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Friday, March 26, 2021

Bias and the Search for the Truth

 All too often, we see only that which suits our purposes. Thus, instead of ‘standing steady in the Light’, we remain bound in the shadows. I reference Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”.

Search: ‘reliable fact checkers’.


Tools for News Literacy - 

https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/News-Literacy


Postings for ‘Bias’:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Bias+&m=1


Note: Based upon polls, it seems that a significant portion of our population is both annoyingly and unnecessarily optimistic. Ranging from confidence that the pandemic is nearly over to disbelief in global climate change, many people are finding solace in naiveté and, thus, foregoing the proactivity that could genuinely yield the results that could offer real hope.


Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Media Bias: Concentration of Mass Media Ownership

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media


To view one effect of news media being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer corporate interests and how this influences media bias, go to “Ground News / Blindspot” and randomly select some news stories. The multiple news sources listed with each ‘news story intro’ is shown — now, note how many of these stories are identical. The headlines may vary, but many of the articles themselves are the same because they come from a shared source.


Ground News —

https://ground.news


Here’s a few examples:

https://ground.news/article/facebook-disables-13-billion-fake-accounts-in-october-december-last-year


https://ground.news/article/sinovac-covid-19-vaccine-appears-safe-triggers-antibodies-in-trial-in-children-researcher


Also, pay attention to the Left, Center, Right spread of the news items’ coverage. Occasionally, you’ll find blatant ‘blindspots’ where one side will ignore items that are not favorable to their bias, while the opposing side will give the same exact story excessive coverage.

Examples of Blindspots —

For the Right:

https://ground.news/article/eric-spinato-senior-fox-news-and-fox-business-producer-dies-from-covid


https://ground.news/article/6ae51c33-cccc-4d64-864f-17f8429f7d91


https://ground.news/article/70a91719-16f4-43af-9306-62b7f89d1e24


For the Left:

https://ground.news/article/white-house-considers-executive-actions-on-gun-violence


https://ground.news/article/mexicos-president-says-bidens-promise-of-better-treatment-for-migrants-causing-border-surge


https://ground.news/article/utah-woman-39-dies-4-days-after-2nd-dose-of-covid-19-vaccine-autopsy-ordered


Humor:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/95/b9/2d/95b92da4d88f9f13ab09dbfc4938adb8.jpg


Saturday, March 20, 2021

Covid-19: Side-notes About Vaccination Side Effects

Those who haven’t had Covid and are not vaccinated, will very probably catch the Covid sooner or later. Not being vaccinated is a thousand fold greater risk than the side effects of being vaccinated. And remember, the Covid virus will always be with us, just as the influenza virus has been since WWI — and Covid’s more deadly and more contagious variant strains will require updated booster shots, just like the flu shots do in order to keep up with viral changes.

Note: In my circle of about a dozen acquaintances that have been vaccinated for Covid, general achiness and sore arms has been the worst side effect. Of course, we’re all over sixty — and side effects for us are weaker than for younger people with more robust immune systems. 


Age Comparison: Covid Mortality Rates:

https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2021/texas-coronavirus-deaths-one-year/


Famous People Who Received Covid Vaccinations:

https://people.com/health/celebrities-and-politicians-get-covid-19-vaccine-photos/?slide=d082aaa8-99c0-49a6-901f-d96d79415abd#d082aaa8-99c0-49a6-901f-d96d79415abd


Covid Vaccine Side Effects:

https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2020/coronavirus-vaccine-side-effects.html


Older Adults and Covid Vaccine:

https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2021/01/vaccine-older-adults.php


Younger Women Report Worse Side Effects / Older Men The Least:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/08/health/vaccine-side-effects-women-men.html


Are Vaccine Ingredients Public?

https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-are-covid-19-vaccine-ingredients-public


Note: The only individuals I know that are refusing the Covid vaccine are all retired and not careful about checking the bias of their news sources. 


Checking News Bias:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Bias+&m=1



Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Mainstream and Mass Media Bias

 The general public’s level of “critical thinking skills” has not decreased. It only seems to have because contemporary demands being put upon our critical thinking skills have become increasingly overwhelming, especially in the face of unrelenting fear. Fear of Covid, fear of global climate change, etcetera.

>In verifying whether a news item is factual or not, first do a search using the news source’s ‘name’ followed by the word ‘bias’. 


>Too much of what passes for news is misinformation, exaggerated (sensationalism), not usually important, and promotes unnecessary fears. It’s best we avoid it as much as possible. Time spent feeding the mass media with our energy would be better spent on wholesome activities. 


>The term ‘mainstream news’ is a narrower term than ‘mass media’. ‘Mass media’ includes social media and other venues that have access to a large audience and is generally more biased. For example, though my blog is not mainstream, it is part of the mass media. 


Here are some sites that will help in weeding out unreliable mainstream news sources:


https://subjectguides.library.american.edu/News-Literacy


https://middlebury.libguides.com/internet/fact-checking


https://www.iste.org/explore/Digital-and-media-literacy/Top-10-sites-to-help-students-check-their-facts


Related postings:


Thursday, March 11, 2021

Quotes: Problems Aren’t Just For Solving

 Most of the world’s biggest problems are solvable by man because mankind created them in the first place. 

“History should not be rewritten just to serve the purposes of a few who want power and control so that they can put their own tale in the record that will lead to their advantage. Otherwise, how could the lessons of what ‘not to do’ be transmitted.”


“If you are proactive, you make things happen instead of waiting for them to happen to you. Active means ‘doing something’. The prefix pro- means ‘before ‘. So if you are proactive, you are ready before something happens. The opposite is being ‘reactive’, or waiting for things to unfold before responding.


If you believe that you have a soul, then nurture it. Build good karma — you reap what you sow.


"A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example."


"All that is really worth the doing of is what we do for others."


"If you can't do it with feeling—don't."


“In this world school in which we live, everything is a test.”


“...the advantage of being a pessimist is that he gets a multitude of pleasant surprises, whereas the optimist receives disappointments.” 


“There are still tremendous uncertainties ahead of us. And the bottom line is that we live in a shared world and no one is safe until everyone is safe.”


“Any path that leads to God is a good path.”


Before making a decision,ask, “Human or Divine?” Freedom of choice makes your decisions your own. The choice is yours.”


Problems are usually best solved one at a time. 


“Our anxiety does not come from worrying about the future. It comes from wanting to control it.”


"It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret."


NOTE: Understanding how viruses are transmitted, comprehending how infrared radiation (heat) is blanketed by greenhouse gases, and accepting one’s soul/spirit (spirituality) — these are attainable with a genuinely thoughtful and soulful approach.


Monday, March 8, 2021

Covid: A 300-Year-Old Tale Of One Woman's Quest To Stop Another Deadly Virus

“Three hundred years ago, in 1721, England was in the grips of a smallpox epidemic. There were people dying all over the place...social life came to a standstill — and all the things we've suddenly become familiar with again.

But as Londoners cowered inside their homes, there was a woman who knew how to end the outbreak. Her name was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and she had learned a technique from women in the distant Ottoman Empire that could stop the pox in its tracks.

What happened next is a tale of politics and public health that bears some ‘depressingly similar’ parallels to the current pandemic. But it also shows how science and determination turned the tide against one of the worst diseases humanity has ever endured.

Smallpox was far deadlier than the coronavirus the world is currently battling. Fatality rates were as high as 30%, and many of the dead were children. Those who survived were often left scarred by the disease, which covered the body in blisters.


But in the 1700s in the Ottoman Empire, centered around modern day Turkey, some women knew how to stop it. These women were part of a vast informal network of female medical professionals. There were a lot of women practitioners in the Ottoman Empire. They were not allowed into the madrassas, Ottoman universities, but they shared knowledge among themselves, working as faith healers, midwives, surgeons and, even in one case, an eye doctor.

What these women knew was this: Take a bit of pus from a smallpox patient and use a needle to scratch a tiny amount just beneath the skin so it gets into the blood of a healthy person. That person would get a mild form of smallpox and become immune to the more serious version.

The practice is strikingly absent from Ottoman medical texts written by men, but accounts that do survive make clear that it was a well-known practice. Women were sharing this knowledge, this know-how, among themselves.

The technique was known as engrafting, variolation or, simply, inoculation. It is thought to have originated in China centuries earlier, and it was also practiced in India and Africa.....”


https://www.delawarepublic.org/post/300-year-old-tale-one-womans-quest-stop-deadly-virus?utm_source=ground.news&utm_medium=referral