“Do you think you were born with a monopoly on the truth?” I love that quote from the great play/movie 12 Angry Men, one of my all time favorites. It says so much to me, about arrogance, bias, prejudice, being open minded. It has and will continue to profoundly affect everything that I write and it will help me decide what to post in my blog. It just seems to reflect something so essential, something that seems to be lost of late, including the ability to see things from different points of view, whether one agrees with them or not.
As a result, readers should know that the content displayed in my blog may or may not reflect my perspectives on a particular topic. In fact, that is one of the primary objectives of this blog, to allow for multiple viewpoints. That said, it is, after all, my blog and thus I retain content purview. That is one of the great things about a blog.
With all the disinformation and misinformation out there these days, much of it fueled by the production of “fake news” on social media, I am going to try my best to post stuff that seems to have some credence although that has become increasingly more difficult these daze. Topics like human influence on climate change; emotionally charged issues like race relations, law enforcement, and crime; and, the multitude of dynamic tensions brought about by the presidential election, these (and other) things defy quick and simple explanations and resolution. Regardless, I am not interested in adding to the dung heap of TV “late breaking news” or rapid fire content that too many of us seem to relish. It is these phenomena – fake news and too fast breaking news – that I see as serious threats to our country, the reinforcers of a misinformed or underinformed public. It’s like we have been conditioned, pavlovian style, to get our information as rapidly as possible, damn the accuracy.
Too often, these phenomena push us into this ‘us versus them’ or ‘liberal versus conservative’ or what ever other duels we choose to engage in because, frankly, we seem incapable of critical thought and can’t agree to disagree. We simply refuse to listen to stuff that does not fit our individual world views and knee jerk with resistance when we sense opposition and threat. For my blog, I want the expression of passionate agreement and disagreement, but let me be clear, there will be no tolerance for hate. I will reserve the right to delete comments that I feel reflect hate-filled ignorance, a threshold that I will be the judge of as the blogger in chief.
On the other hand, on occasion, perhaps even more than on occasion, there will be irreverent posts and I hope that that irreverence is clearly evident. If not, I can’t help you and you should go drink a Geno’s Margarita. Highly recommended.
I want to thank my friends for encouraging me to create this blog. Some have actually given me some sense that, sometimes, they actually enjoy reading what I write and/or they find my content to resonate in some way, whether they agree with the content or not. I hope I can continue to engage folks with both the serious and the fun stuff.
I’m gonna do my best to think things through before I post them here. That said, I’m going to make mistakes, and when identified, I will correct those mistakes. To quote one of my favorite song lyrics, “I ain’t often right but I’ve never been wrong …” Well, in my blog, I pledge to not forget that I could be wrong …
Geno
icouldbewrong.blog 