People often ask me how I manage to remain so well informed. (Full disclosure: one person did ask me this some time ago.) This is my secret. Firstly, when reading the newspaper I skip over all of the unimportant stuff like Syria, Lebanon, and the Middle East, etc., in search of those items that are of real importance to us.
Some examples below:
When watching TV, I do likewise and with the exception of America’s Got No Talent, I watch very educational programs such as Through the Wormhole narrated by Morgan Freeman. Whenever I invite my resident TV critic to watch this show with me, the usual response is to slam the door closed and demand that I turn the volume down so she doesn’t hear it in the rest of the house. I will offer some examples of what I have learned from these shows as well.
Why do I skip all the fascinating news about the battles in the Mideast? Talk to any police officer and they will tell you that the most difficult call they usually receive is one involving a domestic dispute. They walk into a situation not knowing what to expect, unable to determine who was at fault, and try to resolve the situation, usually without success.
We as a nation attempt to do the same thing.We march into a country that we know little about and try to unscramble their differences usually based on how the various factions choose to worship their various gods. Again, these efforts are usually unsuccessful and cost many American lives. I truly believe we have more problems at home to address.
What do I find so fascinating in the newspapers that others seem to miss? Today I read an article that claims that people who are suffering from financial stress tend to lose the equivalent of 13 IQ points. This was the result of a scientific study. Of course financial stress leads to headaches as well.
On the same page is a warning from Tylenol advising people to stop taking too much of their popular drug because it may cause sudden liver failure. Oh well!
Old retired football players, who made gazillions of dollars while they were playing, are now demanding extra compensation for the injuries they received in the NFL. Like they didn’t know that they might get hurt playing football. Come on!
There was also an article on memory loss related to age, but I forget what it said.
Now, what have I learned by watching TV? Firstly Morgan Freeman had a show demonstrating how it might be possible for hackers to invade our minds eventually and determine what we are thinking at any given point. The theory is that the brain is primarily an electronic device with millions of little signals being sent from one place to the other.
If someone is able to tap into these signals, heaven knows what they might be able to determine. Of course my wife has been doing this for years. Another theory is that with all of the hundreds of social media links available, that we might someday create a master global brain, which is a combination of all of these, and it will no longer be necessary for us to think on our own, because it has already been done for us by someone else.
THIS JUST IN — Researchers say that they were able to use one person’s brain signals to control the motions of someone else. The first experiment in brain-to-brain interfaces involved using rat brains. Knowing that we humans are somewhat similar to rats (as a matter of fact someone called me a rat at our last council meeting) this becomes really meaningful. See if for yourself at www.gadgetynews.com/cyborg-rat-ratbrain-controlled-robot-retains-rodent-personality/
Stay tuned for more at 11 p.m.
Now, do you see what I mean? Would you want to go through life without knowing some of these things? Not me. (The Morgan Freeman shows are available online. Google it.) In my last article I made reference to a letter given to Gov. Scott complaining about the horribly poor service given at the license renewal office that I went to. I did receive a response from one of his staff members who has promised to look into the issue.
I am now awaiting more information.
Ernie may be reached at community@sochin.com
