do a two-for-one: delusions (noun – false beliefs that are resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact) and cowardly (adj. – lacking courage).   As in: This happened partly due to cowardly senators and congressman who continued to enable Trump’s delusions about winning the election.  Here’s a vocabulary multiple choice question with sedition (noun – conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the a state or country) or treason (noun – the crime of betraying one’s country).   Is President Trump is guilty of (a) sedition; (b) treason; or (c) both?

The news is mixed this morning.   Congress reconvened last night to confirm Joe Biden as our next president, but a number of Republicans still enabled Trump by objecting to the electoral count in swing states.   Criticism of Trump is rising … there have even been some calls for his removal via Article 25 … but his enablers, particularly in places like Fox News, continue to support him.   According to a YouGov poll, 45% of Republican voters backed the attack on the Capitol building to some degree.   More than half of them believe Trump won the election, and I suspect most Republicans wish he had.   I have Words for that, too, but none I choose to post online.  Except for this:

God Bless America and Keep Her Safe

Love Letter

Good Morning, My Country,

How are you? Fine, you say.  I’m not so sure.   Oh, you are still beautiful.  Sometimes you take my breath away, like when I sit here looking up at the snow covered Wasatch Mountains.  It reminds me of America the Beautiful.   That was always our song, wasn’t it?   Purple mountains majesty above the fruited plain.  It always brings tears to my eyes when I hear Ray Charles sing it.  Crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

Confirmation Bias? Try This

It is becoming virtually impossible for me to make it through the news in the morning.  Believe it or not, it is not because I am disturbed by repeated national tragedies … although it certainly would be good to have a respite from natural disasters, mass shootings and political infighting.   Nor is it because an inordinate percentage of the news concerns what some celebrity or athlete says or does.  It is not even because the mainstream press offers a decidedly liberal-sided view of most issues.   It is because, more and more, I see that no one is listening to any other viewpoint than their own, so that every new story devolves into a discussion of whose fault it is … and, of course, until we figure that out, we will do nothing to remedy the situation because, you see, only one side’s solution can possibly work.  If you read my last post, Biased … Again, you know that the culprit is Confirmation Bias, that nasty tendency of or species to find evidence that supports what we believe and believe nothing else.

Biased

I posted this on my other blog, Both Sides Now, but I’m posting it here because it’s relevant to the purpose of both blogs.   It’s also think it’s a good post and gives me an opportunity to promote my new blog to readers of Older Eyes.  If you are one of the few who already subscribe to both, I apologize.

I like to begin my day with a cup of coffee at my side and my tablet in front of me, seeing what is going on in the world from the various news outlets. I have searched for years for a source of unbiased news (a phrase that should be a truism but turns out to be an oxymoron) but have finally settled on reading biased news from a variety of sources, then drawing my own conclusion. Over in the blogosphere or on social media, it is worse. Opinions masquerading as facts may not win the day but they dominate it. It is as if we are pre-programmed to be biased, which we are. The culprit is not some brain-hacker out of The Matrix but a fundamental characteristic of our species known as Confirmation Bias. Our Creator (or Evolution, you choose) has endowed us with a very strong tendency to sort through the array of information available to us at any instant and choose that which supports our current opinions, thus strengthening our belief. Some scientists explain that for our ancestors, dealing with simpler (but more critical) situations (like Is that a Sabre-Toothed Tiger and is it likely to eat me?), reaching a quick decision in the face of sensory overload was a matter of life or death. If this is the case, then Confirmation Bias is strongly linked to our Flight or Fight Response, becoming strongest when the situation seems threatening.