OUR ERA OF POST TRUTH

'Post-truth' declared word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries-uncredited story –

dated Nov. 16, 2016

                                   http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600

Oxford Dictionaries says post-truth is thought to have been first used in 1992.
However, it says the frequency of its usage increased by 2,000% in 2016 compared with last year.

To my friends and all the rest of you very intelligent free humans:

 

We are all full of crap  and everybody's crap stinks. I have written about truth and perhaps how we find the truth. I feel this to be an important topic. Bogus news is a plague. 

There are reasons for this, as documented and discussed in the following links. (A quick scan of the links and/or the stories provides some of the details.) The basic concept is that all of us exist inside of our own 'filter bubble', our own 'echo chamber', made worse by the algorithms of google and facebook. In political terms, both left-wingers ( like me ) and right wingers, tend to gravitate to 'news' and 'content' that supports our own beliefs. This is all pretty obvious, especially to most of the savvy and sophisticated users of diaspora. Whether we want to admit it or not, is another matter.

No one is prefect and we are all subjective. At least we can start there. No one has the absolute truth, only what we perceive to make the most sense to us. Most post links and some kind of documentation to amplify their ideas. But there are a plethora of fake news sites, pseudo opinion sites, and outright 'pure' propaganda sites.

One problem with the recent US election was the 'narratives' of each political group took precedence over what could be defined as relatively objective truth, if such a thing exists. I would maintain it does; if you look deep enough and hard enough and if you are willing to grapple with the ambiguities of life's great and small mysteries. 

You can add another fact to the equation. Language is constantly morphing as we find new expressions to describe our feelings and discard other words and expressions that do not seem relevant to our lives. Thus the relevance of the Oxford Dictionary in reporting on word usage and the emergence of new phrases.

All of this adds up to quite a quandary. 

As an aside, I find that the word choices of my 'spellcheck' seem to have become less accurate for some reason. So if you are a bad speller like me, and the spellcheck is not providing an appropriate spelling, you are in real trouble. But that is a small problem.

The bigger problem is how do we talk to one another. If you accept the purpose of social networking and the whole internet is to facilitate communication between free humans, we obviously need a way to talk to each other, in language which we can agree on, and with honesty and respect. That Is the purpose of our endeavor here, isn't it ?

1. - rise of fake news -

Uncredited story – Nov. 6, 2016
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-37846860

2. - Zuckerberg plans to combat problem of Facebook fake news - http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38039506

Uncredited story – dated Nov. 16, 2016



3. - How we got to POST-TRUTH -
https://www.fastcompany.com/3065580/how-we-got-to-post-truth
BY RUTH READER , a writer from Brooklyn, NY – dated Nov. 18, 2016

Why I am grateful today

Why I am grateful today:

I am grateful for the sunlight streaming in my window,

for being able to hear music and the cat's meow,

for having two legs that work and being able to walk,

I am grateful my electricity is still on though I am late on the bill,

I am grateful I am not in Aleppo,

for being on the green side of the grass,

for being able to write words with my keyboard,

I am grateful that company is coming for the holidays this week,

I am grateful for the good health of my family,

I am happy to feel the cold air and winter will dress the earth in white snow again,

I am happy that I have projects and plans ahead of me,

I am grateful for understanding how fake news works on the internet,

I am grateful that at least half of America is happy, though maybe for a little while,

I am happy for being free of pain and able to breathe air,

I am happy I do not have to be anywhere today,

I am grateful for being whole-hearted and at peace in my head,

for being in touch with my brothers,

for being out of touch with my enemies,

for being hungry,

for being.

Spirit Ride

Spirit Ride            11-2-16              333 words

You know I 'm trying, Lord, You know I care,

about my brothers and the state of all we share,

I know I do not exist alone for I see my real condition,

I am one of countless ones who live by Your volition,

You brought us here to witness, You brought us here to see,

Your golden world of precious life and all the ways to be,

Alive to this miracle of yearning in our struggle to define,

what living life means for us when we are blind to Your design,

What we do is often clueless or blinded by the Light,

of our self-delusion and denial of Your Great Web Sight,

for we see all things with our paltry minds, with our tiny brains,

we forget to see the divinity in the gift of simple rains,

we forget to see the Divinity which surrounds us day by day,

we take it all for granted or explain it all away,

as long as Earth keeps spinning and the rains fall on the ground,

we go about our modern life and never stop to hear the sound,

of the whirring humming birds and the buzzing of the bees,

the silent bark and breathing of our brother trees,

the majestic life of soil and the magic of shit made pure,

the silent sprouting of simple seed so life can simply endure,

yes, we take it all for granted that there is life on this third rock,

a life full of intention and the desire You pack into the crock,

So all of us could taste the ecstasy of holy communion with another,

and take our place in Your Holy Dance of one father and one mother,

and when we see the unholy truth of all the ways we work,

that life conspires to continue in spite of Man berserk,

do we not sometimes wonder, do we not really care,

at the end of this Spirit ride, and no longer imbibe Your Air.

Saving the Souls of the Heathens

Saving the Souls of the Heathens       Sunday 11-13-2016     299 words

My God,

the heathens are arising with the anti-christ,

they have laid in their guns and ammunition,

they have prepared a fortress in their hearts,

they have built an edifice of reasons

to excuse themselves for their fears

and make it all right to kill their brothers

and anyone who thinks differently than them

they cannot tolerate Your world of diversity, Lord

they cannot tolerate Your world of infinite colors,

they think that they have found a key to lock out the truth;

the truth that Your world is more complicated than any can imagine

and they cannot see You or themselves in Your Glorious Creation

and they cannot see how You really work Your miracle

in weaving us all together into Your rainbow of precious life.

men use the Koran and the Bible to explain why they should kill each other

and make it ok to murder children and anything which confuses them,

they create a narrative, a matrix of reasons and half-truths, to excuse

their hate-speech and racism, and to blame liberals for the sins we are all guilty of:

ignoring Your divine Creation, thinking we have a mandate to rape Mother Earth,

ignoring that we are all Your children and all pilgrims on the path,

ignoring that we all suffer when we attack and blame each other and forget

'we are all in it together',

and finally, Lord and Great Spirit of All Life, ignoring Your mandate

that we love and care for each other and see Your divine Spirit in each other's eyes.

Grant us again Your Grace, let us be humble and grateful, knowing only You

are Great, and all of us are just so many blades of grass in Your Holy Sea. Amen