It's all Relative?

I have No Excuses

I've been a bad girl, and I'll take some well deserved wet noodling. I just haven't been in a blogging state of mind lately and each time I think of something to blog about someone has been using the computer. How dare they?

I've mentally written over the past few weeks at least 5 posts that I can recall, but can I remember them now? Duh, of course not! Well maybe one...

I did see something the other day that gave me pause. It was a bumper sticker that to me at least posed a question, is truth relative? What kind of truth; historical, which depends greatly on geographic location? For example if you're a kid in Mexico reading about Santa Anna and the Alamo, the story will certainly differ from ones taught in our history books, and vastly different from the watered down story found on the Texas state website.

All three stories speak something of the truth and all are relative to where you live. Take the Palestinian and Israeli conflicts, both are relative to their personal perspective. Regardless of what the UN did and did not do, both firmly believe that particular swath of land belongs to them alone, which is at the heart of the issue. Victims of crime will often give conflicting stories of how such crime was committed and that is totally relative to their personal life experience. For example an off-duty police officer, if they happened upon a robbery, would likely provide a more detailed description of a perpetrator than other bystanders because of their training.

I hesitate to bring this up, and in fact have taken several days before hitting the publish button and the only reason is where this is heading. I do believe everything is relative, to your generation, place, status, age, everything. I had firm beliefs as a child that as an adult I no longer prescribe to. It's no big deal unless you're talking about religion. This brings me back to to the bumper sticker that started all this. It read simply Truth is NOT Relative and there was a cross on it. Religious symbols aside, obviously this has meaning to the person that placed it on their bumper but I have wonder if they really understand what it means. How can anything not be relative even religion? Different churches have different beliefs or interpretations of the Bible but there is something arrogant about this bumper sticker that bothered me. It was screaming to me what they believe is the truth and whatever everyone else believes is wrong.

Speaking of Relatives

It needs to be said that I have a strange family, half of whom are ultra liberals and ultra conservatives, and all of them are not that bright. They believe any bit of what I would call tabloid mentality that seems to bolster whatever side they believe. Ultimately the topic of the budget comes up and the dreaded earmark talk is engaged. They say 1.7 million dollars for bees in Texas or something like that and I sigh. Out of the whole budget 2% makes up earmarks, it's not that I don't think it's important but I just don't think it's that important in a Trillion dollar budget to worry about 1.7 million dollars for bee farm or factory or whatever it is. It's like spending a hundred bucks on groceries at the store and worrying about a candy bar. However the bee thing had them seeing red. So, I said, well bees are important. They scoffed.

I explained I learned the importance of bees last year when my apple-pear tree yielded no fruit because when it bloomed, the weather turned to rain and there were no bees to pollinate it. Bees are dying and no one can really explain why; are they getting some weird bee disease, are they being killed off by insecticide, or global warming? No one knows, they do all seem to agree that bees for whatever reason are on a decline, unless something is done. Now think about all the fruit and vegetables that are dependent on bees for pollination. We're not just talking about bees anymore we're talking about survival. There is already a grain, rice, and water shortage though the mainstream media is careful not to discuss this. This is not good people and frankly has global implications far more vast than our own backyards.

© 2009 Whimsical Ranter
All Rights Reserved

Just a short one

This has been floating around the Internet for sometime now and was forwarded to me by a "friend". The reason for the quotes around friend is simply put, I don't really know this person, but do know a little about them, so I understand why it was forwarded.



Just a little clarification

It does need to be said that this was done in 1992 when she was 12 years old. It was not before the UN (as some of the youtubes have suggested--there are quite a few floating around of her) but an Earth Summit that was held in Rio, with representatives from different countries. All that understood, I found her articulate, and well spoken on a world stage. I also found her world view to be somewhat simplistic but, given the fact she was only 12, I can forgive that.

If you're interested you can read more about her here.

© 2009 Whimsical Ranter
All Rights Reserved