Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Gentle Reader...

Hi everyone I just wanted to stop by the blog and let you know that I hadn't forgotten you. It has been so long since we have visited but there hasn't been much going on in the studio.I do have a cone 6 firing cooling so maybe some pictures in a couple of days but for now, I need to share my irritation with STOOPID PEOPLE! A quick disclaimer.  Most of you know that I am a retired special ed. teacher. I'm not talking about my former students whom I love and respect for trying to do their best. I am a little peeved with people of otherwise normal intelligence who believe every piece of crap they read on the internet to be true.

This morning, I paid a visit to facebook where I saw that a friend had shared an article that claimed" These 11 states have more than half their population on WELFARE!!! " If you read the article, their definition of WELFARE included every person who received any kind of government money for any reason.I used to work in the Welfare System. We counted AFDC and General Relief as welfare recipients. People who had earned retirements, government employees, Social Security recipients, people who had student loans,members of the military, etc were not included. A recent article on the Yahoo news screamed "4 of 5  Americans Face Poverty, Joblessness". The basis for this included the question "Have you ever been unemployed ?" Come on now, who hasn't? Doesn't mean the handle has been pushed and we are all circling the drain. One of my favorite professors used to say "Figures don't lie, but liars always figure". Remember that. People are so mad and have had so many of their fears stirred up that they forget how to read critically and examine the statistics that they are bombarded with. STOOPID PEOPLE who are allowing themselves to be manipulated. !

 As low as they are,even Faux news has some standards. This interweb thingie has none. No filters, no standards for truth, decency, and the American way. Generally, there are no real consequences for making up news from whole cloth. Birthers run loose in the streets. People are using the name of God to spread a message of hatred for anyone who does not agree with them. People are waving the constitution and the flag but ignoring the rights that the constitution gives to others.They think the second amendment entitles them to own hand grenades, machine guns, and cruise missiles. STOOPID PEOPLE ! These same people would be shocked to learn that fully half of America's children are below average. The more I hear from them the more I wonder if maybe Darwin was wrong.

While I'm pissed off I might as well include another peeve or two.I was recently invited to join a facebook group of potters. I did and it has some very accomplished potters as members and can be interesting but oh I do wish folks would think through their questions a little more. People will ask " why isn't my kiln getting to temp" then after 16 well reasoned responses they will add " well I am firing outside in the rain with the lid open". Please include all relevant info.Know that unless you ask a complete question you won't get a complete answer.

Well, I'm glad to have gotten that off my chest. Now to get back to work on the house. I have all the old heating system out and most of the new system is in. The patching and painting may just go on for ever. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for stopping by.

6 comments:

  1. I live with a journalist, he works for a well respected company that prides itself on truth and accuracy, at least that is what they claim. There is so much misinformation out there! If you can type and have an Internet connection, you can print your own version of the truth and people will believe you. When I was going through all the investigating of smart meters I had to really dig through a lot of crap to get real information! I just don't know where truth in journalism is going to end up. It is a major irritation in our house, I can tell you that!
    There is truly a dumbing down of our society. There are theories about that too, haha!

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  2. Thanks Tracey. There have always been plenty of wingnuts out there. The scary part is how easy they find it to get others to believe them.

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  3. Oh yeah, and the propaganda "true story" emails that go around the internet so that we'll all learn to hate one particular group of people. People forward them without research because they want a scapegoat for all the problems of the world. Umm, didn't we learn in World War 2 that doesn't work?

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  4. From Frank Zappa, "The only thing more prevalent than hydrogen is human stupidity."

    This one is a real headbanger for me. Wheredo these notions come from?

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  5. I have too have been shaking my head at a lot of misinformation I have read on facebook lately. We may belong to the same fb group... you have to weed through the posts to find some good info. I have also noticed that the group likes to argue about the "right way" to do things. Sometimes I want to suggest they join Clayart. Occasionally I like to add my 2 cents just to see who will disagree with me :-)

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  6. We do belong to the same group that I am not naming here Michele. There are some real heavy hitters on there and a lot of their time is wasted answering questions that should have been Googled instead. I have stumbled across a few people that I have met but lost track of so it's good for that too.

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