Wisdom Out the Window

Back in 1985, I’d recently walked away from fundamentalist religion. I’d been a student at a school run by a Baptist megalomaniac named, Jack Hyles. I’ve written many posts about Hyles across the footprint of my blogging that dates back to 1993. Of course, in 2020, blogging is as anachronism, just as outdated as a rotary dial phone. Doesn’t mean it’s bad—it’s just not the way the ignorant masses roll these days, especially the impressionable kids.

I was just an impressionable kid myself back in the mid-1980s when Ray-Bans were all the rage. But, I had determined to dry the wetness behind my own two ears. I figured broadening my understanding was the way to go. Moving beyond mere Bible verses and jeremiads offered in daily chapel services at Hyles-Anderson College seemed like a step in a new direction.

Mark was two-years-old and Mary was working the breakfast shift at the local Wendy’s. I was working the afternoon shift keeping the prisoners at Westville Correctional Center healthy and medicated (I was a medical assistant employed by the Indiana Department of Corrections).

With my morning free save for childcare, I decided to take my three semesters of credit at the University of Maine and see if I could ramp up my hopes of success in higher ed. Purdue University had a satellite campus about 20 miles away from where we were living and just up the road from the prison where I was working in Westville. Not sure why at the time, but I enrolled in Philosophy 101. It was probably a morning time slot thing.

Thinking college was the way to go (Purdue satellite)

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Ex Post Facto

We are told that we live in a “post-fact” world. If you grew up in a print-based culture like I did (and you actually still use books to round out your understanding of the world), then this is alarming.

After months of brutal electioneering, a candidate has been chosen. He might be the perfect choice for a world where fact and science has been swapped for tweets and relying on his “gut” or something other than his brain for decision-making.

If it was merely our reality TV president relying on something other than fact-checking and data, then jokes and innuendo might be the end of it. However, it’s each and every single one of us “googling” on our smartphones that is driving dismissal of fact. Facebook then amplifies it ten-fold.

Like most nearly every aspect of life in America these days—the problem of ____________ (fill-in the blank) is someone else’s fault. Actually, most of the issues staring us directly in the face could be rectified with a little backbone and character. Like so-called fake news. If we didn’t consume so much of this fucking dreck, then there wouldn’t be a market for assholes like this guy, making shit up in his basement, and laughing all the way to the bank. Isn’t capitalism grand?

Fake news-free, at Curtis Memorial Library

Fake news-free, at Curtis Memorial Library

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