I’m worried about the good people of this country and our future. Here’s why: I regularly get emails with patently false information. These days it’s usually about some grave indiscretion committed by President Obama but sometimes it’s an editorial that Andy Rooney never wrote not to mention said, on 60 Minutes.
This morning I got one about the tragic shootings that happened in Fort Hood, Texas last year. Supposedly, when George and Laura Bush heard about the shootings they jumped in the car, unescorted, and drove to the Fort. When they got there, former President Bush asked for directions and was again offered an escort whereupon he told base officials to shut up and drove on to the hospital. The story went on to say that the White House asked the former President to leave. The story goes on to say that President Obama “merely held a photo session” in a gym at Fort Hood.
Okay, I understand a lot of people in this country are unhappy with the current occupant of the White House. Some may have excellent reasons to be unhappy. The election next week will probably hammer home the point. That’s not enough for some of us though. There is no shortage of people that will gladly spread misinformation about Obama and his administration. Certainly in my lifetime there is nothing new about that. Anyone who lived through Watergate understands that evil lurks in the hearts of many people. What frightens me is that there are so many people who are so unhappy with the current state of affairs that they will believe anything that supports their world view. And they are willing to blithely spread hideous stories which today are point and click easy to do. Whatever happened to critical thinking?
I am grateful for Snopes.com. It’s so easy to check stories that don’t sound right and you know what? My instincts are often right. And I am just an average guy with a tendency to be skeptical about what I read. Does anybody else think a little skepticism is healthy? Consider if you will a few points about the Ft. Hood story.
We live in an unstable world. We are forced to be very security conscious. Former Presidents have access to enormous amounts of sensitive information. What are the chances that President Bush, not once but twice, fails to take proper security measures? The reason we protect former Presidents is to ensure we don’t have an international incident that could result in the deaths of many. Think George Bush knows that? By the way, would George Bush tell a man or woman in uniform that offered to help to shut up?
In a highly politicized arena, knowing that former President Bush had been on the military base visiting wounded soldiers, is there any chance that President Obama would “merely hold a photo session?” The guy won an extremely hard fought primary and general election because he exercised formidable political skills.
The truth is that I didn’t really need to check snopes.com to see that the story being sent around was false. I firmly believe that most of us would see that. Common sense tells us that the heart of the story is fabricated. Yet, too many people won’t see that. Why do so many of us choose to major in minor things? We get lathered up over whether a mosque should be built near ground zero while we ignore the fact that educators in this country aren’t getting the job done. America’s students rank 21st in science and 25th in math compared with students around the world. Teachers need to do a better job and so do parents. The mosque issue may be important but where is the outrage over the state of education?
In the days before cyberspace, newspapers and even TV journalists behaved responsibly. They wouldn’t think of publishing something like the Bush visits FT. Hood story. Ethics, moral and business, forced them to walk the straight and narrow. Advertisers would not have stood for malicious propaganda. Readers may not have agreed with certain points of view but they could rest assured that the essential facts of any story were accurate. The Internet changed all that. Everybody can play now and it’s more or less a risk free game. Web sites, blogs and email are a demagogue’s dream. Unless otherwise bright people learn to accept the truth that just because it’s “in print” doesn’t mean it’s true, our liberty is at risk.
Copyright Len Serafino, 2010. All rights reserved.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Multitasking: Hazardous to Your ...What was that?
I was thirsty. So I stopped at a convenience store this afternoon to get a bottle of water. I reached for my money and noticed immediately that I didn’t have as much as I thought I had. I could tell without looking there was money missing. How could that be? Only this morning I went to the bank, inserted a card, and punched a few numbers into the magic machine that dole’s out the amount I request. Happens every time.
So where was the money? I dispensed a twenty into the hands of Connie at Nucci’s Café at lunchtime. Okay, I remember doing that. Did I drop a small wad of cash, $120 to be exact in the process? Nothing to do but take a ride over to Nucci’s. I had to stop there anyway because I forgot the Italian ice I ordered for my wife. When Connie’s husband Steve saw me walk in he assumed that’s why I was there.
Of course I asked him if anyone turned in some money that might have been left lying on the floor in front of the counter where the cash register sits. He assured me that no one did. I couldn’t be sure, but the look on his face seemed to suggest that I was losing it. I mean who would turn in $120 in this economy right? Well, yes you would. I know that. But some people, the kind of people that aren’t reading this column, might be prone to keep the dough.
Flummoxed again, I went home and asked my wife if she saw my money. Perhaps it was resting comfortably on my desk or on the kitchen counter. No dice. I wondered about that to be honest. If she didn’t take it I was out of options. I am not a careless person. The money was only in my possession for a few hours. It’s not that she’s been known to rifle my wallet in search of a little mad money while I’m napping, but there is a first time for everything. I was getting desperate. $120 is nothing to sneeze at. As I weighed the merits of demanding that she take a polygraph test, something odd happened. I remembered what I did with the money.
Just before lunch I was sitting in my home office browsing thru my inbox and chatting on the phone with a colleague. The doorbell rang. It was Mark, the guy who cuts our grass. It seems that I owed him some money for services rendered over the last several weeks. So I paid him the $120 I owed him, handing him six crisp twenties fresh from the money machine at the drive thru.
Is it an age thing? I mean at 62 has it come to this? Not more than three hours after I paid Mark it seems I had no memory of the transaction. Now it’s true that I would rather forget that I’m paying someone to manicure my lawn. That was probably why I fell behind in my payments in the first place. But having no recollection of the transaction so soon after it occurred?
There may be another explanation: Multitasking. Yes according to David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, chronic high-stress multitasking also is linked to short-term-memory loss. And an article Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street journal points out that a growing body of scientific research shows that multitasking can actually make you less efficient and, as she said, “stupider.”
Now that’s just what I need at this time in my life. After all the years I spent studying, taking classes, not to mention all that reading, a simple thing like talking on the phone while I read emails, Twitter and eat a number 11 sub from Jersey Mike’s, is making me dumber. Worse, I probably won’t even remember that I was once at least a little bit brighter than I am now.
As if that’s not enough, Katy Read, writing for AARP, reports that information overload is tough on people. This is “especially so for people over 50 because normal brain changes – including small blockages to the brain’s blood supply and a drop in nerve signaling chemicals – can make it harder to tune out distractions.”
Apparently, even if I wanted to ignore the doorbell and hold on to my cash a little longer, I wasn’t capable of tuning out Mark. I had no choice but to pay him. I have only one thing to say. Would the colleague I was on the phone with call me please and identify yourself?
Copyright 2010 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
So where was the money? I dispensed a twenty into the hands of Connie at Nucci’s Café at lunchtime. Okay, I remember doing that. Did I drop a small wad of cash, $120 to be exact in the process? Nothing to do but take a ride over to Nucci’s. I had to stop there anyway because I forgot the Italian ice I ordered for my wife. When Connie’s husband Steve saw me walk in he assumed that’s why I was there.
Of course I asked him if anyone turned in some money that might have been left lying on the floor in front of the counter where the cash register sits. He assured me that no one did. I couldn’t be sure, but the look on his face seemed to suggest that I was losing it. I mean who would turn in $120 in this economy right? Well, yes you would. I know that. But some people, the kind of people that aren’t reading this column, might be prone to keep the dough.
Flummoxed again, I went home and asked my wife if she saw my money. Perhaps it was resting comfortably on my desk or on the kitchen counter. No dice. I wondered about that to be honest. If she didn’t take it I was out of options. I am not a careless person. The money was only in my possession for a few hours. It’s not that she’s been known to rifle my wallet in search of a little mad money while I’m napping, but there is a first time for everything. I was getting desperate. $120 is nothing to sneeze at. As I weighed the merits of demanding that she take a polygraph test, something odd happened. I remembered what I did with the money.
Just before lunch I was sitting in my home office browsing thru my inbox and chatting on the phone with a colleague. The doorbell rang. It was Mark, the guy who cuts our grass. It seems that I owed him some money for services rendered over the last several weeks. So I paid him the $120 I owed him, handing him six crisp twenties fresh from the money machine at the drive thru.
Is it an age thing? I mean at 62 has it come to this? Not more than three hours after I paid Mark it seems I had no memory of the transaction. Now it’s true that I would rather forget that I’m paying someone to manicure my lawn. That was probably why I fell behind in my payments in the first place. But having no recollection of the transaction so soon after it occurred?
There may be another explanation: Multitasking. Yes according to David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, chronic high-stress multitasking also is linked to short-term-memory loss. And an article Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street journal points out that a growing body of scientific research shows that multitasking can actually make you less efficient and, as she said, “stupider.”
Now that’s just what I need at this time in my life. After all the years I spent studying, taking classes, not to mention all that reading, a simple thing like talking on the phone while I read emails, Twitter and eat a number 11 sub from Jersey Mike’s, is making me dumber. Worse, I probably won’t even remember that I was once at least a little bit brighter than I am now.
As if that’s not enough, Katy Read, writing for AARP, reports that information overload is tough on people. This is “especially so for people over 50 because normal brain changes – including small blockages to the brain’s blood supply and a drop in nerve signaling chemicals – can make it harder to tune out distractions.”
Apparently, even if I wanted to ignore the doorbell and hold on to my cash a little longer, I wasn’t capable of tuning out Mark. I had no choice but to pay him. I have only one thing to say. Would the colleague I was on the phone with call me please and identify yourself?
Copyright 2010 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
