A Genius of Glue

    They shouldn't have said two weeks. After that, everything seems like a lie. I know some people will defend them by saying they didn't know at the time. If so, they should have said, "We don't how long." Saying two weeks and then admitting that they were wrong doesn't speak particularly well for either their veracity or their competence.

     And it doesn't lend their cause much credence when they seem to pretend that there are no other, not so pleasant effects, created by their efforts to solve the problems. Those in charge inevitably come across as ostriches arrayed single file with their heads planted firmly in the anus of the ostrich in front of them.  As it is, it causes us common people to try and seek out answers from people who haven't told us either mistruths or mistakes, and it's proving harder and harder to find such people. 

       I listened to KMJ one morning when a caller called in to tell the host about some sketchy video he had seen. The host (I think it was Ray Appleton) exploded on the guy. I know what the host was saying, but his self-righteous anger made me pretty angry. I wanted to pull over on the side of highway and call the station. I know that the wait times for phone callers are long or I would have.

         What I wanted to ask the host was where, in this puzzle pieces scattered on the floor reality, is the average person supposed to find truth, the mainstream media, social networks, our politicians? Hell, even our religious leaders talk out both sides of their ass nowadays.

           The great German philosopher Nietzsche in a lecture about the woes of modern education(as far back as 1872) said that once schools were placed in the service of science and state and started teaching that the purpose of learning is bigger paychecks, the academics not only couldn't find the truth if it was tattooed on their buttocks and they were sitting on a mirror, but they also became inadvertently engaged in the effort to kill it,

             "We are already at point where the scientist or academic as such has nothing to say about any serious general question, especially the deepest philosophical problems while a gluey mass that has worked its way into and between all the sciences -journalism- exists precisely to address such questions."

                 Did you catch that? He was lamenting even back then, that education with its focus on specialized subjects and empirical knowledge, no longer knows how to answer inquiries about the underlying truth of existence. Then he points out that journalism has become the new bible of the modern age. I'd hate to tell him that it hasn't gotten any better.

                 We have taken that and added a new layer of gluey shit to believe in; we have made comedians (I use the term loosely in that it no longer refers to people who engage in humor but nows references snarky commentators who spew the corporate line) as a source of truth, or at least a tinfoil hat facsimile of truth. In 2004, a large percentage of college students said that they get their news of politics from the Daily Show and/or Saturday Night Live.  Can you even imagine what this means? How many levels of stupidity it reveals about American culture. Chris Cuomo as a prophet? St. John Stewart? 
                 
                 Nietzsche goes on to say,  "Anyone who still lays claim to culture or education...... typically relies on a sticky layer of journalism -a substance as sturdy and permanent as the paper it's printed on -to grout the gaps between every form of life.....every art, every science, every field." He finishes with, "The Journalist has taken the place of the genius, our salvation...and leader for the ages."   

            In other words, the average person can hardly be blamed for looking at sketchy conspiracy videos in an effort to find some foundation for their thinking. The atlases of truth are no longer shelved where they used to be. And if some of the more lost individuals want to believe that people like Bernie Sanders, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Lebron James, Marshall Mathers, Kanye and Pete Davidson are paragons of virtue and the ultimate sources of truth, what good will it do to argue with them? 

               But they shouldn't have said two weeks.