Flight From Miami to Buenos Aires (Saturday, November 20, Day 1)

https://newslit.org/

Before you go on, an article in the May 8 & May 22 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

I suspect that Antarctic Explorer Ernest Shackleton would have found the Business Class accomodations on this American Airlines 777-300 Airliner to be overly extravagant and a waste of precious resources.

Movies, music, TV, news and more on my very own personal screen, food and drink at your beckon call, headphones (even though mine didn’t work), reclining seat, blanket and full-size pillow, my own personal “suite.”  To call it merely a seat would be an understatement of substantial proportions

Mind you that I am not complaining about my treatment on this 8:15 hour flight from Miami to our first staging area at the Alvear Art Hotel in Buenos Aires.  I am a tad bit embarrassed to luxuriate like this while on my way to learn about explorers that, at the turn of the last century chose to go where no one had gone before while undergoing the greatest hardships that just about anyone could imagine.

Ah, but times change, modes of travel change and exploration has changed along with it.  I suppose that I shouldn’t be too hard on myself and my fellow softies for following in the footsteps of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and Mawson in relative ease and opulence.  Getting to the Antarctic in a matter of days when it took these explorers 2-3 years by boat to complete the journey/adventure/exploration.

We left San Jose at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 20 and as we leave the Caribbean and enter the Pacific at an altitude of 33,000 feet over Panama and turn southward, it is about 1:30 in the morning by my internal clock.  Yet, I don’t feel the least bit tired…yet.  Where is that energy coming from? 

I think that it is coming from Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and Mawson.