1. The Devil’s Advocate
Time Stamp: 5:09
- 9sense Letters: The Dumbing Down of America
- The Dumbing Down of America is not exactly a new realization. But over the past handful of years it has become an aggressive and even violent agenda.
This pic floated around not long ago and it prompted me to pick up Carl Sagan’s ” The Demon-Haunted World.” It also brought to my attention that Sagan had been shamefully missing from my bookshelf.
In particular, the last sentence highlighted in this image is my personal peeve: not just ignorance, or even deliberate ignorance, but the “celebration of ignorance” which is now more than ever a plague on our so-called informed society.
This bit starts off Chapter 2 “Science and Hope.” - The Demon-Haunted World
- by Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan
https://amzn.to/3mGYv9R - Published in 1995 by Penguin Random House LLC.
- A prescient warning of a future we now inhabit, where fake news stories and Internet conspiracy theories play to a disaffected American populace
- How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific thinking is critical not only to the pursuit of truth but to the very well-being of our democratic institutions.
- Casting a wide net through history and culture, Sagan examines and authoritatively debunks such celebrated fallacies of the past as witchcraft, faith healing, demons, and UFOs. And yet, disturbingly, in today’s so-called information age, pseudoscience is burgeoning with stories of alien abduction, channeling past lives, and communal hallucinations commanding growing attention and respect. As Sagan demonstrates with lucid eloquence, the siren song of unreason is not just a cultural wrong turn but a dangerous plunge into darkness that threatens our most basic freedoms.
- by Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan
- Sagan posits its the misunderstanding or ignorance of scientific thinking that is going to be the downfall, and reliance on pseudo science and superstition, but I disagree
- It is the human condition that leans us into superstition and pseudo science belief. Our desire to have a grand mythology, or even in its absence our need for ritual and all the pseudo science trappings that go with it.
- We need to elevate a few to feel connected to something elevated. This is inherent in what it means to be human. I would argue, critical thinking is a learned trait simply because it is an evolutionary trait. Not every member of a species evolves. Those who do, provide the genes for future critical thinkers, but that takes action in our world.
- We have to stop treating everyone with kids gloves, and allow people to suffer the consequences of their actions. So they do not poison the gene pool.
- We are creating the very future we are complaining about simply because it is in our nature to do so. And that is why it’s so easy to see the future.
- The Dumbing Down of America is not exactly a new realization. But over the past handful of years it has become an aggressive and even violent agenda.
2. Infernal Informant
Time Stamp: 26:39
- Florida Woman Who Coughed on Cancer Patient amid COVID Pandemic Sentenced to 30 Days in Prison
- https://people.com/crime/florida-woman-who-coughed-on-cancer-patient-amid-covid-sentenced-to-prison/
- A Florida woman, who admitted that she intentionally coughed on and threatened a mask-wearing shopper during an interaction caught on video that went viral last year, has been sentenced to serve time in prison.
- Debra Hunter, 53, will serve 30 days in jail, according to The New York Times, which cited court records.
- A judge in Jacksonville also determined that Hunter must serve six months probation and participate in a mental health evaluation along with anger management, according to an email from David Chapman, the communications director for the state attorney’s office in Jacksonville, which was obtained by the Associated Press.
- The Fernandina Beach resident was also ordered to cover the costs of her victim’s previous COVID-19 test and pay a $500 fine.
- Hunter already received credit for the one day of jail time that she had already served last year, the AP reported.
- Last June, Hunter was involved in the incident at a Jacksonville Pier 1 Imports store, where she coughed on fellow shopper Heather Sprague, who was recording video of Hunter’s altercation with employees at the store.
- Sprague later identified herself as a brain cancer patient and said she was on a rare public outing during the COVID-19 pandemic because her treatments left her immunocompromised.
- In video of the incident, Hunter becomes aggressive with store employees before she turns toward Sprague with a two-handed obscene gesture. “I think I’ll get really close to you and cough on you then,” Hunter can be heard saying on the video. “How’s that?”
- Hunter previously entered her plea last month after Judge James Ruth told her he was ready to move ahead with jury selection for a trial.
- Hunter had agreed at two previous hearings to plead guilty, but because neither of those pleas included the option for jail time, the judge rejected them, News4Jax previously reported.
- The incident generated a backlash that turned Hunter into a pariah, according to a three-page letter from the mom of three to the judge in which Hunter tried to explain her actions.
- In describing the incident, she wrote: “My daughter was alarmed when she noticed a stranger recording the three of us with her phone. Admittedly I was immediately infuriated and demanded this customer to stop filming my kids. In the heat of the moment, I over reacted in an over protective manner which ultimately led to my retaliation on this stranger, the victim. And that highly regrettable, split second, knee jerk reaction has cost my family dearly.”
- Hunter included another 23 pages that documented harassing texts, emails, letters and social media posts targeting her and her family. “Despicable, vile skank. I hope your whole family gets COVID and suffers immensely, then dies,” one reaction read.
- Hunter wrote, “We no longer take family bike rides around the neighborhood. We no longer wave at neighbors passing by.”
- “I realize this all may sound like a bad movie script,” she added. “I assure you, I never thought I would be playing a starring role in a social media feeding frenzy.”
- Hunter dismissed any effort to portray her letter as a request for “mercy, empathy or understanding,” she wrote. “I have been so incredibly humbled by this ordeal that I do not feel right about asking for anything. My guilt consumes me daily as I watch how one poor decision continues to chip away at my undeserving family.”
- But she concluded: “I often wonder what it would be like if every one of us, as the flawed human beings we are, had their worst moments reduced to a short video for all the world to see and judge.”
- 3-year-old fatally shoots baby brother after picking up unsecured gun
- https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/toddler-3-fatally-shoots-baby-brother-after-picking-unsecured-gun-n1263738
- An 8-month-old boy died Saturday after being shot by his 3-year-old brother at a Houston apartment, police said.
- Assistant Chief Wendy Baimbridge of the Houston Police Department indicated the shooting unfolded accidentally after the toddler picked up an unsecured firearm.
- “This is just a tragic,” she said at a news conference. “It was just one gunshot to the abdomen, and unfortunately our little one is deceased.”
- Two family members drove the baby boy to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, she said. A subsequent search turned up a gun in the vehicle, police tweeted.
- Hospital officials informed police about the shooting, Baimbridge said, adding that four adults were in the apartment at the time.
- She said it’s illegal for firearms to be accessible to young children, and investigators were trying to determine who owns the gun.
- “I just want to take this moment to plead with parents and guardians all over to not allow your firearms to be accessible to anyone in the house,” she said. “Lock them up.”
3. Creature Feature
Time Stamp: 48:02
- Asian American Billboard
- I drove past it and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
- It’s a great cultural identity piece.
- The typography makes it interesting, with the message, but it could’ve been resigned a bit better on examination
- Though it did get me talking about it
- We see so few thought out pieces in the wild, it’s refreshing to see one with no call to action, just a statement.