Walk a Crooked Mile

There is so much going on in the world and on the internet right now that it's hard to absorb even a tiny fraction of it, much less find time to form an intelligent opinion, but I'm going to try.

A while back, I posted a couple of posts on Kony 2012, but since that time, I've learned a lot more. This refutation of the video seems more complete and thoughtful than most: Top Ten Ways to Tell Kony is Phony.

So I walk away from all of this chastened. In the world of instantaneous, global communication, it is increasingly difficult to discern what is real and true and what is not.

I had another brush with the obscurity of truth a day or two ago. I visited the website of Tom Brown, Jr., a man who has taught thousands of people wilderness survival skills, reverence for the earth, and awareness of Spirit. Tom is not a person who is easily hoodwinked, nor is he one to panic, so it was with a shock that I read an email he sent out in November of 2011. In that email, he references

a warning from NASA about the major solar flare storm that will batter the Earth in 2012 along with several other related reports and research papers. A quote from one of the papers reads as follows; “A ‘Space Katrina’ coronal mass ejection would devastate modern civilization, bringing down our power grids and frying satellites en masse. Food would rot, trains wouldn’t move, traffic would be gridlocked, phones and the internet wouldn’t work, the financial markets would be devastated, planes and ships would be lost or wrecked.” Many other articles warn of looting, gang wars, rioting, starvation, disease, and martial law. Consider that the major solar storm of 1859 turned 2/3rds of world's sky red this is even more disturbing for they forecast this storm to be much bigger.

So I went to NASA to see what was actually being said, and I found only this:

Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

That's not to say there are not a lot of panicky websites out there claiming that NASA did indeed make that prediction, and that specifically, "award winning astrophysicist Alexia Demetria" had been the spokesperson. I could not find any reference to this elusive astrophysicist, however, at NASA or anywhere else.

So the takeaway from all of this is that the internet is a powerful teacher and that one of the most important lessons it teaches is skepticism. I'm still learning!

While I'm here, I am going to link another video. I cannot verify the accuracy of the information therein. If anyone knows another side to this story, I would love to hear it, for this is the stuff that nightmares are made of. It is hard to believe that mankind has become this depraved . . .

On the Side of Angels

Okay, there's this whole Kony 2012 phenomenon going on and I'm finding it fascinating. There's The Invisible Children video, which I posted yesterday, and there's the controversy surrounding the organization, its aims and its finances. The Daily What sums it up well with somewhat of a rebuttal here.

I love it when I find an opinion of mine challenged by intelligent, informed dissent, and the article in The Daily What does exactly that. I love intelligent, informed dissent (as opposed to the more common canned spin that masquerades as opinion) because it challenges me to rethink my position -- perhaps to realize where I've been mistaken, perhaps to clarifiy and solidify my original thought. And so I've waded through the arguments pro and con and come out with the following:

The finances of the organization don't matter nearly as much to me as the message -- and the message is that love and compassion can change the world -- that by banding together in a common cause, we can help alleviate some of the pain and suffering of those who are without hope.

If we start by taking a stand against one man, just one man, and if we hold just that one man accountable for his crimes against humanity, then the message we send is, "Bullies beware. You, too, may be hunted down and made to pay for the lives you have destroyed." On the other hand, if we stand by and do nothing, then the message we send is that the world doesn't care -- the tyrants and bullies can do as they wish, no matter how horrific and destructive, and get away with it.

Could we be making a mistake? Could we be arming one group to take down another, creating more conflict in the long run? Maybe. Prudence suggests that any action should be well-considered and as minimal as humanly possible. There are no guarantees about anything in life . . . you do what you think best and hope it works out. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, that's a risk we all take. But doing nothing is just as risky as doing something -- if we err, let it be on the side of the angels.