The MEDIA prosper when things go berserk, when fear is rampant, when agitation reigns supreme.
"If it bleeds; it leads" is the motto of the Newspaper business (informally).
No news is good news? Nope, just the opposite: Good News is NO NEWS.
Posts by Terry
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13MORTALITY rates Pre-Covid and Post-Covid (How are we going to understand?)
by Terry ini got out my calculator and looked up mortality statistics.
i wanted to get a "feel" for what is normal ina non-pandemic world in order to compare with how things are now.once had had a "feeling" for it i began to notice that media has a dramatic (perhaps overblown) tendency toterrify the public by framing death rates, predictions, and political discord hysterically.
mortality in a normal world.
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Terry
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You know you're really dim-witted when? (You actually think a defeated President can successfully REFUSE to step down)
by Terry inwhen you're easily convinced about a total impossibility.. such as what?.
such as a defeated president actually being able to refuse.
to step down from office.
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Terry
You know you're really dim-witted when ...?When you're easily convinced about a total impossibility.Such as what?Such as a defeated President ACTUALLY being ABLE to refuseto step down from office.A total IMPOSSIBILITY!No matter how silly you are ... you have to be pretty gullible to entertain that scenario!Just because somebody is irrational, obstinate, and intransigent doesn't mean 4 armed men can't remove them from a premises.Spend just a brief moment analyzing this and you'll have to agree.As Fred Kaplan says in Slate Magazine:"The morning of Jan. 20, 2021. Trump doesn’t meet President-elect Joe Biden and his wife in the White House driveway, nor does he attend the inauguration on Capitol Hill. Instead, he proclaims, as he has many times by this point, that the election was a fraud (he has set the stage for this with his false claims about mail-in ballots), and at noon, instead of acceding to the transfer of power, Trump proclaims that the swearing in was FAKE NEWS and that he remains the president.Here is what would happen next.On the dot of noon, the nuclear codes, which currently allow Trump to order and authenticate a nuclear attack, expire. The officer who has been following him around everywhere with the “football”—which, contrary to popular belief, is not a button or a palm print but rather a book filled with various launch codes—leaves. If Trump and whatever lackeys stay with him prevent the officer from leaving, another officer, holding a backup football, would join Biden at the inauguration ceremony.By the same token, the entire U.S. military establishment will pivot away from ex-President Trump and salute President Biden. The principle of civilian control is hammered into American officers from the time they’re cadets—and the 20th Amendment of the Constitution states, “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January”—no ifs, ands, or buts.If Trump orders the military to do anything, they will refuse his order. If any officers obey his order—say, to circle the White House to keep him in power—they would certainly be tried and convicted on charges of mutiny and sedition, and they would know this before taking the leap.Meanwhile, the Secret Service will abandon Trump, as they do every president whose term is up, except for a small detail assigned to protect him and his family for the rest of their lives.Overseas, foreign leaders will cut off relations with the U.S. ambassadors in their capitals and await instructions from Biden or his acting secretary of state.Meanwhile, Biden’s acting attorney general will have drawn up arrest warrants for Donald J. Trump and anyone who remains at his side on charges—at minimum—of criminal trespassing. If Trump calls on the armed forces or militias or the nation’s sheriffs to come defend him, he might also be charged with incitement or insurrection.If any of Trump’s aides or Cabinet officers continue to take his orders, they too could face criminal charges and, in any case, would have a hard time finding respectable employment after the pretend monarch is taken away in handcuffs.If armed militiamen and sheriffs rally to the White House and they refuse to let U.S. marshals through the gates, a small contingent of Secret Service or the National Guard could be called up to enforce the law. If that doesn’t work, a few M1 tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue should make the would-be rebels flee. It would be terrible if the standoff came to this, but Commander in Chief Biden would have this option available, if necessary.In other words, Trump could hole himself up in the Oval Office, but the Oval Office would very soon be cut off from all power. He would have no choice but to give up."So KNOCK IT OFF already. Don't make a fool of yourself in publicbuying into this crazy media conspiracy.Trump says things to demonstrate the "crazy" in his opposition.There is no END to that kind of crazy! (Trump derangement syndrome) -
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MICKEY SPILLANE and MIKE HAMMER novels (A tough guy JW back in the good old days of Knorr)
by Terry inspillane, mickey spillane.
he pulled no punches and his pen was as fast as his gun.
after all, it took almost three whole weeks for mickey to type his first novel.
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Terry
SHAMELESS PLUG:
Speaking of Edgar Rice Burroughs...
In my second Novel (THE MONORAILS of MARS) I borrowed one of Burroughs characters (now out of copyright) and injected him into my story of the TOWER CORPORATION and its corruption on Earth as well as Mars.
The saga begins due to a mysterious collaboration of genius. Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison advance technology to the point colonization on Mars becomes feasible in 1905 where a raging and brutal war between colonists and nightmarish hordes of flesh-eating soldiers commences a clash of civilizations already in the grip of a third power hellbent on the control of all life in the Universe. Italian engineer, Captain Umberto Nobile is captured and retained for bait while Louise Boyd and Jack Clayton are allowed escape and return to Earth for sinister reasons. The story explores wide-ranging issues such as the proper uses of Science, the development and the impact on ecology.Publisher's blurb:
(Author Terry Walstrom was born in Detroit Michigan, reared in Fort Worth, Texas and spent 10 years in Los Angeles California as an artist. He joined a religious cult at the age 14 and served time in Federal Prison as a result of his cult beliefs. The Jehovah's Witnesses had predicted the End of man's existence for 1975 and Terry devoted 100 hours each month to spreading that ridiculous message door to door. When the End did not come, he began to drift away from the religion. For the last twenty years Terry Walstrom has devoted considerable effort to debunking cult thinking. He has authored I WEPT BY THE RIVERS of BABYLON as his autobiographical object lesson and THE MONORAILS of MARS as an entertaining peek into the results of religious obsessions and cult leadership. By injecting humor and pulp fiction into an otherwise bleak subject matter, author Terry Walstrom hopes to get a discussion started about what it means to be gullible to the point of self-destruction.) -
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MORTALITY rates Pre-Covid and Post-Covid (How are we going to understand?)
by Terry ini got out my calculator and looked up mortality statistics.
i wanted to get a "feel" for what is normal ina non-pandemic world in order to compare with how things are now.once had had a "feeling" for it i began to notice that media has a dramatic (perhaps overblown) tendency toterrify the public by framing death rates, predictions, and political discord hysterically.
mortality in a normal world.
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Terry
I got out my calculator and looked up Mortality statistics. I wanted to get a "feel" for what is NORMAL in
a non-pandemic world in order to compare with how things are now.
Once had had a "feeling" for it I began to notice that MEDIA has a dramatic (perhaps overblown) tendency to
terrify the public by framing death rates, predictions, and political discord HYSTERICALLY. (And I don't mean funny.)MORTALITY in a NORMAL WORLD(meets deliberately scary reporting)The mortality rate from ALL causes of death for the U.S. population is calculated per 100,000 individuals per year based on population size.Example:In 2003, the U.S. population was 290,810,000.Total number of deaths for all reasons was 2,419,900___________TOTAL: 832 deaths per 100,000 (0.00832)SO?Each year these statistics are reckoned anew and the forecast(pre-Covid) was on track for 2020.What was the pre-covid prediction for "normal" mortality?As 8.3 per 1000 in the U.S. as comparedand 7.7 per 1000 worldwide.(Crude figures for estimate are referred to as “crude death” figures.)CAUSES of DEATH are calculated as 10 categories per 1,000 persons:1. Heart disease 1262. Stroke 773. Pulmonary disease 414. Lower respiratory infection 405. Alzheimer’s / dementia 276. Lung cancers 237. Diabete mellitus 218. Road injuries 199. Diarrhea diseases 1910. Tuberculosis 17__________________ALL THE ABOVE are considered STANDARD MORTALITY occurrences.NOTE: Covid -19 deaths are counted as the “cause” of death automatically even when any of pre-existing conditionswould likely have resulted in death anyway.(The reporting by the hospital as a covid-19 death results in more funding, FYI.)There is no way to separate out one “cause” from another “cause”.The Hospital decides (in its own interests perhaps?)Question:STANDARD NUMBER of DEATHS PER DAY pre Covid-19?153,424.70 deaths per day is considered Standard WORLDWIDE.That's 106.5 deaths per minute. Pre_covid.In the U.S. Mortality rate is : 2,813,503Death rate: 863.8 deaths per 100,000 populationCovid has now been conjoined into that mortality figure in the U.S. .Scare headlines are framing Covid figures by using terrifyinglanguage designed to create panic because we are not AWARE of what a NORMAL death toll is supposed to look like. Is this kind of reporting Helping anybody at all? Or is it designed to addict us to doom surfing for more and more "information" and clicking on ADS and racking up revenue for Media?? A documentary on NETFLIX explores how Artificial Intelligence has turned Media especially Social Media into and addiction and a cash cow. https://www.netflix.com/title/81254224
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MICKEY SPILLANE and MIKE HAMMER novels (A tough guy JW back in the good old days of Knorr)
by Terry inspillane, mickey spillane.
he pulled no punches and his pen was as fast as his gun.
after all, it took almost three whole weeks for mickey to type his first novel.
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Terry
Those were the "Good Olde Days" for sure. Paperbacks were a quarter, as I recall.
The quality of the paper was pulp and the pages yellowed pretty fast.
When I first met the guy (my best friend) who would "induct" me into the Watchtower cult, I remember
his mother bragging about Spillane and his being a "Brother." -
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MICKEY SPILLANE and MIKE HAMMER novels (A tough guy JW back in the good old days of Knorr)
by Terry inspillane, mickey spillane.
he pulled no punches and his pen was as fast as his gun.
after all, it took almost three whole weeks for mickey to type his first novel.
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Terry
Spillane, Mickey Spillane
He pulled no punches and his pen was as fast as his gun.
After all, it took almost three whole weeks for Mickey to type his first novel
I, THE JURY.
MIKE HAMMER, whose private eye name is never written without somebody tacking on the phrase: “hard-boiled detective,” sold books galore to the delight of publishers about to discover a new phenomenon.
But wait--there’s more to Mickey Spillane than his success as a writer.
Spillane was a member of puritanical, doomsday religious cult!
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Mickey Spillane’s first novel, I, THE JURY, was also released in a new form, a new technology of the day called the “pocketbook” or paperback.
(Paperback books (small/cheap)---needed 3 elements to explode:
Sensation, Sex, Simplicity.)
Mickey Spillane’s MIKE HAMMER was all that and more!
The hardback sold a respectable 4,000 copies.
The paperback version sold--not thousands--but millions.
More than 225 million copies of his books have sold internationally.
Reading a hardback was for eggheads and respectable titles.
You could hide a paperback if somebody looked your way--get it?
A paperback was cheap, two-bits cheap, cheaper than a hardback. (Five bucks.)
Covers were garish, eye-catching, and lurid and married up perfectly with
Spillane’s antihero who could be a real blunt-force trauma of a man.
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Who was this guy, Spillane?
A tough Irishman?
Yep.
He’d joined the army right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and served as a flight instructor. When he mustered out, he tried creating...a comic book hero named MIKE DANGER...but Danger didn’t fly, bounce bullets, or have X-ray vision.
Besides, kids only like their eggs hard-boiled.
Spillane the man was terse, quiet, and matter-of-fact.
Surprisingly, he was also a Jehovah’s Witness.
This public and private persona may seem odd at first glance--but, once one myself, I can tell you leading a double life is what it’s all about.
Brother Spillane’s gritty prose was a necessary counterbalance to the straitlaced, puritanical side of the door knocking evangelistic cult.
This was his gulp of “fresh air.”
Reality?Fictional reality!
Jehovah’s Witnesses see life as black and white and the narrative driving their Universe is a simple story of Good VS Evil. JW’s are a male-dominated religion of men who are the “head” of the family and the Sisters need to know their place in the grand scheme of things. God is a Big Kahuna who’ll strike down men, women, children, animals--hell, don’t get in his way!
(A subconscious MIKE HAMMER?)
I, THE JURY reflects such a worldview.
At the end of this novel, MIKE HAMMER does something to a woman which shocked readers at the time. It also titillated them. They wanted more.
A career was born which lasted into the late 1990’s.
Every time a new MIKE HAMMER novel was published, a cub reporter was dispatched to track Mickey down and corner him with silly questions--always the same ones. Mickey always looked bored and cynical. He had a crew cut like a naval recruit and he smoked like a chimney.
The very picture of a Christian evangelist!
He’d tell the cub reporter he only wrote: “for the money.”
"I don't give a hoot about reading reviews. What I want to read is the royalty checks."
His style? Self-parody.
“He took off like a herd of turtles.”
Or, “Her breasts were laughing things.”
His view of homosexuals and blacks was gratuitous and mean-spirited. Nuanced? What’s a “nuance?”
As one writer remarked, “...the virgin/whore complex Hammer had towards women and particularly in regards to his peculiar relationship with Velda, his long-suffering secretary, was nothing short of just plain twisted.”
Heck--that’s just a Jehovah’s Witness viewpoint!
A reviewer observed, “Hammer novels possess a fierce, driving energy and white-hot passion that cannot be denied; one that drags the reader along in its wake and keeps them turning pages.”
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Mickey Spillane, the man?
"I'm actually a softie. Tough guys get killed too early... I've got a full head of hair and don't wear eyeglasses... And I've kept the smoke coming out of the chimney for a very long time."
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Spillane broke down the barriers, where sex and violence were concerned, and this pissed people off. Also, he was perceived as right-wing. The vigilante approach Hammer used turned the stomachs of many liberals... (Spillane) is number three, after Hammett and Chandler (in a list of the 10 most important detective novelists of the 20th century).
Anyone who doesn't recognize Spillane's importance is an idiot.
James Bond and Dirty Harry all rolled into one.
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Spillane’s writing tips?
1. Something’s got to happen.
2. Don’t take your reader where he wants to go. Tease them. Go against expectations.
3. Keep your sequels short and to the point. Forget inner dialogue and motivation. Move it along.
4. Let your Detective discover clues and identities he doesn’t share with the reader. It keeps them glued to the page.
5. Sex and violence, in their varying degrees, are really the only two colors on the writer’s palette.
6. Only write when you’re broke. Spillane only wrote when he needed money and spent the rest of his time deep-sea fishing
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As a Jehovah’s Witness, Spillane went door to door. He didn’t kick them in and force Bible study at the point of a gun. Nope, he was mild-mannered and polite. As publicity for or against the Watchtower Organization--the truth is this. He was a “man’s man” and that’s what JW men like to think about themselves. Married and divorced 3 times, Spillane remained a golden boy to Watchtower leaders
When he died of cancer, a memorial service was held July 29 at the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall near Spillane's Murrells Inlet home, about 80 miles northeast of Charleston.
Spillane had helped build that Kingdom Hall with his own two hands.
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I knew a JW Brother named Kurt Rossit.
He told me in the course of conversation that he knew Brother Spillane when he lived near Myrtle Beach, SC.
“When Brother Spillane was assigned a talk (sermon) in the Ministry School, he’d show up in a Hawaiian shirt. You couldn’t make him wear a necktie! How he got away with it--I don’t exactly know. His attendance was spotty. Spillane tooled around in bright white tennis shoes, wearing his military-style crew-cut which gave the gossipers a fit. He went his own way and was considered cool by the men in high places.”
Another time, Kurt told me a story I wanted to believe whether it was true or not.
“Spillane liked to hang out at the bars. He’d invariably get into a religious argument. One time he reached into his back pocket and counted out a thousand dollars in cash and bet everybody in the bar they couldn’t find one scripture in the Bible to support the Trinity.”
The Brothers in Spillane’s congregation loved to go water skiing with him or fishing. He was like the cool dad they wish they’d had. They could be themselves around him, cuss, talk dirty about women and sex and not feel like he’d rat them out.
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There has always been gossip among JW’s that Spillane “kept getting Disfellowshipped” for his trashy and prurient books. I have NEVER been able to verify this. Witnesses are among the biggest gossipers on earth, from my experience. If you know or think you know some juicy tidbit, you repeat it as though it were sworn testimony. As far as I know, Brother Mickey Spillane got off scot-free. If you know different (and can prove it) I’d love to see your evidence :)
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Personally, I never met Brother Spillane.
I met plenty of shady JW’s in my time--but not the creator of MIKE HAMMER.
More’s the pity--I think I’d have liked him!_______
I’m a writer, not an author.
“I’ll tell you, there were a couple of reasons why I knew it was going to be good. At the end of the War, I saw—and I forget where, I think it was an army place—a brand new paperback original. It was a novel that had just come out. When I looked at that thing, I said this is the newest trend in publishing, and this is going to be the biggest thing going. So when I wrote I, the Jury, I didn’t write it for hardback. I wrote it for the paperback reprint. Now the funny part was that I, the Jury was turned down by three or four publishing houses who thought, “Oh, you can’t put books like this out on the market,” and who as good as shot themselves to death later. There was nothing bad about I, the Jury. It wasn’t dirty. It was a little raunchy in places, but not bad.”_________________
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OuOV7PjjFc&ab_channel=CBC
Max Allan Collins:
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher is an obvious descendant, just as in Spillane’s day James Bond and Fleming were his. You see Mickey’s fingerprints all over everybody who followed him and Mike Hammer, from Peter Gunn and Billy Jack to Mack Bolan and Jack Bauer. Shaft was a black Mike Hammer, even initially advertised that way. Fleming was sold as the British Spillane. Any tough hero with emotion who breaks the rules can point back to Mickey and Mike. -
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For those that have published books
by HowTheBibleWasCreated ini am currently writing a book i started years ago but as in jesus parable 'was not able to finish' lol.
so llyod evans in one of his interviews on a podcast mentioned he had published through amazon so that evenng i quickly checked out how amazon publishes etc.. for those of you who have written a book i'm curious.
how would you rate amazon publishing?.
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Terry
I've used Lulu.com and Amazon. I like Lulu better, but the obvious enormous exposure of Amazon
pushes things in that direction.
With Lulu I got a front and back cover printed but Amazon , front cover only (text and illus).
The quality is the same either way.
Choose your selling price judiciously. A dollar to much can squelch sales. A dollar to little and you cheat yourself.
BTW, you'll be bombarded by e-mails from both sites offering all sorts of ancillary services, advice, editing, etc.
I never used any of that - but I'm sure they're fine.
Best of luck! -
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Potential Truthiness
by Terry inpotential truthiness?.
the comedian stephen colbert wrote a book, "truthiness".truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.. to me, this perfectly defines the term: potential.as in "potentially true" or "potentially lying.".
such labels poison relationships destroying reputations.potential labels are subtle and also just under the radar of committing libel or defamation legally.. that key word is "potential" positing a shadowy inference, suspicion, propaganda point.do you feel me?do you understand the point i'm making?.
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Terry
An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.
• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.
• A question mark walks into a bar?
• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."
• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
• A synonym strolls into a tavern.
• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.
• A dyslexic walks into a bra.
• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony- Jill Thomas Doyle
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Potential Truthiness
by Terry inpotential truthiness?.
the comedian stephen colbert wrote a book, "truthiness".truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.. to me, this perfectly defines the term: potential.as in "potentially true" or "potentially lying.".
such labels poison relationships destroying reputations.potential labels are subtle and also just under the radar of committing libel or defamation legally.. that key word is "potential" positing a shadowy inference, suspicion, propaganda point.do you feel me?do you understand the point i'm making?.
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Terry
All the social ills which might be rectified by spending "enough" money are always blocked with the question: "How will we pay for it?"
And then the bailout came along and TRILLIONS of dollars magically appeared and went straight into the hands of the richest Banks and Corporations (and CEO's) the world has ever known.
In politics, a "reason" against something is always an excuse.
A promise is always a lie.
A "gaffe" is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. -
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Potential Truthiness
by Terry inpotential truthiness?.
the comedian stephen colbert wrote a book, "truthiness".truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.. to me, this perfectly defines the term: potential.as in "potentially true" or "potentially lying.".
such labels poison relationships destroying reputations.potential labels are subtle and also just under the radar of committing libel or defamation legally.. that key word is "potential" positing a shadowy inference, suspicion, propaganda point.do you feel me?do you understand the point i'm making?.
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Terry
POTENTIAL TRUTHINESS?
The comedian Stephen Colbert wrote a book, "TRUTHINESS".
Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.To me, this perfectly defines the term: POTENTIAL.
As in "Potentially True" or "Potentially lying."Such labels poison relationships destroying reputations.
Potential labels are subtle and also just under the radar of committing libel or defamation legally.That key word is "Potential" positing a shadowy inference, suspicion, propaganda point.
Do you feel me?
Do you understand the point I'm making?POTENTIAL is a dangerous concept because propagandists use potentials to create landmines, quicksand, and transitional traps for our mind to lure us away from TRUE toward FALSE.
A Jehovah's Witness is first introduced to a new kind of Bible. (The NWT is filled with "cheats". Words with potential meanings which have been wedged in sideways and qualified.) The doctrine of the invisible "presence" is a replacement of historical theology using the "potential" substitute definition for "coming".
"Truly I tell you today (comma) you will be with me in Paradise." A potential turned into anactual meaningthrough a non-existent comma.
Everyday news events are re-engineered into subtle feats of transitional propaganda using wonky language.Are you a "potential" pedophile?
Is your friend an "alleged"criminal?
Those particular terms allow you to be slandered in the minds of others and you have no legal recourse._________
Read on...The C.I.A., F.B.I. and other so-called Security agencies have come up with a poisonous variation of this strategy.
"Potential Terrorist"
Let's break that down, shall we?NOT a terrorist...but... Might BECOME a terrorist.
Say what??Reading minds and then casting suspicion led to destroying the reputation of Richard Jewell who saved hundreds of lives having discovered and warned others about a bomb.
Jewell was made a monster by the F.B.I. and News media as a "potential terrorist" who "fit the profile" of a bomber.
Even after he was exonerated - the smear - the stench remained till the day he died.
AUTHORITY with POWER is most dangerous when proving their point using fuzzy language with poisonous potentials.Why am I telling you this?
I keep hearing about "Q" as in "Anon-ymous". Q'ANON.
I wanted to know what it is alleged to be. Fair enough?
Apparently not!The more I read, the more I bump into efforts to poison my opinion IN ADVANCE.
Actual definitions are rare in media.
POTENTIAL tricky, poisonous definitions are now the rule of thumb. I have to climb over barbed wire wordy fences to explore.Somebody doesn't want me doing this. Their words make this much clear.
I'm very cautious about "words".
Words are seedlings.
Words must be handled gingerly.
I LEARNED MY LESSON with the Governing Body and the Watchtower for 20 years of my life.
It is so easy to trust and be led toward one conclusion after another based on tiny steps of "potential truthiness". We can lose our way.
I lost my way!
Before Trump there was no possibility of FAKE news.
And then ...?
Now we definitely smash into it every minute of every day.
It's going to take me a long research slog to penetrate the wall between fact and potential truthiness if I'm going to discover what - if anything - there really is to the "far-right conspiracy" (as Wikipedia defines it.)
I actually (don't laugh) spent a week chasing down exactly WHY anybody in their right mind could believe Flat Earth ideas. It was frickin' amazing!
Even I - almost - started wobbling because the narrative of subtle truthiness was so expertly strung together (with juicy music backgrounds and spectacular visuals) I was being seduced!!
I LOVED IT!
Bullshit as an artform. At least I now understand it without dismissing it.
Intellectual honesty requires I must be willing to change my mind if facts and evidence contradict what I hold to be true.
I'm 73, retired and killing time (until it returns the favor) so - why not?I'll let you know what I find out as I explore Q'Anon group's true nature and purposes.
So far, I'm up to my neck in quicksand.
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Sidebar:
Twitter in July banned thousands of accounts affiliated with QAnon and instituted policies meant to limit its spread. Facebook last month removed 900 groups and pages from its platform in a crackdown on QAnon and expanded its policy on violent extremism.These efforts have fallen short, however. A cursory search for terms associated with QAnon on either platform yields hundreds of results. The challenge of identifying and taking down these groups is made even harder when they’re international, given the comparatively limited number of content moderators that social media companies employee with native languages other than English.
___I wonder if I'll get down to the facts or just the rumors???
