SEEING IS NOT ALWAYS BELIEVING

This morning, I had breakfast with my friend, Sandra who is a master. No, she does not run a tugboat or own a plantation. Sandra is a member of the Canadian judiciary. I asked her, “Is it ever difficult to render a decision?” She replied, “Sometimes, even when confronted with evidence, one has to be careful to arrive at the correct conclusion.”

I asked her to give me an example. “That’s easy,” she replied. “I have a friend who is expecting a baby. She also has a three-year-old daughter. While trying to explain her pregnancy, she showed the child an ultrasound of the baby. ‘I want to call Grandma’ was the excited response. So they did. The little girl grabbed the phone and yelled, ‘Grandma, Grandma, we’re going to have a frog.”’

Christopher Columbus was looking for a direct sea route to China and the Indies. He proved that the world is not flat, but instead of discovering the Indies and Chinese take-out, he unearthed the joys of the tobacco plant. After a good smoke, he still insisted that he had discovered the Indies and shouted, “Isabella, Isabella, these folks are Indians.”

As far as the earth goes, most people grudgingly admit it isn’t flat anymore, but even if they see a polar bear in a bikini sipping pina coladas on an ice flow, these people will not recognize global warming. They will shout, “Al, Al, the ice cubes in my scotch and soda didn’t melt any faster than they used to.”

When I was in Alaska, I spotted a big black bear ambling very close to the van in which I was sitting. The driver stopped, so we could enjoy the bear and her cub. We also spotted a woman with a camera getting out of her car. My driver lowered the window and shouted, “Get back into your car.” “Why?” said the woman. “Bear,” said the driver. “So?” said the woman. I yelled, “Lady, Lady, it’s a bear—not a frog!”

Some people just don’t get what is directly in front of them. There are still some numbskulls that don’t believe that Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. “They didn’t fool me. That was a fake moon landing filmed in a Hollywood studio. Besides, the moon is made of cheese and cows jump over it.”

“People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.”

The paranoid among us still don’t believe that the former President of the United States was born here. Even his birth certificate won’t convince them. If one of these characters was privy to President Obama’s ultrasound, he would convince himself that he is right, and then he would shout, “Grandma, Grandma, our President is a frog, Hawaii is a foreign country, and I am as smart as a three year old.”

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.  Oh, by the way, Don’t forget to vote!


Esther Blumenfeld (The sun just sank into the sea)