Europe Trip: Day 1…Sort of

Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22, 2021 issue of Science News ran with a cover "Awash in Deception:  How science can help us avoid being duped by misinformation."  In the lead article titled: "The Battle Against Fake News," Alexandra Witze presents five suggestions on how to debunk bad information.  They come from the News Literacy Project (see the above link).

How to Debunk:

1.  Arm yourself with media literacy skills, at sites such as the News Literacy Project (newslit.org), to better understand how to spot hoax videos and stories.

2.  Don't stigmatize people for holding inaccurate beliefs.  Show empathy and respect, or you're more likely to alienate your audience than successfully share accurate information.

3.  Translate complicated but true ideas into simple messages that are easy to grasp.  Videos, graphics and other visual aids can help.

4.  When possible, once you provide a factual alternative to the misinformation, explain the underlying fallacies (such as cherry- picking information, a common tactic of climate change deniers.

5.  Mobilize when you see misinformation being shared on social media as soon as possible. If you see something, say something.

"Misinformation is any information that is incorrect, whether due to error or fake news.  

"Disinformation is deliberately intended to deceive."

"Propaganda is disinformation with a political agenda."

Sander van der Linden
Social Psychologist
University of Cambridge

Source:  Science News/May 8, 2021 & May 22, 2021

Saturday, August 5/Copenhagen, Denmark/

The thing about being a writer by nature is that you want to write. First take notes and record experiences and then try to put it into a narrative That’s where I am at 0100 Copenhagen, Denmark time on Saturday morning August 5 at 0106 Copenhagen time.

I say Copenhagen time because my body is functioning on Pacific Standard time, the time thatI am used to in San Jose, Ca, USA. I’m fully about 12 hours off my normal body function rhythm as I sit on a toilet seat cover in the bathroom of the A & O Hostel and Hotel here in Copenhagen.

I believe that Copenhagen is in one of the so called Time zones that is 9 hours East or ahead of PST, the time zone that I woke up in on Thursday, August 3, 2023 in San Jose, Ca, USA.

Combine that with the fact that I woke up at 0315 PST on Thursday, August 3 which was, at minimum, three hours before my normal waking time and add nine hours (I think. I’ll check that later) of Earth spinning time to that, my body is a little confused about what it’s supposed to be doing at this moment in time.

Time is, I assume , real. That in itself is subject to philosophical debate, but the result of this change in location on the planet and my earlier than normal awakening on Thursday has my body in a place in time that it isn’t used to.

Metaphysical analysis of time and space is not the direction I want to go but I hope you get the point of me bringing it up in the context of why I’m sitting on a toilet seat in Room 103 of the A &O Hostel/Hotel in Copenhagen trying to record some notes about the beginning of our trip w/o waking up my wife whose body is adjusting to this routine change in her own way (still asleep).

We met our Lyft driver Jonathan at 0400 on Thursday and he safely delivered us to SFO to get us to our first destination and to our first travel leg of this journey, a plane ride on a Delta Airways 757 jet from San Francisco to New York.

Mission accomplished. We arrived in NYC (JFK) about 45 minutes ahead of our scheduled arrival time due to an 80-100 mph tailwind. Normally being early for a flight would be viewed as a positive except that this trip already had a 5 1/2 hour layover built into it.

We walked the long and busy terminal 4 a couple of times before eating “dinner” and catching our next flight to Copenhagen. That flight was scheduled to leave at 2130 EST from NYC . I guess it was on time. I thought we were in the air before we actually were, but that can be attributed to the ritual-based change in mental function that I was experiencing at whatever time my body thought that it was.

The flight to NYC was five hours. The flight to Copenhagen was seven hours. Somehow in their corporate decision making process, Delta decided that serving a Midnight “dinner” was the best thing they could do to support the Circadian rhythms of their passengers. Jury is still out on how successful they were. Sitting here on this toilet seat at 0147 Copenhagen time in Copenhagen might provide part of the answer for their reasoning.

“Sleep” was fitfully unsatisfactory between digesting “dinner,” watching some else’s movie (The Covenant) while I was trying to watch my own (.) and trying to sleep in an upright position in the coach cabin.

In the interest of time, let’s move on to arrival in Copenhagen.

Travel fatigue aside, our journey was made easier by the fact that the Danes speak English as well as they speak Danish, the airport is small, and my Customs agent was a friendly woman that helped me identify the door that I thought wasn’t a door to get through to the outside world of Copenhagen on the other side .

Meredy, my wife, is familiar with Copenhagen. She was first here as a college student “a few” years ago and returned to visit with here her kids “a few “ years later and on this trip she is introducing her granddaughter to Copenhagen. Well, sort of . We are her designated adults while she encounters Copenhagen with her fellow 15 year old friends. There is more to that story which I may or may not get back to later in the next four days.

I had some trouble staying on my feet. Once (actually twice) on a down escalator while navigating the Metro . I tried grabbing the fixed rail instead of the one that was moving thereby almost crashing into the young couple behind me. They graciously saved themselves and me from a less pleasant experience and we made our way here to the hostel/hotel.

We got ourselves settled and went back to downtown Copenhagen for an orientation (at least for me). The central train station, entrance to the world famous Tivoli Gardens , a stumble and fall on the cobblestone street where two guys helped me up pack and all with a reminder to drink water.

Dinner at a Shwarma eatery (a great sampler plate of vegetarian favorites), a ride back to the A & O and sleep starting at sometime around 1800 Copenhagen time. The journey begins. FYI, I’m finishing this draft at 0222 Copenhagen time or 1722 PST on Friday, August 4 in San Jose, Ca, USA.

Cheers!