|
What defines a "Reliable
Source"? Is it a publishing company or
corporation, which supports an employee’s
judgment of creditable reliability? Is it the
consensus of the consumers, a group or a person
that consults print and audio/video which
decides weather of not what they perceive in
the media presented is true of false? I am
talking about intellectual skepticism. In
today’s fast-paced informational age, we rely
on these so-called "Reliable Sources" for
literally everything that we do. And I do mean
"Literally." Do reliable sources really exist?
I believe that these "Reliable Sources" are
becoming harder to confirm.
It was just
recently, when my English teacher instructed
the class to use "Reliable Sources" for our
research term paper that my quest began. This
gradually struck a chord in my efforts to
locate current information from these "Reliable
Sources." As my careful and calculated search
for pertinent information progressed, at the
local libraries, I found that half of the data
collected was at least 30 years old. The other
half, more relative to my controversial
subject, seemed much more meager from the same
library sources.
For several days
after the official announcement of this next
assignment and the required parameters, the
"Reliable Sources" phrase played through my
mind like an old 8-track tape. My brain started
smoking, and then, like a motor without oil, it
froze. I believed I had stumbled onto a new
oxymoron, "Reliable Sources", like jumbo
shrimp, military intelligence, public safety,
hot water heater, etc . . . I felt like George
Carlin was taking over my mind.
The thinking
wheels of my brain began to spin freely. There
was no internal friction in my mind, as the
pieces of relevant concepts started to fit
together. The phrase, "Reliable Sources"
started to become transparent, as if I could
see through its tough outer shell, and into the
innocent, frail truth, like a tree thousands of
years old that had been felled, to examine its
rings of history. Yeah, history, that was it!
That is where I will solve this enigmatic
statement about "Reliable Sources," I will
search for clues in antiquity.
Some of our
greatest scientific and philosophic thinkers
probably started out as "Unreliable Sources."
Imagine that. For example, what if some
reporter had heard about Isaac Newton’s
research. Let us assume he got an interview
with Newton the day after his mind was seeded
with the concept (of gravity, though it
probably was not defined as such at that time),
by the apple that fell on his head. This
concept (gravity) was all Newton could talk
about the day the reporter came for his
interview, and therefore the reporter became
convinced that he had an exclusive story. Later
the story was printed. I am sure that other
"respectable scientists," among others, doubted
the journalist’s source, not to mention his
sanity.
Many other
earnest men and women have been discredited
because of society’s own personal lack of
understanding. Columbus believed that the world
was round, while at that time in history, the
consensus of the population said that the world
was flat. Going to the moon in a ship was
thought to be insane at the time it was
conceived, as was flight in general, but the
Wright brothers proved all doubters
wrong.
Fiction is really
science, and it is just waiting to be proven to
the rest of the world. Is the source
un-credible in the beginning? I guess not. So
during the last 200+ years, man’s creative mind
has been on a roll. How many countless numbers
of men and women have been imprisoned,
excommunicated, tortured, or put to death
because they were the "Reliable Sources"? How
many of these discredited journalists along
with their sources were there in the
past?
One of the
greatest books that has been cited a "Reliable
Sources" is the Bible. Just how old is it?
Well, we know that the New Testament is dated
back just under 2,000 years. However, did the
Apostles write in English? I don’t’ think so!
What gets me is the Old Testament. This set of
books starts with the reaction of many.
Invariably, the question is, did man pop onto
the earth knowing how to write? Just how was
all that history correctly transferred over
10,000 years (which is a very controversial
subject in its self)? As far as I know much of
the Old Testament is transcribed from ancient
Sumerian Cuneiform, which took years just to
learn enough to translate. Much of the Old
Testament was finally written down after
generations word of mouth transfer.
There is a very
good test of this word of mouth communication.
A group of people are assembled, one person is
whispered a statement clearly. Verbally it is
passed person to person with no one person
hearing it twice. At the end of the experiment,
the last person to hear the statement announces
to all what was told to him. In this test and
many others like it, the last statement
convieyed is not even close to the original
statement given.
Presently our
government has not been deemed a very "Reliable
Source." There is so much information
pertaining to the truth that it is just waiting
to be uncovered. At the end of the movie,
"Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark", you see
government officials stashing the Ark away in
some gigantic dusty warehouse along with
countless numbers of other stuff that our
government has deemed "Top Secret" and never
intended to be made public. All the UFO data
collected since the turn of the 19th century is
most likely stashed right next to it. Just a
year ago Hollywood released a blockbuster film
"Men in Black." Now I know that this film was
intended to be a fantasy scenario, but was it
really. Could it have been a clever political
satire about the truth in which, the government
does conspire to look the other way when
"inquiring minds want to know"? It might
explain a lot!
In the film
"Conspiracy Theory," Mel Gibson portrayed the
part of a victim of government experimentation
in mind control for the illicit use of
political agendas. His mind was in a constant
battle over the things that her read in what
many call "Unreliable Sources" like, The
National Inquirer, The Star and the like. How
many of us read the headline of a nationally
known newspaper, and automatically assume the
bold type and incriminating color picture are
closely related with the truth. This danger of
such naive acceptance was never more evident
than as conveyed in the latest James Bond
movie, "Never Say Never." The theme of this
film revolved around a media mogul that was
determined to "B.S." the world into believing
that governments were back-stabbing each other
over such global issues as nuclear weapons. I
know that you may say the movie was fiction.
Unfortunately, this sounds like the same thing
that newspaper mogul, Randolph Hurst did at the
turn of this century.
Just because some
guru-politician, scientist, or biologist has
stated anything, the "Reliable Source" prints
it, and then the world buys it, does not mean
the truth came out. The scandals and
conspiracies are intended to wrestle with the
truth will remain as long as we are shameful
about our actions as humans. What ever happened
to "What if? Or that "Gut feeling? Next time
you accept things seen, heard, or felt, as
fact, think twice about which of these senses
could be fooling you, and remember about what
is the "Reliability of the Source." The truth
in published media is getting harder to prove.
Just prove me wrong.
……. News Flash
…….
Student
mysteriously disappears after uncovering the
truth about "Reliable Sources." Authorities
suspect alien abduction . . .
more at 11:00 . .
.
|
|
