What We Talk About When We Talk About Truth
“In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.“
Mark Twain – Autobiography of Mark Twain
The truth is not always fact. And truth is often stranger than fiction.
American “Indians” are not from India, because Columbus didn’t discover a western trade route after all.
Michael Jordan wasn’t “cut” from his high-school varsity team as a sophomore, when he was the leading scorer on his high school junior-varsity squad that same year.
Breached levees caused the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina, but the city is in a sunken bowl, at least five feet under sea-level, surrounded by large bodies of water on every side. Where’s all that water supposed to go in a Category 4 hurricane? And, it’ll happen again, unless New Orleans becomes like Amsterdam and Venice.
If aliens arrive on this planet tomorrow, who might they believe to be in charge? Dogs who live a life of luxury, or the owners who follow them around with pooper-scoopers picking up their, well, shit? Go fetch.
When liberals and conservatives line up on either side of the political arena, who is hit by the flying bullets? All the people standing in the middle, trying to get something accomplished instead of proving who is “right,” “left,” or “wrong.”
FactCheck.org is one of the best available for some truthful reflection of the facts, as their business is, indeed, fact checking.
Also, TruthDig is a well-done web site, with some genuinely informed people making solid statements about all things human and otherwise.
Another soundly presented, professional, and unbiased web site is Common Dreams, for the “progressives” looking to build a better, New America.
And, lastly, for a simple, humanitarian organization with some of the greatest minds in the world, try the Aspen Institute for a little change of pace.
Smart people, doing good things. As might be guessed, not political.
