381 The Proverbial Storehouse of Misinformation

I missed making a post last week and my reason is refurbishing our home.  Everyone has to perform that duty from time-to-time and it does take a lot of doing. Consequently, I have been too pooped to post, so to speak. So let’s start again!

Gentle Reader, let’s start with my reiterating that even though the remedy for misinformation is knowing one’s subject to a surfeit, as I declared in my last blog, how many, let me ask you, how many of us do that?

If you are still uncertain as to the necessity of knowledge ability, Dear Reader, consider this. You and I both must confess to her (or his) own peculiar storehouse of misinformation. It is true of every last one of us that on some subject, at some time we disarmingly bandy about in conversation a ridiculous notion or two. Hence, truth be known, we are all erring in our thinking from time to time; and scorn of that plight is downright hypocritical at the very least, wouldn’t you also agree?

And, once again in reference to Governor Perry, if your concern is that a candidate for the Presidency should be beyond such shortcomings, you may be being a tad idealistic. Excess idealism is something for which my father regularly chided me as a youngster. According to him, too much idealism can wrongfully hurt others. And the Bible agrees, saying (and I paraphrase) it is better to err, if err one must, on the side of mercy.

Besides, once President, believe me, the Commander-in-Chief, whomever he is, will be briefed and re-briefed multiple times over before he ever makes decision one and certainly before he gives any prepared speech. Plus, he will always have a prompter, be that a human or tele-prompter, earphone, image projector, or some gadget or other to keep him accurate.

So what’s the big deal?

“Brain freeze” becomes less an issue then. Doesn’t it?

Or so it should, to my way of thinking. But, alas, it is seldom seen 

that way.

Still, truth be known, the best remedy for such predicaments is knowing one’s subject to a surfeit!

To be continued . . . 

380 On the Subject of Misinformation

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4^th of July Holiday! We in this house did!

But now, continuing my thinking on stress and public demand for knowledge ability, The variant answers from people on the street to late-night talk show host Jay Leno’s probing questions (such as, in what year did Columbus sail the ocean blue, or who was the first president of the United States, or where is the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge located, etc.) display to me the most baffling array of misinformation, or poor recall, or whatever what one wants to call it, that I have ever heard. And, yes, the misguided responses are hysterically funny to both me and his other fans.

But these brave public responders on the street are awfully good sports to allow us to poke fun at them as if we were never so ridiculous ourselves; and when they articulate their errant answers with such sublime innocence and nonchalance, we are certainly cynical indeed to sneer at their ineptitude. I mean, after all, sneering at others’ slip-ups is rude to say the least, if one is truthful with oneself. Have we not already decided that?

And even though the remedy for such predicament is knowing one’s subject to a surfeit, as I declared in my last blog, how many, let me ask you, how many of us do that?

To be continued . . .