Consider the Source

Something occurred to me while "surfing the web" earlier. I don't always put what I am reading, watching or listening to in the correct perspective. Perhaps you are very aware of this and I am a dope. But, I am willing to bet that because of repetition, or rushing through life or some other small reason you just kind of forget sometimes.
With all the news channels, the vastness of the internet (inter- tubes) or barrage of talk radio it is quite easy to get facts, opinions, here-say, and out right stupidity easily mixed up if you aren't paying close enough attention. Especially with the internet, jumping from link to link you are so far removed from what you are actually putting in your head you may not even notice what you are reading is just some dope's obscure, uninformed,biased or ignorant opinion. Now, it may not be, it may in fact be true straight down the last letter.
How to tell what's what, I can't tell you. Today while reading something, I was exasperated, stopped and thought "Is this a joke?" Why I am getting so upset about this? I know nothing about the person who wrote this article or the slant of the on-line newspaper it came from. Maybe this is the Howie Carr of Tampa. I just clicked a link and there I was taking in "information" from a source I knew absolutely nothing about. Good thing I didn't call up talk radio and repeat it as fact. Who knows how bad I would have butchered the dumb columnists opinion. Or was it a a report, ah jees I just don't know.
I have written in the past of the difference between "the news" and "news channels". Pundits, People of opinion on television very rarely state all the facts. The give excerpts of situations to prove they are right when there is not necessarily a right or wrong. Being ruder or yelling louder does not make up for lack of substance. Abusing a counterpart on TV does not make you right, it doesn't make you wrong. It just makes those that are watching believe what the louder person is saying seem a little more factual. Which is tricky. A good rule to follows is if you are conservative; liberal pundits are whiny, morons. If you're a liberal, conservative pundits are @$$100%$. Then disregard everything you have just heard, DO NOT REPEAT IT.
Back as a younger fellow I recall playing this outrageous game TELEPHONE. TELEPHONE is played by whispering something to the person next to you, that person whispers to the person next to them, and they pass it along in the same manner. The thing is it can't be repeated, so once it finally gets to the last person they say out loud what they think they heard. Nine times out of ten or more the original phrase is no wheres close to being what the first person had said. Awesome game, right? ( it actually was once in a while, really) Anyway, the "TELEPHONE" principle applies to talk radio because people are dumb and take what they hear as fact . They need to sound smart so they call up a talk show, WRITE IT IN THEIR BLOG or add a comment at the end of an article as if what they read earlier, remembered 40% of is in fact one the great truths of this world.
Later on I was reading ESPN.com and an article there had something about the government can be a charitable write off and how it affects your tax return. I was taking it seriously for a moment and all of a sudden I was all "why would I take tax info from ESPN"? Seriously, I would not be surprised ( especially considering the audience) if some meat head goes out this weekend and shares his superior ESPN.com education with his pals. When Opie and Anthony got fired way back when for the "mayor prank" ( they had announced on Aprils Fool's Day that the mayor of Boston had died in car crash in Florida) I recall Anthony saying at some point afterwards " You don't go to CNN for dick jokes; don't come to Opie and Anthony for breaking news". Although he is a Nazi sympathiser he was actually right about that. If you a reading a blog it's here-say. If you are listening to talk radio that person might not even have a job. Don't confuse columnists opinions with newspaper reports. The comments section of on -line article is only there for you to see how stupid some people actually are.
If I were to write an entry on Santa Claus suffering from multiple personalities, would you take as fact? I hope so.