Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

Great title for a song, don't you think? Sorry, I just couldn't resist. I probably could have just put Freaked Out, for a blog title, but this one felt pretty accurate. In this very superstitious and demon-haunted world, I think we're all a little bewitched. The rest is maybe understatement, although bewildered is on the money, since all of us are probably punch drunk from the constant barrage of "news" we get slapped in our faces.

I've tried to avoid the moment-to-moment media blitz in my life, but it's pretty much impossible unless one locks themselves in a dark room and stays there. It's all propaganda and it's all phony. Or as George Carlin put it, "It's all bullshit and it's bad for ya."

So, lately I've been searching the Internet for alternative news and information. It's an art which requires some ability to filter out the usual crap and can be very tedious. It's easy for me to just go to sleep on my feet, so to speak, when I have to concentrate that hard on something as mundane as getting accurate information. Sad, but it's true. I shall try to make my main point now.

If you ever found yourself looking for information on the multiple manned flights to the moon, you probably have found quite a bit of doubters and even more of the alternate opinions, commonly called "hoax-debunkers". For a long time, I just looked at the debunkers' stuff, since I felt I had enough information from the "hoax" crowd. At the time, unbeknown to me, I was just looking for confirmation of my preset beliefs, and not really entertaining any critical thinking. I guess that is due to some of the "numbness" that I alluded to early in this post. At the time, it seemed the easy way to answer some questions I had.

Recently, I went to one of my favorite "conspiracy theorist" sites (a term that is designed to discredit certain thinking people in a preemptive way) and noticed that the site owner had just begun a new series of posts about the very subject of the moon landings. I have always enjoyed the sarcastic, but well documented, postings by this fellow and was easily drawn right into his arguments for believing the moon trips to be a tremendous hoax. Actually, although his arguments are very compelling, it is more the ability to employ logic and critical thinking that seals the deal for me. I invite you to read his series for yourself, starting at: www.davesweb.cnchost.com/apollo1.html.

This is one of his ongoing commentaries, and it appears there will be more to come. I can't wait for his next post.

Nick