Oops

Post-Truth is an intriguing concept, and that book by Ralph Keyes looks like it would be a good read but I don't know if it's still in print; it was first published in 2004.  There are some preview pages available online but I haven't found the compete text, yet, but I'm still looking.  One of the first lines was a quote stating Truth has been displaced by "believability."  That sounds about right.

Another relevant term of very recent vintage is supplied by none other than Kellyanne Conway, a prime White House mouthpiece.  She may have been the first to mention "Alternative Facts," a concept that boggles the mind.  I mean, a statement is a fact, or it isn't.  But facts and truth are not the same thing, are they?  I think truth is determined by an analysis and interpretation of the facts, which can lead to confusing conclusions.  You can take a bunch of facts and, depending on how they are interpreted, arrive at numerous conclusions which may or may not be truthful, and that's why lawyers get the big bucks.  Facts are never subjective but truth may be; I'm sticking with that notion until something better comes along.  Why doesn't court testimony require you to tell "the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts?"  It's a subtle distinction, but a distinction none the less, but I am not doing a good job of explaining it and it needs more work, but, there you go.  It's all I have at the moment.

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Uncle Ken's trip down memory lane about talk show hosts and interviewers reminded me of some of the greats and there were quite a few, folks who could discuss, debate, and even argue without losing their civility.  David Susskind, Dick Cavett, and Tom Snyder come to mind, and even David Frost did a good job with Nixon; a good movie was made of that one.  But the confrontational style goes way back, too, and I think one of the first practitioners was Joe Pyne, though I haven't seen any of his shows; he died in the 60's and I wasn't paying much attention to that kind of news at the time.  But I remember one of his followers, Morton Downey, Jr.  That guy could really get the juices flowing and was the most notorious of his time, as I recall.

Somewhere along the line, likely due to the realities of the marketplace, news programs became news as entertainment programs, and Fox got an early start on that.  When they became a network they never shied away from controversy; remember how outrageous "Married with Children" seemed at the time?   Tongues were wagging, and the more they wagged the higher the ratings.  It's seems like it's part of their business plan, where they get higher ratings pissing people off, and folks will always stop and gawk at a train wreck.

I am hoping some good will come of all this; this is the first time in my memory that the basic concept of truth is a topic of general conversation and is being re-examined in the context of current political life. This is something that should have been take care of a long time ago but better late than never.

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Since I've never seen a mortar in real life I had to check with my old friend, Mr. Google.  According to the time frame I'm guessing it was the M29, please correct me if I'm wrong.  I've only seen them in movies, but I was surprised to see that they had such a great range, more than a mile if I'm not mistaken.  They're actually little rockets, aren't they?

When I enlisted I had a choice of schools but that was about five years after Mr. Beagles enlisted and I don't know if he had the same deal.  If I took a two year hitch I would have been required to also do four years of active reserve duty, which didn't appeal to me so I did the three year deal which meant three years of inactive reserve; my name was on a piece of paper in St. Louis at the records center and it meant nothing, really.  I was home free.  So, did Mr. Beagles pick a class where he could "blow shit up real good" or did he not have a choice?  I can see the appeal of blowing shit up, and lots of guys are enlisting nowadays to do the same but that's a young man's game, and probably a good idea at the time to their way of thinking.  You get a little older and you think, hey, a fella could get hurt doing that stuff.  No thanks.

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On Friday, the president is scheduled for a thorough medical exam at the Walter Reed Medical Center.  If the medical officers performing the prostate exam and colonoscopy are Mexican-American or Muslim, all the better, I think, for a little poetic justice.  You take small victories where you can get them.

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Reading Fire and Fury is a bit of a slog and I'm glad I didn't spend any money on it.  I don't expect any great insights; the pundits have already covered most of the major topics, the most significant being that the game plan was to not win the presidency.  The election victory screwed up all their plans.  When Michael Flynn was questioned about all the money he received from the Turkish government, his response was something like "It will only be a problem if we win."  Oops.