"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." ~Robert Frost

Well I had a visitor from Texas on my blog!! Hi April, thanks for stopping by! And April has an interesting link on her blog to a report called: Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11
This just proves that when the truth is on your side don't screw about or you will lose credibility.
There is a lesson about critical thinking behind all this. Always consider the source. Don't you wish that you could trust Moore as a credible source? I don't trust anything I read anymore. I want the lies to stop. I would like to know I am getting *all* the relevant information so I can make up my *own* mind. But with all the spin, I'm just getting dizzy. And we wonder why people are apathetic....

I had a great conversation with my Aunt last night about politics, education and apathy. I study international relations and I have a tendency, I'm told, to talk over the head of my friends and family about this stuff. Most of my friends find it frustrating and esoteric. For example, we went to Julio's the other night and I was embroiled in a great conversation about the upcoming American election with my good friend Greg Bennett. I was defending Kerry and Greg was saying that Kerry was in the pocket of the labor Unions and was just the lesser of two evils when it comes to voting. (I'm abridging his much more eloquent argument for brevity) My other friend, Tim, was also sitting at the table listening to us was getting more and more angry about our conversation, to the point where he asked us to stop. I often get this kind of visceral reaction from my friends. So why is it some people can debate issues and learn something from that debate, like me, and other people listen to a debate and just want you to shut the fuck up?

My Aunt posits that she doesn't talk about accounting (her vocation) terms and such in front of me because I wouldn't be interested in that, so when I talk about the details of my "vocation", I do it without realizing it is super boring. She also thinks I do it to make other people look stupid, and she could do that too if she wanted to. She could talk about fixed assets, long-term receivables, and amortization but peoples eyes would glaze over. She likens this to my blathering on about the I.M.F and structural adjustment policies, third world debt, and the AIDS pandemic. I don't speak about these issues to be arrogant, but because I deem them important. But it clearly comes off as educated arrogance.

I had never thought about it like that before. Just because I study something that effects people every day does not make it any less boring to those who could care less. Then you have Michael Moore who took politics and made it funny, albeit frightening, and then engaged a lot of people who didn't really pay attention before. He's reached people. People who, like me, just want the truth, instead of wading through the lies that are fed them by the mainstream media or political spin-doctors. Then you find out he's peppered his commentary with lies and he's as bad as the rest of them.

I figure I want to be like Michael Moore without the lies. I want to be able to talk about these complicated issues that don't reach the average person to let them know these issues exist. I find this more and more difficult though and perhaps I should stop talking about my vocation and just talk about "regular things" like how much shit costs at Walmart or what is happening to Nikky Hilton.

Is it interest or education that allows for good debate?


Song Du Jour: Mary, Mary ~ Run D.M.C.