It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.
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It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/willrogers385286.html#0U6sTjJyX6dGhKtO.99
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. Will Rogers
George Rebane
As a people we Americans are not very good, let alone careful, readers (more here). Decades of testing have confirmed this, and our betters have long noted its effect for their own benefit. Knowledge of English among the nation’s reporters has deteriorated noticeably, and their political bias has made mainstream media the country’s acknowledged lamestream.
I was reminded of this again at breakfast when I picked up this morning’s newspapers. The Union, our local rag, finally did a little summary piece on the recent leadership kerfuffle in the Nevada County Tea Party (more here). The paper is a small town journalistic backwater that at best serves as a stepping stone for more aspiring talent, and a comfortable career terminus for print media managers who never made the big times. But it has its loyal readership (the Rebanes among them) which periodically bitches and moans when the paper’s editorial policy leans more one way than the other. Recently it has taken a list to port, which has been noticed by a few of the more conservative groups hereabouts.
The paper’s report about the NCTP leadership again quietly throws its hat into the Left’s corner, but the toss is probably too subtle for most of its readers to catch. However, I submit the subliminal effect is there. More precisely, The Union’s abruptly concluding paragraph on the dissension puts Sue McGuire in a bad light, and implies that in the ongoing exchange resolution is far off.
She also claims that several NCTP officers (including Elaine Meckler who was serving as vice president at the time) endorsed McGuire in her 2012 bid for county supervisor, setting the precedent for her own more recent endorsement of Alkire.
Note the insertion of “also claims” to communicate not only the doubtful veracity of McGuire’s statement about NCTP leadership’s precedent in privately endorsing candidates, but also all of her previously reported statements. ‘Claim’ infers an unresolved and ongoing ‘he said, she said’ debate. However, the NCTP endorsement precedent is a matter of public record, which any cub reporter could have verified before going to print. The proper word that would have conveyed this is ‘cited’, which gives a whole different and correct meaning to the veracity of McGuire’s statement. Was it political bias or just sophomoric journalism that caused the piece to put McGuire and the NCTP in a poor light? Or both?
Continuing to shine a critical light on sloppy wordsmithing in journalism, I noted in today’s (27may14) WSJ the bold caption above a picture of President Obama laying a Memorial Day wreath – “Obama Vows That More Must Be Done for U.S. Veterans”. Think about that one. No one takes a ‘vow’ that something ‘must be done’ in the future. That’s not a vow, it’s a desire by or prescription from one who has no power or no intention to implement. A vow is made to state one’s commitment that they ‘will’ do something, that something ‘will be done’, that, upon their honor, they will dedicate themselves to accomplish the object of the vow. I admit that I may have missed a very subtle slam in that caption against a demonstrably weak president. But the conservative WSJ has never held back in its explicit critique of progressives, especially if they waffle in their vows that ‘more must be done’.
However, the real carpet bombing of America’s sensibilities and public consciousness by the lamestream has been going on for years. Acting as true lackeys of the most leftwing administration in two generations, the media has promoted the great lie that the ‘debate is over’ about manmade global warming (AGW), abetting that farce by doubling down with the now endlessly repeated claim that “97% of scientists agree” that AGW is the cause of the current climate change. Anyone with even a smidgeon of knowledge about how science is done would never accept such a claim for a moment. (Nevertheless, such acceptance again shows the pervasive dumbth of America.) Along with many other institutions, knowledgeable websites, and blogs, these pages have done their best to explain the real science that should be behind the study of our climate, instead of the bought and paid for conclusions solicited here and abroad by governments too ignorant to look behind the curtain, or too convinced that the global warming calamity is their last and best chance to achieve the broader objectives of collectivist command and control of humanity.
How removed from reality is ‘The Myth of the Climate Change ‘97%’’ is again exposed and lucidly explained by Mr Joseph Bast (Heartland Institute) and Dr Row Spencer (NASA research scientist). I beg the reader to concentrate on the cited facts in this piece, and apply reason to how these tie together and corroborate your own worldview and knowledge of history. The damage already done by the media to bring about fundamental change to our governance, economy, and values may be irreparable – are we past the tipping point? – after all, the distribution of dumbth through Common Core ups the ante on collectivism’s all-in policy for corralling the country’s heart and soul.
As we become ever more tightly bonded to our electronic media, the melding of politically progressive journalism and entertainment promises to rule over the entire landscape of our perceptions, discourse, and what we have come to substitute for reason.
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