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
Update: September 22, 2023: This is more important now than ever. Be vigilant and speak in your own way. Love Wins.
Update: McQuade, Barbara, "Attack From Within," 2024. New York Times best seller.
I recently visited the historic southern city of Savannah, Georgia. For the casual tourist Savannah offers all the comforts of fine lodging, food, friendliness and good old southern hospitality. First rate museums of art, slavery, Prohibition and the rich maritime history of the city can be found and offer enlightenment.
There were two cemeteries of note in Savannah. The free one that entombed those citizens of note from the Revolutionary War period until 1853. The paying one covered the Civil War until I don’t know when because I didn’t go there. I have this thing about cemeteries. They fascinate me, which I find to be at least a little odd.
The lives portrayed on those decaying stones help to tell the epic history of the life and times that these people were immersed in, and like me, largely ignorant of, in their own day.
Speaking of Cemeteries, Savannah prides itself on it’s ghosts. I think rightly so. Story has it that ghosts roam the streets because their graves were covered up in the building of Savannah. That and the war, disease, fire and natural disasters visited upon its people have released many a restless soul to dwell among the physically living.
You may or may not believe in ghosts. I tend to believe, but that’s for another day. Savannah certainly has ghosts. I think those ghosts live inside modern day residents of this fine city, other Georgia cities and cities throughout the old slave holding South.
Racism is everywhere. The South has a reputation for being more racist, but is it really? It certainly is by reputation. It likely has a predisposition to be more racist based on the treatment of African slaves used to bolster the the economies of cotton and tobacco that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Perhaps it is less racism and more a collective guilt that makes it more difficult for people in the south to see people of color for who they are. The treatment of ethnic minorities, in this case dark skinned ethnic minorities, by Southern cotton and tobacco monied families, has left their progeny with an indefensible and inescapable perception of who the Black man/woman is.
Guilt is a pernicious thing. If it isn’t addressed, it becomes like an untreated cut that gets infected and spreads to other parts of the body until the organism becomes very sick and eventually dies.
If that guilt is played upon by greedy, mean spirited people of great wealth, the problem is magnified. The disease in the one body spreads to other bodies and the illness becomes normalized.
I bring this up now because that illness of guilt is being spread across the U.S.A. in an attempt to normalize it. Attempts to whitewash the accomplishments of Black men and women and other people of color through unconstitutional immigration practices, the banning of books, attacks on institutions attempting to treat the guilt wound are simply attempts to hide white guilt for the way non-Caucasian peoples have been treated in this country.
Late in his life, the Noble Prize winning author John Steinbeck traveled the country in his truck, Rocinante, along with his dog Charley “in search of America.”
What he found was a country much like I would see today if I were to engage on a cross country trip across the U.S. of A. Diversity, friendliness, hospitality, beauty and candor.
On his trip back to his home in Sag Harbor, Maine, Steinbeck experienced the dark side of the South. In New Orleans, he witnessed “The Cheerladies or Cheer Leaders.” The Cheerladies/Cheer Leaders were a group of middle aged white women that gathered outside a school that was attempting to integrate and heckle and yell unspeakable obscenities at young Black students.
One of his many riders going through the South was a man in his thirties who basically wormed his way into a ride. You’ll have to go back and read Pp.268-272 to get a feel for the hate this man had for Black people.
The America that Steinbeck encountered 65 years ago is still, embarrassingly, still pretty much the same.
Although I must add that I had a good experience bicycle riding through Arkansas and Louisiana in the mid ’80’s.
Racism isn’t necessary. It isn’t genetic. It is taught. Why it is taught is a mystery to me. I think it gets to the old saying “GIGO.” Garbage In. Garbage Out.
Why has it become the divisive centerpiece of the second Trump Administration? I don’t really know. I can’t bother myself with that. It is beyond my control.
What I do know is that, like Steinbeck, I will continue to work for what I believe in. The New Testament of the Bible and The United States Constitution are two documents that I deeply respect. I try to live my life each day using those documents as guideposts.
I am sickened by those forces that have taken those two documents and have turned them into the antithesis of what they are. I will continue working for the Liberal causes championed in the Bible and continue working towards “the more perfect union” called for in our Constitution.
Let those ghosts finally rest in peace.
On the bright side...
1. GPS
2. Diabetes and Obesity Drugs
3. Quantum Dots
4. Sign Language Dictionary
5. CAPTCHA
6. Life Without Screwworms
7. Bladeless LASIK Surgery
8. Infant Massage
9. The Dustbuster
New York Times Digital edition by Alan Burdick and Emily Anthes with illustrations by Ruru Kuo. May 16, 2025, 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time
What do those nine items listed above have in common? They are all advancements made possible by funding from the federal government. Were they a good uses of taxpayer dollars? Consider them in your life and answer that question.
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and you’re wondering how to get involved in social activism in the area, visit this website for ideas.
Another plus to living in the Bay Area is an exhibition of the work of photographer, Nancy Richards Farese. "She works with international aid organizations to document children in turmoil and trauma. A piece by her in the Sunday, May 11 San Jose Mercury News explores the importance of play in the lives of children and the important lessons to be learned from play. Things like how to negotiate, choose a leader, adapt rules and resolve conflict. In the process of play, children are exposed to justice and injustice, freedom and constraint.
Perhaps there are some adults that need to play more? A display of her work is viewable at The Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose through June 8.
I was wondering how you’d connect the three and you did it beautifully.