Time to Think

A Nation Divided                                                                                #291            By Hank Silverberg                                                                                                                                                                Commentary   Much has been made over the past year or so about the gro...

  How To Earn Two Bucks The Easy Way       #290 By Hank Silverberg Commentary  Don't worry. I am not going to write about the debate, or even politics this week. I am going to start by telling you a somewhat funny story.  On Thursday of this past week, there was an interesting piece of mail that I thought was just the usual junk. But a closer look showed the official logo of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the upper right hand corner. So I opened it. It was the usual type of form letter asking me to fill out the inserted survey and to please return it to them. The Gallup polling organization was doing the survey, and that encouraged further review by me.   I almost threw it away, but then at the end of the pitch to fill out the form they said they were enclosing "a small gift" as a thank you for my participation.  There were two crisp $1.00 bills in the envelope.   ( The $2 I earned)  Well, darn. No...

Pollsters Are Annoying                                                                             #289 By Hank Silverberg Commentary Have you gotten a phone call from a pollster yet? Or have you been asked to take one on line? The general election is about five months away, and I have already been inundated with people taking polls. I must be on some list.  It's not that I mind expressing my opinion anonymously to a pollster who may work for one of the candidates or one of the big polling companies. It's just the questions are sometimes repetitive or  require an answer not among the  answers provided.  Many of them are "yes" or "no" with no shades of gray. Even though everything has a shade of gray. Yes or No are rarely good answers.  Then there is: "Candidate A thinks nucl...

                                                                                                          #288 By Hank Silverberg The Third Rail If you follow train technology you will know the  "third rail" is a semi-continuous rigid conductor alongside the tracks that carries electricity to power the train. Step on it in the wrong place and you will be electrocuted.   In the old days, when we still had a functional Congress, any talk of cutting Social Security or Medicare, or not funding it, was considered a political third rail--or political suicide.  Apparently that is not the case any more.  This week, House Speaker Mike Johnson talked about possible cuts in both programs, and didn't seem to worry...

Truth or Fiction                                  #288 By Hank Silverberg Commentary   Truth vs Fiction There is no doubt, as a journalist or as a news consumer it is getting harder and harder these days to separate truth from fiction, especially when dealing with a war zone.   (Courtesy Univ. of Texas) But sometimes you have to use common sense to figure things out.   For example: I am a bit perplexed by most of the media around the world continues to use the civilian casualty figures in the Gaza war. There is no question that thousands of civilians have been killed, and that is a tragedy. The Palestinian Health Ministry CLAIMED that number at 36,700 this week.  And most of the media will use that number. What irks me is that number is a "claim" by a terrorist group that cares little about the safety of its own people and puts out that number for propaganda purposes. ...