May. 07, 2002 - 22:29 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Welt-schmerz

Definition -- Melancholy over the state of the world.

Little things seem to add up, clinging to the big things until an overbearing state of disorder is reached. Probably different levels for each individual and maybe not the same each time for each person. Yesterday I was serene, coping with life as it was. Today nothing is different really. Scanning the headines and the editorials I guess is what did it.

Every day I see evidence in the papers of a thing called by some, "Alcoholic Thinking," nations do it as well as individuals. It consists of bullheadedly doing the same stupid thing over and over again expecting different results each time.

In the world it seems as if the course of various systems of Alcoholic Thinking cross paths, sparks fly, and it looks as if the other old saying comes into play, "When in danger and in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." Keystone Kops of Hal Roach don't stand a chance in the modern day media uproar.

Each article taking a particular thing or event and saying this is what it means. Funny thing though, each reporter and columnist appears to have a different viewpoint on the meanings.

Some, "The sky is falling," type will come out with xxxx happens to ?0,000 people every year. But gives no means of judging what extent or danger is involved. Then the drumbeaters line up and pound out the rousing call to arm and attack, no matter the tools or which direction the forces will come from.

Every life is priceless in this world. But some way of assessing each situation should be given. For instance, "Every year xxxx happens to ?0,000 people." So what is the population - what is the percentage ? What age group is involved ? What income level ? and so on.

Another thing I see that the pollsters are now doing is saying their results are correct plus or minus a tiny percentage. I hold that to be statistical balderdash ! Unless the whole populace is polled in exactly the same way with questions not loaded to automatically produce a desired result, then the percentage can be calculated. I am sure that a friend and I could come up with a poll and know the results just by the choice of people, income level and whether subjects are city or country folks (if there is any country left out there with folk in it). We could also take our poll out of the district affected and by doing so get the results we want.

These supposed hard and fast assertions herd the sheep in the direction wanted. I remember a teacher telling our class of a petition passed around a college campus saying something to the effect that each signee wanted x to happen and would gladly decapitate themselves to achieve the desired result. Now just how much meaning was there to that so called petition and what did the students gather from the info on the petition and the blather from the guy holding the clipboard ? Were they misled ? Inattentive ? Maybe or maybe it was the herd instinct of doing what the one ahead was doing. Who really can know for sure ?

So, I wander around asking myself, Who am I, how black is black and how high is up ? getting different answers each time. Looks like I found the cause of my Welt-schmerz . . . . . .

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