What do we really know is an apt beginning to something that I have wanted to write for some time. I read the postings here and in the Times Free Press and wonder, really question where some of the writers get their "facts?"
So often, it seems, the factual information is regurgitated Fox "news" or gossip among the ladies hanging clothes in the back yard.
When I was growing up we used to get most nearly everything from the general store and the old guys hanging around the stove would be talking about one of the dairy farmers that lost a few of his milking cows to a disease that affects cows. Was it true? Yes, it was, because the farmer that lost those cows was present.
Now, where do get the news and further why do we believe the news? Let me digress just a little.
How many of us knew that a mission was about to take place and the success of the mission would see Osama Bin Laden's pictures dead and a successful mission to rid the world of the evil. How many of you were present at the attack of the embassy in Libya? Who among you knew that our president was really a U.S. citizen and when he said he was and produced his birth certificate what did Donald Trump do. How did Sarah Palin know that the new Affordable Care would require death panels of a select group of people that might decide if a person lived or died?
I could go on and on with funny story after funny story but the real question for the reader is why do we believe? Let me suggest two possible answers to the question. One is we want to believe the other person is evil or worse. Another is it's fun to gossip.
Where does all this end and with a new presidential race about to begin, watch out for ladies hanging clothes in the backyard.
Robert Brooks