Truth be told …
Notice: Undefined variable: article_ad_placement3 in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/single.php on line 128
I avoided doing a typical “year-end” column in December because my final column of 2020 was published on Dec. 21. I still held out hope that in the 10 days remaining to it, the expiring year would make a deathbed confession and redeem itself. I couldn’t guess if, like a bad tenant, 2020 would knock holes in the wallboard and steal the copper plumbing before creeping away at midnight without leaving a forwarding address.
And there’s no way I’m going to use this column to predict what 2021 has in store for us: I could be totally, horribly off base. 2020 is the best example in my lifetime of a year gone rogue; bear in mind that I lived through 1968, so that’s saying something. We knew that 2020 would be a presidential election year, so we expected insanity. But who could have predicted that a nation of “we the people” would become so polarized that it would teeter on the brink of totalitarianism and civil war? And who except a few scientists and health professionals thought the world could be brought to its knees by a virus? Nope – no predictions for 2021 from me.
So, being unwilling to recap a lousy old year or divine about the new one, I decided to simply state a few truths I discovered in 2020. Bear in mind that I’ve long held that truth is relative because each of us views veracity through the filter of our own experiences.
The perfect example of this theory was illustrated by presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway during a “Meet the Press” interview on Jan. 22, 2017. Host Chuck Todd challenged Conway about Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false claim that the crowd at President Donald Trump’s inauguration was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration – period – both in person and around the globe.” Conway replied that Spicer was merely presenting “alternative facts.”
So, if you dispute the truths listed below, just call them “alternative facts” and accept that you may have a career as a political adviser in your future.
Truth 1: Church choirs, in general, should not be allowed within a sanctuary’s length of the spiritual, “Go, Tell It on the Mountain.” When choirs made up mostly of volunteers without experience or training sing “Mountain,” they tramp, tramp, tramp through each verse as if it were a Civil War marching song. Then, when the chorus arrives, they clap on 1 and 3 and attempt to sway to the music, but instead bump shoulders because some start to sway to the left and some to the right.
Truth 2: People are more willing to believe the most convoluted conspiracy theory than to accept a simple explanation for an action or outcome that does not please them. Example: COVID-19 vaccine injections will not prevent you from catching the virus or lessen its severity! They are being used to inject microchips, designed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, which will enable governments to track and, perhaps, mind-control individuals. Ask yourself if you’re so important that anyone would want to track or control you. If you say “Yes,” you probably need an injection.
Truth 3: When you misplace your reading glasses, 90% of the time they can be found on top of your head or hanging from the neck of your T-shirt or placket of your buttoned shirt. The rest of the time, you’re sitting on them.
Bring it on, 2021!