Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The holiday, Syracuse University, the snow, & the Beatles!


Well the holiday is over… thank heaven (no pun intended)…. instead of pink, yellow and white it was totally ORANGE! 

The one nice day lured us here in CNY into a springtime mood that crashed with snow and cold.  It was really quite an unusual few days.  To me what was strange is that all the people I talked with this weekend, and all those who “Facebooked” me about this or that…. would set me thinking and I would suddenly start silently singing the Beatles “Nowhere Man”.   Nowhere Man…me singing Beatles!

It occurred to me that everyone’s point of view depended on what reporter or news station they watched.  I could tell the Fox station listeners, I could tell the Rachel Maddow followers, the “right wingers”, the NRA followers…Christian Conservatives...people just posted and reposted or repeated news that was really someone else’s opinion.

He's a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

It seems that no one formed their own opinion… they just kept forwarding something that someone else posted or spoke and what turned out to be someone else’s opinions.

Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me?

I hunted down facts including going to the investigative sites like SNOPES, and in almost every case the information was just half truths made to look the way the writer’s or journalists…(few real journalists left) opinion was.

He's as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

If the they were Republican friends it was all Obama’s fault, if the were Democratic friends it was Bush and Regan’s fault, if it was guns it was hateful NRA posts. But I could not solicit any thoughtful discussion...no give and take… just absolutes.  The FB posts were.... here is my picture with Thomas Jefferson’s words against your picture with Eisenhower’s words., and for the record did they actually say that!

I am not particularly political and I embrace all religions and admire peaceful solutions to problems and yet, I can never seem to find someone willing to take a thoughtful, quiet approach… a step to the middle ground.

One thing I have learned in my life so far, you can’t seem to change another’s opinion, and what has led to hatred and conflict in the past is that few people will leave the safety of their source of opinions, to investigate another’s opinions. 

Just think if people did it could lead to compromise rather than our daily confrontations. We need the “peacemakers”, I assume that is why many great thinkers retreated from society to reflect and become enlightened….

Nowhere Man, please listen
You don't know what you're missing
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!


So really aren’t most of us the "Nowhere Man”.

Listen to the Beatles!



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