News and Words, Words and News
Ahh, I am back, and of course am going to ramble ( and perhaps pontificate ) upon seemingly random thoughts. I think it will mostly cover two of my favorite topics, news, and words; naturally, I can never be sure where it will end up. It's a broad field; I will try to keep it narrow as I can. With my mind, narrow can be said to be a given. A warning here: this could be rather long.
News, of course, is just communication. Communication is accomplished in words, be they spoken, written, or even delivered in semaphore or dots and dashes or sign language, etc. Today, social media, and our old friend of short acquaintance the internet, is perhaps the most used delivery system. It has given rise to many new words, and rehashed and tried to redefine the meanings of old ones. News itself, put simply, is exposure to ideas and occurrences of which we were not previously aware. News can take any form, from truth to half truth to theory to outright false information. Today's news is generally delivered with a healthy dose of opinion, and little reliance on fact, except in rare instances. One must be carefully observant to try to wade through the information bombardment to get the actual story, and no one I know of--particularly me--has been 100% successful.
One section of news delivery is journalism. Journalism is the professional reporting of as much fact as can be currently gathered about a story, and presenting it as just that: facts. This is what happened, according to details currently available, and further reports may come in as more factual information is obtained. It is generally easy to spot the professional journalist; the story will try to avoid personal opinion, and if any opinions are presented, they will be those gathered from people involved. The story will not be presented on a 'slant'; in other words, not worded so as to guide the reader/listener toward a side or opinion, thus allowing the reader to judge for themselves based on the presentation of the details. In today's internet-driven flood of words, true journalism is hard to spot, but, it is there.
One phrase we have added to our lexicon and beaten to death is 'fake news'. Actually, there is no such thing as 'fake news'. Any information one receives that details something we didn't already know is news. The difficulty in today's media-age bombardment is trying to ascertain whether or not what we just learned has any basis in truth. There are many ways of doing this, but they are time consuming in reality, and many of us haven't the time. So, all too often, we come away from some hacked up pile of vomit believing it as fact, for it coincides with opinions we already have. There are internet sites that will fact check many high profile news items, and either confirm or debunk them, but we have now a growing societal belief that even those sites are biased in one form or another. We have reached a point where it seems there is a huge, unbridgeable gap in our social and political views, and this has affected our ability to define, and trust, news sources.
For me, there is one undeniable fact about the use of the term 'fake news'. If someone is asked about a certain story that has emerged that involves them, and their answer is 'Fake News' ; the story/accusation is as near 100% true as it can get.
When I was a child going to school, we used to call people who denied the evidence at hand as stupid, or, retarded. We didn't do that out loud, mind you, because it was not polite, but we had our safe spaces where we could say pretty much anything we wanted. Say certain things in public, you'd trigger a response that didn't always result in sharing a soda pop and laughing about it. In other words, certain things were 'trigger' words, and if it was a fight you were looking for, you learned those trigger words, and you used them. Otherwise, you retreated to your 'safe space', where you felt free to say anything you wanted. This might be the locker room, out behind the barn, out in the woods, or your favorite watering hole. In this respect, nothing much has changed from my childhood to today, 60 odd years later.
This, in my usual roundabout way, brings me to the words portion of this brain dump. I have noticed, in social media at least, that some words and phrases are trigger words which have surprised me. Not much surprises me, so I find this fairly interesting. There is a old adage which goes something like 'Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me'. Over the course of my life, I have discovered this is a false statement; no, wait, rather I have made it a false statement. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to live my life by that adage. However, yes, I have my own trigger words. All right, actually, it's more in the delivery of the words than the words themselves, I admit.
Forging on: first, I guess, I have noticed that a lot of folks, in my social area anyway, have developed some sort of trigger for the phrase 'politically correct'. Now, this phrase came into existence over 2 decades ago, and even I consider it somewhat of a useless term. To me, it really has no definition, beyond, well, having manners. Being polite. There are certain things, and I began to learn this from early childhood on, that you just don't say in company. You are taught to say 'please', and 'thank you', to start out. You don't use words that might make others uncomfortable; these include certain 4 letter words that others, or yourself, find offensive. Also, words that are descriptive of a person's looks or physical form. In short: manners. That's all it is. Of course, the flip side of that is, learning the proper manners to not allow hearing those words offend you. You can think whatever you please, and if you are in your safe place with like-minded people, you can say what you please.
I might insert here: I have said 'safe place' quite a bit there. And I believe, perhaps mistakenly, that a lot of the problem we have socially right now is that some folks feel they are losing their safe places. That the 'politically correct' so-called movement is systematically removing those safe places. It isn't, of course. No such thing is happening. What bothers many of them is that they are now censured for acting like asswipes in public. In private, we can still be the vile-spewing, low-life, name-calling , bottom-feeding trash we really feel more comfortable being. In public, though, we might be called out for it, just as always, but with the advent of social media we started to get comfortable with it there. Except the term social media has 2 words in it, the first word being social; that signifies that, no matter how much you might think you are disguising yourself, you are still in public. Soon, the lines begin to blur, and we forget that media is the other word, and soon we are bringing our garbage into the park, the street, the supermarket, department store, and restaurant. And we try to defend our actions by spouting 'free speech'. It's a RIGHT! Except...no, it isn't, unless you are addressing grievances toward your government.
So, on to the next: Hypocrite. Oh, boy, I am seeing this a lot, though usually only directed at those public figures who seem to be of Liberal bent. Now, I can state with 100% certainty here that I am, and always have been, a hypocrite. But, let's see how Webster defines it:
"
News, of course, is just communication. Communication is accomplished in words, be they spoken, written, or even delivered in semaphore or dots and dashes or sign language, etc. Today, social media, and our old friend of short acquaintance the internet, is perhaps the most used delivery system. It has given rise to many new words, and rehashed and tried to redefine the meanings of old ones. News itself, put simply, is exposure to ideas and occurrences of which we were not previously aware. News can take any form, from truth to half truth to theory to outright false information. Today's news is generally delivered with a healthy dose of opinion, and little reliance on fact, except in rare instances. One must be carefully observant to try to wade through the information bombardment to get the actual story, and no one I know of--particularly me--has been 100% successful.
One section of news delivery is journalism. Journalism is the professional reporting of as much fact as can be currently gathered about a story, and presenting it as just that: facts. This is what happened, according to details currently available, and further reports may come in as more factual information is obtained. It is generally easy to spot the professional journalist; the story will try to avoid personal opinion, and if any opinions are presented, they will be those gathered from people involved. The story will not be presented on a 'slant'; in other words, not worded so as to guide the reader/listener toward a side or opinion, thus allowing the reader to judge for themselves based on the presentation of the details. In today's internet-driven flood of words, true journalism is hard to spot, but, it is there.
One phrase we have added to our lexicon and beaten to death is 'fake news'. Actually, there is no such thing as 'fake news'. Any information one receives that details something we didn't already know is news. The difficulty in today's media-age bombardment is trying to ascertain whether or not what we just learned has any basis in truth. There are many ways of doing this, but they are time consuming in reality, and many of us haven't the time. So, all too often, we come away from some hacked up pile of vomit believing it as fact, for it coincides with opinions we already have. There are internet sites that will fact check many high profile news items, and either confirm or debunk them, but we have now a growing societal belief that even those sites are biased in one form or another. We have reached a point where it seems there is a huge, unbridgeable gap in our social and political views, and this has affected our ability to define, and trust, news sources.
For me, there is one undeniable fact about the use of the term 'fake news'. If someone is asked about a certain story that has emerged that involves them, and their answer is 'Fake News' ; the story/accusation is as near 100% true as it can get.
When I was a child going to school, we used to call people who denied the evidence at hand as stupid, or, retarded. We didn't do that out loud, mind you, because it was not polite, but we had our safe spaces where we could say pretty much anything we wanted. Say certain things in public, you'd trigger a response that didn't always result in sharing a soda pop and laughing about it. In other words, certain things were 'trigger' words, and if it was a fight you were looking for, you learned those trigger words, and you used them. Otherwise, you retreated to your 'safe space', where you felt free to say anything you wanted. This might be the locker room, out behind the barn, out in the woods, or your favorite watering hole. In this respect, nothing much has changed from my childhood to today, 60 odd years later.
This, in my usual roundabout way, brings me to the words portion of this brain dump. I have noticed, in social media at least, that some words and phrases are trigger words which have surprised me. Not much surprises me, so I find this fairly interesting. There is a old adage which goes something like 'Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me'. Over the course of my life, I have discovered this is a false statement; no, wait, rather I have made it a false statement. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to live my life by that adage. However, yes, I have my own trigger words. All right, actually, it's more in the delivery of the words than the words themselves, I admit.
Forging on: first, I guess, I have noticed that a lot of folks, in my social area anyway, have developed some sort of trigger for the phrase 'politically correct'. Now, this phrase came into existence over 2 decades ago, and even I consider it somewhat of a useless term. To me, it really has no definition, beyond, well, having manners. Being polite. There are certain things, and I began to learn this from early childhood on, that you just don't say in company. You are taught to say 'please', and 'thank you', to start out. You don't use words that might make others uncomfortable; these include certain 4 letter words that others, or yourself, find offensive. Also, words that are descriptive of a person's looks or physical form. In short: manners. That's all it is. Of course, the flip side of that is, learning the proper manners to not allow hearing those words offend you. You can think whatever you please, and if you are in your safe place with like-minded people, you can say what you please.
I might insert here: I have said 'safe place' quite a bit there. And I believe, perhaps mistakenly, that a lot of the problem we have socially right now is that some folks feel they are losing their safe places. That the 'politically correct' so-called movement is systematically removing those safe places. It isn't, of course. No such thing is happening. What bothers many of them is that they are now censured for acting like asswipes in public. In private, we can still be the vile-spewing, low-life, name-calling , bottom-feeding trash we really feel more comfortable being. In public, though, we might be called out for it, just as always, but with the advent of social media we started to get comfortable with it there. Except the term social media has 2 words in it, the first word being social; that signifies that, no matter how much you might think you are disguising yourself, you are still in public. Soon, the lines begin to blur, and we forget that media is the other word, and soon we are bringing our garbage into the park, the street, the supermarket, department store, and restaurant. And we try to defend our actions by spouting 'free speech'. It's a RIGHT! Except...no, it isn't, unless you are addressing grievances toward your government.
So, on to the next: Hypocrite. Oh, boy, I am seeing this a lot, though usually only directed at those public figures who seem to be of Liberal bent. Now, I can state with 100% certainty here that I am, and always have been, a hypocrite. But, let's see how Webster defines it:
"
Definition of hypocrite
1
:a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2
:a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
—
hypocrite
adjective " - Mirriam Webster dictionary
Okay, let's see. Yes, I qualify under the 2nd definition. For instance, the Death Penalty. I do feel there are those who deserve it, for whom this is the only answer. At the same time, I would vote to end it completely, because, I also know it is wrong for me to feel anyone deserves to be killed. So, I know there are times I could kill: that is logic. But I won't go out and kill those who I think deserve it, because logic tells me it would solve nothing, and make me the same as they may be, which then removes from me the right to make such a judgment. In short: I am a hypocrite. I use this only as a example, and there are many other things that qualify me. Hypocrisy is simply living; we can all believe one thing while doing another, because we are capable of letting our reason overcome our basic faults and prejudices. Civil Service, the art of being elected to a public office, necessitates a fine sense of hypocrisy. Compromise, which is the art of politics, requires hypocrisy. To accuse a politician/public figure of hypocrisy is rather like accusing beans of causing flatulence. If you are trying to convince me someone or some thing is unworthy, telling me they are a hypocrite is the same as telling me, well, they are doing their job then. Now, if that hypocrisy extends to out and out lying to further their own ends, or to protect themselves from prosecution for a illegal act while leaving others vulnerable for the same act, that is different. Now, you've given me something to consider.
It occurs to me, this is longer than even I thought it would be, and I am sure I will come up with more. I have a network of friends and relatives who give me ideas all the time. All that keeps me from a continuous binge on the subject of words is my own laziness. I've reached a point in my life where I can only do one thing at a time, and, even being retired, it seems like there are a million things happening every second. Writing out my meaningless drivel is therapeutic; it keeps my brain from mashing my jaw into my feet. I could say, it's a weight loss diet for the brain. If anyone actually reads it, and perhaps even gets something from it, well, that brings a smile to my face.
So, Thank You for reading. Until next time...
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