Who Knows?

It has come to this Michigan Gypsy's attention that there is an epidemic running rampant through our society these days. This persistent unpleasantness of this infection is so wide-spread that is had become almost impossible to ignore:

No one really knows what the hell they are talking about.

Now I mean no offense, and acknowledge that I myself occasionally suffer the symptoms of this sad affliction. This state of affairs is so extensive that we can no longer afford to sit idly by (I believe there is a Facts R Your Friends Celebrity Concert in the works). When attempting to diagnose this disease, one must look to the main culprit of this contagion......laziness. 

I'm looking at you, Furious Facebook Sharer & Enthusiastic E-Mail Forwarder! In today's culture of over-sharing that allows us to seed ignorance as one would sow handfuls of wheat in a hungry field, we no longer take the time to think before we act. Being able to broadcast a scrap of information to hundreds of our nearest and dearest with a click of a finger has resulted in the formation of a toxic cloud of falsehood that can engulf even the levelest head.

Take for example, the case of the dreaded E-Mail Influenza: 

This illness starts off innocently enough, perhaps there is an email containing important information about a school or organization that you send on to those you know will need it. Next you forward a hilarious video of a cat playing the piano or a baby dancing (remember that one?). Then before you know it you are forwarding several emails every single day to your entire contact list. Forget that these emails almost always end up in the recipient's junk or trash file, but this condition is know to be very hard to self-diagnose ~ "MY emails are actually informative," "I'm sure that if people have this persuasive information they will agree with me,""I'm doing a good thing by supporting my cause."
Sound familiar?
The only cure for this affliction? The Hard Question
Just because you know someone enough to have their email address does not mean that you know them enough to predict their opinions and beliefs. Forwarding emails that contain polarizing views, un-verified propaganda, or possibly insulting images or statements can be perceived at the very least as annoying, and at the very worse as pompous, unpleasant and invasive. So ask yourself the following questions before you hit that Forward button: "Why am I forwarding this email? Is my motivation worth the risk of alienating my contacts, friends and family?" And if you choose to continue your forced influx of information, then please don't blame the rest of us for hitting "delete all."

Now we move on to the Manic Media Mumps:

This is perhaps the most shocking ignorance affliction since it strikes at the heart of our information steam, the news media. Since the invention of the idiot box, our entire nation has gathered around our beloved glowing screens to listen to the nightly news. The level of trust gifted to the media is staggering in it's ability to sway the way we see the world. Regardless of your opinions on which network provides the most accurate depiction of the facts, the reality of news is that if we see a story reported at 6 o'clock we accept it as fact. If your trusted anchor tells you that there is a fire in the next town over, you feel comfortable passing that information along to others. But what happens when the Media gets it wrong?
these mistakes run the gauntlet from a local Fox affiliate in Dallas, Texas misidentifying one of the Boston Marathon suspects as television star Zooey Deschanel, to CNN and Fox News wrongly interpreting the Supreme Court's decisions on the Affordable Care Act. More humorous mistakes include Vogue Magazine mis-identifying Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Dan Baer as an interior designer and the Miami Herald claiming that the National Science Foundation "funded a study on Jell-P wrestling at the South Pole." The suggested treatment for the Manic Media Mumps is the tried and true Grain of Salt Treatment. Stay tuned to stay in the loop, but please remember, everyone makes mistakes, even Anderson Cooper. 

The last, and perhaps grimiest, of information germs is the Facebook Fuzzy Falsehood.

This icky little fellow likes to pop up on Facebook feeds on an almost daily basis. Warnings of an alarming disposition, cautions of a dubious nature, doctored and photo shopped images that "prove" something or another and "facts" that has no substantiation, are all early warning signs of this persnickety affliction. Once infected, sufferers re-post information without bothering to find out if it is actually factual. For example, there is not a set of coordinates on Google Earth that show the disposal of a murdered individual, Paul Ryan did not refuse to tip an elderly waiter, the vague warning about bad guys using small children to trick and assault women has been a circulating urban legend since 1985, writing "Frank" or "Frankie" in place of a stamp will not get your letter mailed for free, and posting a notice on your Facebook wall will not actually protect your copyright and privacy rights....sorry. Unfortunately, there seems to be no shortage of individuals that love to share and re-post these germs and others like it, setting off a chain reaction of falsehood.

Happily, there are ways to counteract this tidal wave of ignorance. In order to inoculate yourself, please fill the following prescription~

2 heaping tsp. of Common Sense
1 leveled cup of Healthy Skepticism
A dash of Actually Reading Something Once in a While
1 lb. of Do Your Own Damn Research

Mix thoroughly and administer with occasional doses of snoops.com accompanied by long pauses of thinking before clicking. Reapply as necessary











p.s bonus Gypsy points will be awarded to those who checked my examples to make sure they were actually true :)

Does It Have To Be All or Nothing?

As my family returns from a weekend trip to a Detroit Area sports tournament, I find myself pondering the various conversations that I overheard in our travels. Not surprisingly, a great deal of them had to do with gun control and the recent stories in the news.

As I read, listen and surf the current information and opinions that are out there, I can't help but wonder where the voice of the everyman (and every woman) is. I am a bit fed up with the opinions of individuals that most would consider extreme being plastered across the airwaves.

How do we cope with evil?
Who do we blame?

Since my husband works in the news industry, I understand that the nuttiest folks with the most unmovable stances make the best news. As a country, we feed on the crazy, we like to see the bizarre and love to fight about the all or nothing point of views on hot button issues. "If it bleeds, it leads" is a very true statement. I wonder however, why more folks like me are not up in arms demanding a more logical and hopefully, country-wide voice.

Do we only want to hear facts that
support what we already believe?

Guns and gun control have been a hotly debated topic for some time now, but I can't fail to see that the majority of people I talk to and interact with on a daily basis adhere to a calmer attitude when discussing whether or not guns are good, bad, or somewhere in between.

I call this the "mind you own business" attitude. This attitude is deeply bedding in the giving and receiving of respect. I have my own believes on the subject and act accordingly in my own home, with my own family. I ask those around me to respect that. In return, I respect the decision of those around me in regards to what they believe and how they live their lives. That is called good manners.

Is selectively banning certain guns
the answer?

Somewhere along the way, we started mixing up "manners" with "morals." Morals are highly personal opinions and beliefs that are between you, those you love most and your Maker, whomever you believe him (or her) to be. Manners are things that we do to show respect, good will and friendliness to those around us in every day life. It is bad manners to verbally attack someone because they happen to think differently than those around you. You are not the end-all, be-all decision maker for your fellow man, and attempting to pass judgement on others beliefs and decisions will most likely end badly for you. Going around telling everyone and anyone that you can trap into a conversation that you are right and they are wrong and that laws and policies sold be changed or created to enforce your specific point of view is the very height of arrogance. It's rude...stop it right now! Miss Manners would be horrified, and I myself feel faint at the thought.

Are we conditioned by the
media to react a certain way?

For example, I believe that owning guns is a very important right in the United States. I grew up around guns and currently own several. My entire extended family hunts various animals and we use the meat from hunting to help put food on the table, because it is healthier, more economical and we believe that it is required to be a responsible part of the food chain. We do not hide our weapons from our children (as they were not hidden from me and my siblings) and education our youth from a very early age on the reality of weapons, death and the grave responsibility that comes with handling fire arms. It is a fact that I could set a loading gun down on the table in front of me and it would rust away to nothing before it jumped up and ran off to hurt someone. I believe that evil resides in the twisted individual that chooses to kill and maim, not in my inanimate object. No one in my family has ever "found" a gun and played with it, accidentally shot a loved one, or any other of the horrible and gruesome things you hear about in the news in regards to having guns in the home....never, not once, ever. There is no fear, just responsibility and respect. I feel this is healthy, normal, and feel safer knowing that I have the training necessary to defend my family.

Can we learn from other Countries
or do we make our own way?

But here is the kicker~ I would never, ever, ever consider attempting to tell one of my friends that does not care for guns and will not have them in their home, that they are wrong. I will not argue with them in the attempt to make them see my point of view. I will not scream and swear and call names and show pages full of facts that defend my stance. I find such behavior to be the height of arrogance and rudeness. How can I, being so confident in my beliefs, presume to tell others that their beliefs are somehow wrong, simply because they do not align with my own?

Are of feelings causing us to
ignore evidence?

Instead of debating on weather guns should be legal or not, we should be focusing instead on the breakdown of common decency, respect and privacy that is a frightening glimpse of what is to come. There will always be guns in America, period. Even if tomorrow the government outlawed them, they would still be here, in our closets, our gun safes and in our basements. The idea that every individual would turn in their weapons is ludicrous and laughable, it goes against the spirit and history of our nation, simple as that. The criminals of the world would defiantly hold on to theirs. So instead of getting weighed down with fighting over who is "right" and who is "wrong" perhaps we can instead work towards the idea that even though we will not always agree on issues, those issues need not define us. At our jobs, in our neighborhoods, at our kid's soccer practices, we stand shoulder to shoulder with folks that have very different ideas about everything from guns to religion. Does that change anything? Do you have to be "with us" or "against us?" If I can respect your choices and decisions about your life, is it too much to ask that you respect mine? Can't we all just mind our own business and not let the whack-jobs try to box us in and label us?

Will there always be people
that will hurt others not matter what
they use to do it?

 Drawing lines in the sand is a dangerous pastime, and some lines can not be erased after they are scratched on the ground. Are you motivated by the need to be "right," the lure of convincing others that they are "wrong," the desire to make decisions for homes and households that you are not a part of? Isn't be allowed to live the way you see fit and allowing that same dignity to others enough?
 Does it have to be all or nothing?

Calvary or Catastrophe

After being asked yet again to ride to the rescue on a project for a group I belong to, I began to think about all the ways we torture ourselves and why we do it.

Today's scenario: A project that has been in the works for months now is fast approaching its deadline. Until this week, I have had minimal involvement and others that stepped forward to spearhead the project have been uncommunicative up until now. "Now" is of course the moment when you realize that the entire project is going to hell in a hand basket. So what do you do? Do you step in and help? Hope others will take care of the problems? Let it all fall apart knowing that it is not your fault, hopeful that a lesson is learned?

I am a firm believer that in this word there are doers and hiders. Neither is ultimately good or bad, just different. The doers are the folks that are always on the board of an organization, the ones that show up to re-paint playgrounds, collect fundraising money, write grants and coach teams. The hiders show up, help if they are directly asked and happily go about their business. I happen to be a doer who is currently looking for a transfusion of hider. And here is why ~ doers are never really sure why they are the way they are. We do not want rose petals thrown at our feet, but we do get frustrated when the same 5 people volunteer to do all of the work time after time. Another big secret: a big part of being a doer is the inability to have an idiot trying to tell me what to do. Some times it is better to be in charge and lead a project then restrain yourself from stabbing some twit, with no organizational skills or concept of time, in order to stop them from making everyone else's life harder. It's a double edged sword really....

And before I get a lot of hate mail for the hiders out there......I already know what you are going to say, so lets just get the truth out there right now.....YOU ARE NOT TOO BUSY TO HELP! You're not, sorry. You can use that as your beard and try to convince the poor woman that had sunk 3 months of her life into creating a paper mache float for your daughter's class, but she won't buy it and neither will I.
This is why~ every doer that asks for your help is just as busy, if not busier than you are.
 Take me for example: I have a husband, 2 kids under the age of 12 and a large dog. My husband works 10 hour days, I own my own business and also substitute teach (grades pre-k to 12 plus special needs) I am active in church, help my dad with his business, am on the PTA, handle the spartan label redemption program for the local elementary school, my kids have swim lessons, play hockey and soccer and I am the VP of the board of CAHA, along with being a team manager and my husband coaches (as have I in the past) I have participated in every bake sale, fundraiser, hockey tournament, and many other things that involve a truck load of glitter and the kind of nightmares only Tim Burton could dream up. I am sure you are as busy as I am, but the point here is: I do all this and I still help out, you are NOT too busy unless you are an on-call brain surgeon. At least tell the truth, You just don't want to. At least that I can respect. Then I would leave you to enjoy your committee-free smirk served up with a side order of shame.

This all leads to the crux of my issue. Do I ride to the rescue each and every time because it's the right thing to do or because I like the feeling of riding to the rescue? Do I like to stock-pile favors or is it just about trying to be a good person? And if I, as my husband suggests, step back instead of stepping in, will I have just earned some free time for myself, or will I be teaching others an important lesson about following through on their own commitments? We preach over and over again that we need to let our kids fail if they are going to learn anything and grow as individuals, does this still apply to adults that consistently bite off more than they can chew? Do I let them fail a couple time so they quite asking me to ride to the rescue? Do I really want them to?

If the doers stopped doing, would that force the hiders' hand, or would things just not get done? Would our clubs, organizations, groups and teams be worse off if we all became hiders? Or would it just be less complicated? Would we appreciate each other more, judge each other less?

In the world of parenting, is it better to be the stress-out calvary or the damsel in distress?