I’ve talked about “Fake News” in the past and it seems to be a current buzz word when talking about the politicians and media. What many people don’t realize is that fake news is nothing new. It’s been around forever. For years as I grew up, I accompanied my mother and two ex-wives on food shopping trips. While they were checking out, I had the misfortune of killing time reading some of the cheesy tabloids available at the registers. They were full of impossible news items which were funny as hell but hopefully only a fool would have thought any of them to be true. Here is a small collection of headlines from that era that will bring a smile to your face.
1993
BAT WITH A HUMAN FACE
TOWN ELECTS MIDGET POLICE CHIEF
BABY CATCHES BULLET WITH HIS GUMS
KID WITH 3 ARMS IS BASEBALL SENSATION
JUNK FOOD CAUSES TEENS TO WORSHIP THE DEVIL
MY WIFE’S GOST STILL COOKS, CLEAN & IRONS MY SHIRTS
HUMAN JELLYFISH SAYS RUB MY BELLY
WHALE EATERS UNITE
MAN KILLED BY FALLING BIBLE
SWORD SWALLOWER LAUGHED SO HARD HE SLIT HIS THROAT
GOLIATH’S SKULL FOUND IN HOLY LAND
STADIUM HAS SPECIAL AREA FOR NUDISTS
SECRET INGREDIENT IN NEW SKIN CREAM – GOBS OF HUMAN FAT
CHURCH COMMUNION CAN SPREAD AIDS
MAN GIVES GIRLFRIEND PERFUME MADE FROM HIS OWN SWEAT
In recent months the term “Fake News” has become popular. I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but “Fake News” has been around for a very long time. The younger generations think that they’ve discovered some outrageous political trick that never existed before they discovered it. As an example, many years ago my son (aged 13) came rushing to me all excited. He told me to sit down and listen to this great song. He told me it was being used on a TV commercial and it was the best song he ever heard. I sat down and he played it for me, and I just started grinning. The song he discovered was at that time already a golden oldie, it was the Righteous Brothers singing Unchained Melody. He was sure it was some group from his generation. “Fake News” is a new term, but it has always meant the same thing: lying, misrepresenting, and double speak. George Orwell has been proven right once again. Here are a few samples of so called “Fake News” from the past.
2003: President George W. Bush for his creative use of language in public statements regarding the reasons the United States needed to pursue war against Iraq.
2002: New York State Board of Regents for its politically correct and silent editing of state tests.
2000: The tobacco industry for its media blitz portraying tobacco companies as the benefactors of children, abused women and disaster victims. That is abusive language in pursuit of their right to sell a deadly drug.
1991: Department of Defense for obfuscation and jargon in euphemisms during the first Gulf War.
1990: President George Bush on wetlands, the Panama invasion, Tiananmen Square and the “No New Taxes” pledge.
1989: The Exxon Corporation for the “Exxon Valdez” oil spill obfuscation.
1985: The CIA for the Psychological Warfare Manual prepared for the Nicaraguan war.
1979: The nuclear power industry for its euphemisms and jargon during the 3-Mile Island accident.
1977: The Pentagon and the Energy Department for language cover-up of the neutron bomb development.
1975: Colonel David Opfer, USAF press officer in Cambodia for saying to reporters, after a raid, “You always write its bombing, bombing, bombing. It’s not bombing! It’s air support!
HERES MY FAKE NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT – “FAKE NEWS IS TRUE”
It’s hard these days tell tell if what we’re being told is true. Most companies and politicians have developed lying and fake news to new levels of confusion. We spend more time trying to determine if what we’re being told is a lie while the question we originally asked never gets answered. That’s always the grand plan for prevaricators of all kinds, misdirection and the parsing of words and phrases. It’s become an ugly art form for some people. Today’s post contains “true blue” facts collected from my archives with no manipulations or fake and misleading information. Here we go.
The telephone has been one of the most profitable inventions in the history of the United States.
One million threads of fiber optic cable can fit a tube 1/2 inch in diameter.
In 1956, Johnny Mathis decided to record an album instead of answering an invitation to try out for the US Olympic team as a high jumper. It turned out to be a fortuitous choice.
One ounce of pure gold can be made into a wire 50 miles long.
President John Quincy Adams started each summer day with an early morning skinny-dipping in the Potomac River.
America’s modern interstate highway system was designed in the 1950s during the Eisenhower administration. It’s primary purpose was not to enhance casual driving over long distances but to provide for the efficient movement of military vehicles if and when necessary.
The human eye blinks an average of 3.7 million times per year.
Terminal velocity for a human being is approximately 124 mph. To reach this speed, you would have to fall from a height of at least 158 yards or about 1 1/2 football fields.
The Bible contains 32 references to dogs, none to cats.
The word “nerd”comes from Dr. Seuss, who first used the term in his 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this information that has not been edited, exaggerated, or just plain covered in BS. Real truths are much more interesting than most of the nonsense we’re being fed by corporate American and the politicians.
Back in the day it was normal for almost anyone standing in line at any grocery store to be bored out of their mind. What do you do then? You take one of the ever so strange publications in the rack and read the most outrageous stories that were obviously nothing but BS in tabloids like The National Inquirer, The Sun, and The Daily Record. I’m pleased to announce that most if not all of them still exist but these days they’re mostly on-line. My current favorite is The Weekly World News. They take legitimate stories and then spice them up with some of the worst headlines and facts that are twisted beyond belief. They are nothing more than hysterically funny comic relief. Here are a few samples of their work:
Alien Backs Clinton!
Bat Child Found in Cave!
Half-Human Half-Fish Found in Florida!
Titanic Baby Found Alive!
Bug Size UFO Found on Playground!
And you thought I was kidding. Here are a few more of their most outrageous stories and headlines. You can’t help but smile and shake your head after reading them.
11-YEAR-OLD BOY RAPED – BY SEX STARVED MAID WITH AIDS
BABY CATCHES BULLET WITH HIS GUMS
KID WITH THREE ARMS IS BASEBALL SENSATION
I MADE MYSELF PREGNANT WITH A TURKEY BASTER
ANT ARMY EATS 935 PEOPLE
SWORD SWALLOWER LAUGHS SO HARD – HE SLIT HIS THROAT
HAIL THE SIZE OF BOWLING BALLS FLATTENS TOWN
CHURCH COMMUNION CAN SPREAD AIDS
It’s interesting to sit back and enjoy “fake news” for a change that isn’t carefully disguised and worded by the Mainstream Media and all of our straight-shooting politicians. If you’d like to see more stop off at their website: weeklyworldnews.com. It’s worth a few laughs which we definitely need more of these days.
Another year of pandemic, bad economy, fake news from the media, bad this and bad that. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted by it all. We can’t seem to trust anyone anymore about anything. I hope we don’t follow in the footsteps of our European allies. If the pandemic doesn’t kill them fast enough, they may start killing each other as they’ve done so often in the past. We don’t want to be dragged down that rabbit-hole again for any reason.
I’ve been hearing about how terrible the economy is all year and how those whiny retailers just never seem to have a good Christmas shopping season. Headlines like “Christmas Sales Fail to Meet Expectations” are the same every year it seems. Fortunately, this year a lot of that Black Friday nonsense before Thanksgiving didn’t happen and probably saved many people from being injured trying to get a big-screen TV into their shopping cart at Walmart.
It’s no wonder the people in this country are depressed after more than two years of the pandemic, mainstream media ranting and raving about every little thing, and presidential doom and gloom from Trump to Biden. We been beaten to our knees with a constant barrage of misinformation, innuendo, and outright lies.
I normally have a great deal of optimism for the future but that’s only true if the up-and-coming younger voters start looking and listening carefully at what they’re being told in the schools, universities, and everywhere else. They must learn the hard way how to teach themselves to recognize the truth when they see it and the lies when they hear them. Politics is an ugly game and has little or no mercy on the uninformed.
Things may not be great but it’s not the end of the world. It’s politicians attempting to propagandize the populace with crisis after crisis so we’ll throw the bums out and vote the other bums in. The pandemic is just one more thing in a long list of topics where we can’t rely on anyone to give us the whole truth. It’s an old and vicious game and we the voters continue to stick our heads in the sand and condone it year after year. Shame on us and shame on those responsible.
So much for the end of 2021. Good-bye and good riddance. I can only hope that things improve this coming year but don’t expect those irresponsible politicians, reporters, pundits, professors, and high school teachers to keep you and yours up to date with true facts. Read, research, ask the questions that need to be asked, and remain skeptical. It’s your duty as an American citizen to question your government, don’t hesitate. We can only hope 2022 will show some improvement and I think it will, if we don’t spend all of our time fighting amongst ourselves. If that continues, we’re all screwed.
Every Useless Thing will return on January 2, 2022.
I’m a reader of just about any printed material. I enjoy fiction, nonfiction, and anything else I can get my hands on. By far my favorite genre is science fiction and I’ve been reading it religiously since the age of nine. I love it for a number of reasons but primarily because of its ability to foretell the future. So many things included in the oldest sci-fi stories have eventually become part of our reality i.e. lasers, satellites, cell phones, and space travel. I then asked myself the question, if sci-fi writers have the ability to see the future so clearly, why not others. The novel 1984 is considered sci-fi by some but to me it’s just social commentary taken to extremes. But . . . could it be prophetic as well?
I look at the direction of our country today. It’s slowly sliding toward socialism with people like LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden insinuating their kind of changes into every facet of our lives. In Orwell’s future, the Party is everything and only our service to the Party has any value. Sounds vaguely familiar doesn’t it?
Orwell rewrote the language into something called Newspeak. Changing words to reflect new meanings such as terms like Head Start, Hope and Lifetime Learning Credits, Peace Corp., Americorp and of course Welfare. Newspeak allowed the Party to suddenly change the perception of something just by making the name more palatable. The “proles” weren’t smart enough to figure that out. Are we?
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING was the mantra of the “proles” in Orwell’s novel. The “proles” were the regular citizens excluded from the upper echelon of society and needed to be strictly controlled. Could the NSA be the new “Big Brother”? Could Homeland Security be the new “Thought Police”? You tell me.
Mentioned throughout Orwell’s novel are the following three terms:
WAR IS PEACE – Doesn’t this clearly describe our current approach to the rest of the world or not?
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY – Does corroding our civil rights and freedoms under the guise of security explain this?
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH – When government transparency becomes just some phony “politically correct” term, does that explain this?
Orwell’s” Ministry of Truth” comes alive when you read this description:
“There were the huge print shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele-programs section with its engineers, its producers, and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices.” – Sounds a lot like the Main Stream Media and “Fake News” to me.
I could continue these comparisons all day long. Orwell had the Thought Police and the Ministry of Truth and we have the Criminal Justice System. The comparisons were striking to me but will easily be shrugged off by our current government as a gross exaggeration of an old and antiquated novel. Just like the lasers and communication satellites were written about in the 1940s, at the time they were also considered a gross exaggeration. I’ve made my decision on where I think were headed as a country and a society. I’m not saying it’s a certainty but it could become our reality very easily and very quickly.
I’ll admit one thing of Orwell’s that does not translate to our current generation is the “Ministry of Love”. He thought his “Big Brother” government should mandate copulation and childbirth as a service to the Party as a means of keeping the population levels growing. I’m sure he never anticipated a government assisted by the courts that would permit the wholesale slaughter of unborn children just to maintain the status quo and keep citizens voting a certain way.
It’s been a number of months since I last visited my blog and I’m not entirely sure why. I suppose it’a mixture of laziness, apathy, and the holiday season that’s approaching. I’ve been wanting to write but I don’t want it to be more of the same crap you’re hearing and seeing in other media. The “Trump is the devil.” nonsense is wearing really thin except for a few braindead liberals and diehard Democrats.
There’s a time and place for everything but the last thing we need is the steady media drumbeat of negativety during the holidays. I’d much rather enjoy the season with my family than listening to an incredibly biased media laying hours and hours of propaganda and fake news on me. Life is just too goddamn short.
We’ve had out first two snow falls for 2017 and the snowblower came through as expected. I’m going to try very hard not to do the normal fall-on-my-ass routine that seems to occur every year. I’ll be staying in the house as much as possible, I’ll keep nice and warm, and have a drink or two to calm my nerves. Before I know it Spring will be here once again.
So Merry Christmas to family and friends and anyone bored enough to read this blog.
I’ve also been giving some serious thought to my New Year’s resolutions for 2018. I’ll do a quick review of 2017 just after Christmas and then post 2018’s early in January.
Stay healthy . . . Stay warm . . . Kiss the kids and grandkids . . . Hug your pets.
everyuselessthing.com 