filed under: trust, but verify

OK, so you don't want to go crazy on every little issue with worrying about who is saying what about whom and for what reasons.  Who has the time to check everything?  Right?  Still it is important to do just a little research because if you accept everything at face value then who knows what you are being fed?

Here is a quick example.

I read a little piece by Steve Kornacki in Salon that laid out plans for how Obama can defeat the Republicans (link).  Nothing earth-shattering in that.  And probably likely to happen, I think.  When it comes down to it, I just don't know that anyone running on the Republican side has enough appeal to win the middle and still hold on to the angry fire on the right.  It will be close, and it will depend on whether the economy stays down.  But I wouldn't bet the farm on Obama being a one-termer just yet.

Anyway...  Kornacki claims the House is standing in the way of Obama's jobs bill precisely to hold the economy down and increase their chances "even when there is wide agreement among economists that his proposals would add jobs and spur growth."  I might even agree on that.  At a minimum, the Republicans (and Democrats, too) seem unwilling to compromise, finding that sticking to their guns on "principles" is more likely to benefit them than a bad economy is likely to hurt them.  But the "wide agreement" thing caught my eye.  Really?

I clicked on the link to see what Kornacki took for "wide agreement" and the article listed only one economist, Moody's Mark Zandi.  Also, the article was from September 9, just shortly after Obama had given his speech before Congress -- before the policies had even been spelled out.  So how could there have been wide agreement by one single person before anyone even knew what was in the thing? Besides, Moody missed the housing and mortgage crisis and so anything they say at the moment is suspect to me.

So I googled Mark Zandi.  It just took ten seconds.  You can probably do it in five. I'm more easily distracted than you. 

Anyway, in the first several articles, I saw that Zandi had predicted in 2007 that the economy wouldn't grow much weaker, just before it went on its historical devastation tour.  Then in 2010, he predicted that the economy would be "off and running" by early 2011.  I don't know how it is in your neighborhood, but that hasn't happened happened in mine.

So the "wide agreement" that Kornacki cites is by one guy who has been wrong on some of the major job movements of the past several years, and that guy made his prediction before the bill was even produced.

So, do you see why it's important to ask the question every once in a while?  It only takes a second.

filed under: a picture is worth a thousand words

Slate recently published a little piece (link) about a Thomas Hoepker 9-11 picture that Frank Rich commented on... saying the "young people" in the photo weren't "necessarily callous."  The photo reads, when viewed one way, as a sign of the times.  New Yorkers sitting around under the sun, taking in the destruction in the background with almost a ho-hum where-shall-we-go-for-dinner attitude.  Except that Slate also found some of the people in the photo and allowed them to tell their story.  (link)

As it turns out, the people in the photo were talking about the events of the day in the way that you might have been, in the way that I was.  One of the subjects asks viewers to consider how a snapshot at a funeral can make mourners look as if they are attending a party.  The point, of course, is well taken.  How many times do we let those who wish to shape our opinions simply report the news to us without asking questions about how they are manipulating their stories?  See, for example, how CNN reporter Susan Roesgen chooses to present stories on the demonization of Bush and Obama (link).  One caricature is a "lookalike," the other is disrespectful.

With our current palavering pundit class, it is important always to ask what is behind the messages being produced.  Who is behind the information?  And don't simply take the image, or the interpretation of the image, at face value or without question.  Learn to see between the lines, even in your own thinking.  The next time you read something about global warming that is being espoused by some scientist or other, simply google that scientist's name. See what else he's been up to. Or listen to the way Rush Limbaugh dismisses those who call him with reasoned arguments against his opinions.  Or ask yourself why, if Mr. Obama has suddenly found the power to act on the economy without the Congress's involvement, he didn't find a way to do so before we headed into election season.

Learn to ask, that is, what is behind the picture.  In the thousand words that any picture represents, there are almost always two or three, or six or fifteen, different sides to the story.