Archive: Opinions

Reference my previous 'Thoughts' about a 'safe injection zone', otherwise known to we, the doubtful and cynical, as 'shooting galleries' where opioid users can go to shoot up illegally obtained substances legally, with medical supervision. Advocated by do-gooders across the country (the same who claim that cannabis is not addictive or socially harmful) under the misguided banner of an 'opportunity to offer services to the addicted'. A federal court has found that a 'safe injection space' does not violate federal law. 'Safehouse' is the group in Philadelphia which 'won' the case, and immediately announced plans to forge ahead with the shooting gallery in downtown Philadelphia.

Neighborhood resistance stiffened with support of several city lawmakers who objected strenuously while Philadelphia police planned, according to WHYY-FM, with an increase of police patrols to prevent an increase of dealers who, practicing the joy of free enterprise, are expected to congregate in the neighborhood along with other less-than-neighborly types. That probability was pooh-pooed by the advocates and litigants. That increased police presence (maybe community police-types?) should go over like the proverbial screen door in a submarine. Reminds me of a scene from the film Cool Hand Luke where the warden speaks the immortal mantra of the 60's: "...What we have here is a failure to communicate...".

Well, the plans are now on hold in Philadelphia as neighbors rallied to stop the implementation. For now. But, may I be so bold as to predict that the federal court ruling will embolden the whack-a-doodles in Tompkins County who plan to open a 'safe injection site' in Ithaca with the laudable intention of offering treatment opportunities on site? I'll even predict where they're going to try to place it: right on West State Street, maybe even the 300 block. That would be nice and convenient, wouldn't it?

They're already passing out clean needles (which I think is probably laudable, as a disease resisting measure) in that neighborhood, Tompkins County DSS is there so the beneficiaries can go in and check in with probation and food stamps, CARS is down there if someone actually wants to get treatment after they get high, and of course there's plenty of other illegal activity going on down on that stretch of State Street to keep the understaffed Ithaca police force busy. Well, busy is a doubtful word since there seems to be a dearth of arrests or other positive activity going on in that department these past few years.

Funny, I remember that block being investigated and castigated for the presence of a 'crack house' that was eventually town down to make way for the four story DSS building on that block. Who's going to object with any capacity to be listened to??? Certainly not the mayor who has advocated for such an enterprise. Certainly not the people who want to build housing for the upper middle class (and using the rubric of 'affordable' when applying for tax rebates). Certainly you won't find advocates for a 'safe injection zone' among the downtown businesses, or Downtown Ithaca Inc, right? Just three blocks from the Commons, while pushing to build downtown small businesses, lies a zone where no one in their right mind would dare enter, already known for unmitigated criminal activities.

Neighbors to object to such a zone? They're rapidly being forced out due to skyrocketing rents and lack of policing. Come to think about it, if that safe house ends up on West State Street, it might be the perfect place. Just don't tell that to the small business owners who continue to struggle in downtown, and the people in outlying communities who decide there's another reason to avoid any trip to downtown. Maybe we can ask Downtown Ithaca, Inc. what they think of this possibility on West State Street. Maybe there will even be a ribbon-cutting ceremony. You can bet the mayor will be there with a smile on his face. Ten square miles surrounded by reality, indeed.

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Distressing, dis-comfitting, discouraging: please feel free to add your own 'dis-' after perusing the following.

Gillian Tett has informed her readers of a recent conference at Facebook's campus, headlined and presented by Joshua Tucker, a politics professor (uh-oh) and co-director of the NYU Center for Social Media and Politics (there really is such a school).

Dr. Tucker and colleagues at Stanford University used the following hypothesis: Most people, if asked, would say that they could distinguish between 'fake' news and 'real' news. Wouldn't you? I would have nodded in the affirmative about my own ability, anyway.

Well, it turns out (perhaps not surprisingly, but certainly dis-tressingly) that such may not be the case.

Every day, over a period of several months, five news items less than 24 hours old were presented to groups of ninety participants around the country and asked if the stories, in their opinion, were 'true'. Age and education were factored into the results, but found to be minimally effective in the results. According to this study "most participants" could tell the 'true news' was 'true', but were not adept at identifying 'fake news'. Both those self-identifying as 'liberal' and 'conservative' performed badly with partisan fake news that aligned with their belief structure.

To add an interesting control, the participants were encouraged to fact check the information online, and the results apparently did not change much. The participants still thought a significant number of 'fake' stories were real. When broken into groups of three or more, they only performed slightly better at spotting the real from the fake than 'on their own'.

Tett (reporting on Tucker's analysis) goes on to point out the true nature of this outcome and resulting theories. The Pew Foundation did a study last year and apparently found that most Americans have "encountered fake news" and two out of three responded that it had undermined their confidence in government and most in the survey were convinced the situation "will not improve".

And the story goes on, with several studies claiming that ten per cent of the stories read/followed by U.S. readers emanated from 'fake news sites'.

That point about 'undermining confidence in government' particularly bothers me. Is it the 'fake' story that undermined the faith in government, or is it the belief that government is somehow failing us in not clamping down on 'fake news'? If it's the latter, then I think we are really getting into deep trouble. Instead of becoming more literate, we're apparently: 1) fooling ourselves about our own personal media literacy and/or, 2) expecting the government to do something about it, read: censorship.

Unless Snopes, or NewsGuard become sponsored by the Department of Media Literacy (there's a frightening concept, especially if emanating from our nation's elite campuses) and funded by the government (benign as it always is) we're on our own. And that's the way it should, and is supposed, to be. Allowing Google/Alphabet, Facebook, Twitter and others to, in reality, shrug their shoulders (or cave to government pressure and dicta) but at the same time be the default defenders of freedom of speech is an ultimate danger, and we seem prone these days to allow these dangers to multiply. Especially when we think it's the government's job to protect us from something we have every ability to fight as individuals.

The only defense against intentional disinformation (from ALL quarters) and a lazy response of expecting the government to 'protect' us is to get smart, get literate, and in essence expose ourselves to many more opinions and thinking than we currently do. Listen to only NPR? Turn on Limbaugh just to see what he's thinking. Listen only to Hannity? Get a dose of alternate thinking and turn on NPR for an hour. This is called an open mind, and doesn't have to be anything more than listening for a dose of 'other thinking' that can go a long way to determining what might be 'real' or 'fake', or at least get a few more synapses in your gray matter fired up. Your media literacy might improve, too. Compare, accept or reject, at least you're working at it instead of just soaking up the same old, same old. No wonder the Russians are convinced they can influence our electoral process. Our 'freedom' to be intellectually lazy is being weaponized against us.

Bias confirmation, as it is called, will damage our basic rights to speech and freedom, and aids in the proliferation of what is called, wrongly, I think, 'fake news'. It's lazy, and we might end up strangling ourselves unless we understand this. It's important to our freedoms. Believe strongly, of course, but always question, and always investigate by looking twice and asking those questions that are intrinsic to critical thinking and political freedom, which we seem to too easily give up.