Perception is everything

I came across a headline today:

'Celestial body' lands in Bat Yam

My perception:

 +  = 

A little meteor landed on a beach in Israel and there was a little fire and smoke. Headlines often make you think something that isn't backed up by the article itself. All too often, we read headlines and maybe the first paragraph or two and come away with the wrong idea. TV news amplifies this effect. We get a daily dose of news that's plain wrong and come away with general perceptions many of us share but they're usually distorted and wrong. That's how a Bush or an Obama can be elected. Politicians and their aides know how to shape public perception and they've got it down to a science. Oh, it isn't perfect but then, nothing is. Whoever wins the perception war wins, period.

Perception applies to everything from products we buy to stocks on the exchange. What's best and what will make us rich? Who's right about an issue, who's wrong? Being thinking beings, we react to impressions, not just empirical data. Animals react without much thought. Something can be eaten or not, something is a threat or not. A wrong choice can result in death. Most humans are mostly protected from daily life and death decisions. Most of the time, we have the time we need to make a choice about most things but sometimes the information we base our decisions on is faulty.

Those of us fortunate enough to have the luxury of time can do their own research and make more informed decisions about things. We can surf the Web and learn a lot but even then, we have to be discriminating about the quality of the sources of information. There are as many opinions as there are people but opinions are good to read when trying to choose a book or an appliance. Do they like it or hate it?

Opinions are good when you know they're opinions but what if you're looking for news and you get opinion instead? That seems to be the trend with the mainstream news media nowadays so more people tend to ignore the news on TV and get their news from the Web. Lots of people of a certain age see what passes for news on TV and know that sumthin' ain't right. Our BS detectors are pegging into the red zone and it makes us angry. (Yes, there's an app for that: B.S.Meter.)

Anywhere from a quarter to a third of the electorate identifies with the Tea Party Movement. Right now, there are almost equal numbers of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. The Tea Party isn't a party, just a large group of maligned Americans who love their country and who are very concerned about its welfare. They get called all sorts of names by people on the left who hate the fact that power is slipping out of their hands. They lost the Democrat's Senate super majority in January so they're really anxious about the upcoming midterm election just over 6 months from now. Things have gotten so weird that even the Obama supporters are having second thoughts, especially some of the 77% of the Jews who voted for him. Our president sure has been treating our allies rather shabbily but Israel has suffered the most.

Speaking of Israel, maybe you've seen something of the fawning media drooling over a new star in UK politics, liberal democrat Nick Clegg. The British politicians vying to be the next Prime Minister are trying to emulate Obama's tactics to get the attention of the electorate. Clegg even shares a friend from Obama's past, a certain infamous Iraqi billionaire, Nahdmi Auchi. If you'll recall, Obama tried to do a deal with Auchi to build a power plant in Iraq but the Iraq war got in the way of their plans. Perhaps that was the basis for Obama's opposition to the war in 2002. Auchi is vehemently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. It seems Clegg is following Obama's pattern all too well. Obama's anti-Israel billionaire buddy is George Soros after Auchi got into some legal trouble in Britain. What does the US MSM say about all this? The silence is deafening.

The Tea Party folks are very much up on all the facts left out of the mainstream news reports. If you rely on a local or national newspaper, a magazine like TIME or Newsweek or a broadcast network for your news, you're sadly un/misinformed. Maybe you've heard about the possibility of Syria sending Scud-A missiles to Lebanon for use by Hezbollah against Israel. There seems to be some question of the existence of these missiles in Lebanon. Fact is, they don't exist as missiles yet but the parts are on the way and Iran is urging Assad to speed up the delivery. It takes 8 truckloads of parts to build a missile and 3 have been delivered with 5 more on the way. (Read all about it: Syria sends Hizballah Scuds in disassembled batches.) 

The Scud-A (SS-1b) has a range of 112 miles and a payload of 2,094 lbs. The distance between a strategic point well inside Lebanon and Tel Aviv is only 100 miles. The V-1 and V-2 rockets used by the Nazis against London during the blitz carried 1-ton warheads. How long is Israel going to put up with Scuds in Lebanon? Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962? Hey, back then, we had a REAL news media with newscasters like Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, and Walter Cronkite.

Times being what they are and the media being what it transformed into over a decade ago, look beyond the headlines and at sources outside the US. It takes more time to be up on what's going on in politics, the economy, and the stock market but it's well worth it. We can all work harder to get better politicians in office and it'd be good to know what moves to make with our investments.