Seeing Is Believing

 You might think that having all this access to information would make us smarter.

You might think that having security cameras at every corner of our planet would make us safer. 

You might think this. 

You'd be wrong. 

Let's address that first issue: With all the different and varied sources at our disposal, we should be the most well-educated monkeys on earth. Streaming this, clicking on that, flipping up and down the list of available news sources, we should certainly be able to find an objective truth into which we can sink our inquisitive teeth. Unless we simply take that first easy bit and consume it whole, never mind the tasty bits of news right next door. Which is why we now have whole articles generated to remind us just how easy it is to take whatever comes down the pike as "news."

A case in point: USA Today felt compelled to run an article letting us all know that the picture of Michelle Obama, the former first lady, wearing an anti-Trump T-shirt was "altered." Certainly the use of photoshop and other digital tools make such fakes easy enough to slip by the casual observer. Enough so that it might incite those of smaller minds to get all up in Michelle's kitchen wondering how the lady who once said, "When they go low, we go high," could trot out such a demeaning image. Well, just a click away from the denial from USA Today is another "Fact Check." This one is dated not from just a week or so ago, but from November 2023. In this one, the full journalistic power of Reuters News Agency was brought to bear on an incident involving a (checks notes) T-shirt pasted onto a photo of Michelle Obama that was passed of as "real." Do we need to reminded every six months of the existence of photo-editing software? 

And now the issue of security. if you're like me (and for the leventy-seventh time, why aren't you?) then you have noticed a proliferation of those eyes affixed or dangling from walls and lampposts on most every corner of every city. And if you happen to be the clever sort that I continue to believe that I am, you have probably surmised that we are only seeing a fraction of the devices set about for the purposes of keeping an eye on our behavior. For some this is a comfort. For others, it would seem, this is a challenge. 

Then there's the third group who have no reason to doubt that there is always someone watching but they have chosen to ignore the existence of surveillance and have gone ahead with whatever idiot schemes they have in store for an already suspecting public. 

Which presents us with a bit of a double bind: Should we believe everything we see and hear or should we assume that someone or something is altering our perception with the intent of confusing our already tumultuous reality? 

That reminds me: Did you see the video of Michelle Obama breaking into a Cybertruck? You could tell it was her because she was wearing a "Nope, Not Again" T-shirt.