Fake News

Since the election of President Trump there have been media articles raging about fake news websites. My initial thought was that this might be a revolt against the considerable number of Hillary puff pieces emanating from the New York Times and its ilk leading up to the election. After a brief bit of spelunking I find those were not the target of rage. There is discussion at Facebook of possibly banning articles that are deemed to be from fake news sites. Google is also discussing disallowing its ad services from fake news sites. The concern is that if war were to be waged against fake news, then there would be a group of people deciding and enforcing what news is fake and what is real. Who would be these deciders and what of their qualifications?

I vote against this prospective censorship and banning of websites. In a light-hearted example, let’s say a sports writer thinks the Cleveland Browns have a chance of reaching the playoffs next season [this season is already shot for this perennially damaged sports franchise]. As far as I’m concerned that’s not real news and such silly opinions would be worthy of ridicule. But just because I disagree with it doesn’t mean it should be banned from a public that is willing to consume it. Certainly we can all agree that the Browns footballers playing well enough to reach the playoffs is a comical idea, but there really is a serious issue at stake.

The greater issue is that if censorship comes to fruition, a news article or opinion piece putting forth a challenging idea might be deemed inedible for public consumption. If a journalist challenges global warming or is perceived to slight a favored demographic, for example, these articles might be deemed to have run afoul of an enforcer’s threshold of fake news. Ignorance prevails every time only a single side of an issue is put forth with the other perspective being suppressed. Such suppression would be a significant barrier to fostering an educated informed populace.

Of course fake news is problematic, so is dumbed down journalism written to navigate within the barriers of approved talking points. The truth is there are dubious websites, they are deserving of their freedom and our derision. Just as importantly, serious people should consider sources before ingesting their news. So let's be serious.

klem

Dreaming

I’ve lately been enjoying a number of silly dreams, too silly, in fact, to keep to myself so I share two of them here from a recent vacation. To set the stage, when we travel I share a bed with our son, Wife Klem shares a bed with our daughter.

Night #1

In my dream I’m walking through the streets of a foreign city at night. I know it’s a foreign city because in Spanish I’m asking pedestrians and passersby ‘Donde esta me chaqueta?’ [‘Where is my jacket’]. Why I’m speaking in Spanish in my dream I know not. [I’m not a Spanish speaker although I have made an effort over the years to learn the language to some minor effect. Clearly my subconscious has been paying attention.] None of the pedestrians knows the whereabouts of my jacket. They walk briskly past me not even slowing down to acknowledge me. It’s a chilly night in the dream and my jacket would increase my comfort level. I woke up in the middle of the night to find that my son, with whom I’d been sharing a bed, has rolled over and taken all the covers. In my dream I’m looking for my jacket, but in real life my slumbering self is cold and merely wants a blanket.

Night #2

The second dream, though far less detailed, carries the same them. I’m a spectator in an ice rink watching an amateur hockey game. Sure is chilly in an ice rink and I had forgotten to layer on the clothing. I woke up to, again, find that my son had rolled over and taken the bed covers with him.

Hopefully Sigmund Freud or one of his ilk does not find any more embarrassing meaning hidden deeply within these subconscious thoughts.

Me and Pistachio Ice Cream

I’ve never eaten pistachio ice cream. True, never even a sampling. Not that I have an aversion to pistachios, in fact, my taste buds and I find the nuts to be delectable. As a youngster I do recall thinking such a flavor of ice cream was someone’s joke and, if it were real, it would stink, in kids’ parlance. But what did I know, I was a kid. Despite having heard intermittently over the years that this variety of ice cream is actually delicious, I have remained unintentionally without. Here, then, is why.

If I were at an ice cream store, and I have been many times, how could I take a chance on such an unknown as pistachio when so much in the way of known quantities of delight are available and ready to be dispensed at the asking? With so much at stake, do I take a chance on this nut ice cream or do I order the surety? If I were to request a single scoop of pistachio ice cream and it fell short of expectations, it would be a crushing blow in that moment knowing that I could have had mint chocolate chip or rocky road, but instead willingly subjected myself to consuming the pistachio. That’s it. That’s the main reason it hasn’t crossed these lips, the competition is too great!

My lack of pistachio is not a purposeful avoidance, you see. This is not an active abstinence to stubbornly remain free of pistachio. It is merely that I have not had a captive opportunity. What do I mean by captive? If I were at someone’s home [a voluntarily captive audience, as it were] and the pistachio were offered, I would refrain no longer. But really, what are the odds? So many super flavors of ice cream available for purchase at a grocery store, who would buy pistachio in a size as vast as a quart to have in the freezer in a time of need? A scoop of pistachio, I can imagine that happening, but a whole quart of the stuff? Come on.

Next hurdle, should I just by chance happen to be in an abode that just happened to have a quart of pistachio ice cream on hand, how would I know that’s it’s on tap? Or how would the host know to offer? I might actually have been in a home with pistachio available for the asking, but the infinitesimal chance of the topic arising and the pistachio ice cream coming to light had never come to fruition! I could have at some point even been standing next to a refrigerator bearing the ice cream, but there was no conjoining between me and pistachio.

Anyway, pistachio ice cream. I’ve never had the stuff. I will, however, knock back a cone of chocolate chip at my earliest convenience.

-klem

A Victory For Patience

After much discussion my son’s room has finally been painted by the effort of my own hands. Patient Wife Klem has been planning this paint job and considering a spectrum of colors since last summer. My son has been living with a good swath of his possessions in boxes for a year. Me? This monkey of a chore is no longer on my back, it has been exorcised through the patient process of priming and painting.

 

Team Klem is now unhindered to engage the 4^th of July weekend in full force with traditional celebratory root beer floats!

Observations

1) Hair. As I get older this silly stuff is much less important than during my youthful years.

2) My choice of super power, if I had such a choice? Never having to sleep and being entirely without detrimental side effects of tiredness. Not sure what I’d do with all that extra time, but hopefully something at least a little productive.

3) If you want to be interesting, it is necessary to be interested in something.

4) Tobacco. I’m in favor of people and their free will to knock back a few cancer sticks if wanted, I’m entirely pro choice in that regard. My beef, however, is the litterbugging. Smoke if you want, but don’t toss your butt on the ground.

5) Cookies, because you want them, not because you need them. Vegetables? Because you need them.

6) Do something, don’t just be something. Happiness is attained in the journey to doing something, not in the destination.

7) The ways in which a person spends their time reveals what’s important to them [i.e., important enough to pull me away from my plastic screen]. I admittedly have work to do in this area.

8) Have a problem? Seek resolution to that problem so you may move on. Don’t clog up your days worrying and aggravating. Solve it, then go forth unhindered.

9) I was absolutely invincible in my teens and 20s. What I failed to acknowledge at that time was how ‘vincible’ I would become as I navigated my 40s.

10) Happiness. With few exceptions, each person is responsible for their own happiness. Get happy and stay there, it’s a better existence.

-klem

The Voice

This guy frequently heard a voice, not voices, just a single voice. Nobody around, no television or music playing, no ambient noise, just a clear crisp voice speaking with a high quality surround sound effect. It was not necessarily speaking to him, but there was typically nobody else physically present when it was heard. The voice never spoke in a complete sentence, but several times throughout the day he might hear ‘red apple’, ‘nice shoes’, ‘larynx’. Occasionally up to four words were spoken, ‘and wonderful incandescent lightbulb’ or ‘bug in dog bowl,’ but the absence of verbs was a constant.

The voice was always the same, a male in his 30s, or thereabouts, speaking in a pleasant tone and occasionally with an emphasis placed on an incorrect syllable; ‘belt-BUCK-le’ or ‘ham-BURG-lar’. This sometimes caused him to smile self-consciously and hope that nobody might ask, ‘What’s so funny?’ ‘Oh, the voice in my head mispronounced a word,’ he might be obligated to respond. He might hear the voice from another room not knowing if another person were present, unless, of course, a verb had been employed. He would instinctively respond without consciously being triggered by the employment of the verb.

The voice was bothersome, sometimes entertaining, but not scary because it spoke mostly curiosities, never instructions or statements. The voice did add a degree of difficulty when on a conference call for work. The difficulty came when he would hear someone and not know if it was on the call or if it was the voice. ‘Did you hear me?’ or ‘Are you there?’ were questions not irregularly posed to him.

For decades he’d heard it and made mentions throughout his youthful years to his parents. Doctor visits confirmed his hearing was perfect and no conditions, otherwise, to question his sanity or impeccable health, physical or mental. He did, for a brief period in his late adolescence, write down all the spoken words over the course of two months. This filled four and a half pages and was discarded when he thought it might be discovered and thought to be a kind of poorly written manifesto.

When he lived by himself the voice kept him company, to an extent, as if he had a roommate. You know, a roommate who was the antithesis of verbose. Unfortunately, the voice was not restricted to his domicile. He endured it over the years until it suddenly ruined him.

He was traveling for work late one night in an unfamiliar town. He had taken a late flight, had been unable to sleep on the plane, and arrived in poor condition. He retrieved his rental car and was en route to his destination. Being unfamiliar with the required route he had his phone’s mapping application calling out directions. The voice, not the directional app, very inopportunely chimed in ‘left now’ causing him to respond due to his shabby mental state. He turned immediately directly into traffic and was harshly brought to an end by a large truck. The voice was finally put to rest.

-wdk