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Image by kenne
Are You Able To See the Picture?
Most people “don’t understand the show” because they cannot see the picture. Okay, I admit you see something, but what do you see if the image is not clear? Just as with a digital image, the clearness or resolution depends on the amount of information in the picture. The more information, pixels in the cast of a digital image, the better we can see the picture, from which we can reason. Whether we utilize deductive or inductive reasoning, each is dependent on observations. If no observation is made, or if the observation lacks clarity, then any ability to reason is based on “blind faith.” Therefore, some are perceived as being conveyors of information “is not engaged in the enterprise is all” and are indifferent to the truth – or at least an indifference to finding the truth. It is more common in today’s world to hear the statement, “It is the truth.” rather than, “Is it the truth?”
Thomas Jefferson’s famous line, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .” is considered by all as a statement of truth, but is it? It is more a statement of belief that should always be guarded by the question, “Is it the truth?”
The other morning, while working at the computer, I listened to the President’s news conference – not paying much attention, that is, until I heard a reporter asking a question referencing the $4 a gallon for gasoline. As the reporter continued his inquiry, Bush interrupted, as if suddenly waking up, “Wait — what did you say?” The reporter responded that many analysts have to project. (Actually, some pumps in California already have reached the $4 level.)
“Oh, yeah?” Bush said. “That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.”
This comes from a president that wants to continue allowing tax breaks to oil companies. Bush’s bewilderment brought back memories of when his father’s supermarket counter moment demonstrated a similar lack of knowledge of something so common to life in everyday America. (It must be a “DNA” thing.) In the president’s “Is it the truth?” dialog with the reporter, it was apparent that his lack of any environmental-scan knowledge of the economy was not a question of seeking the truth but one of reasoning based on an indifference to the truth.
As for seeing the picture, for some of us, the picture is changing, which brings to mind the John Clare poem, The Flitting:
Time looks on pomp with careless moods
Or killing apathy’s disdain
– So where old marble citys stood
Poor persecuted weeds remain
She feels a love for little things
That very few can feel beside
And still the grass eternal springs
Where castles stood and grandeur died— kenne
“The Picture of War” — Image by kenne
see this picture
the picture of war
not really
it’s not clear
so little information
not able to reason
observation void
or is it
some will reason
based on blind faith
indifferent to the truth
yet people believe
it is the truth
rather than asking
is it the truth
wars exist
fed on
indifference to the truth
prompt with careless moods
minus the circumstances
left to question
only at death
a glorious war
where men stood
and truth died
still, tomorrow comes
she can feel beside
a picture changing
no longer accepting
only asking
is it the truth
— kenne
Source: Associated Press/Rocky Mountain News, Todd Heisler
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