Blips #69 From The Martian Desk

"DID YOU KNOW PENGUINS CAN FLY?"

(Swans - April 21, 2008) "DID YOU KNOW PENGUINS CAN FLY?" asked a local resident recently. "Penguins do not fly," I retorted. "You are wrong," he replied. "How come? if I may ask... " "I saw it on TV," answered the strong-headed chap. To see something on TV — a computer simulation — was enough to make that man believe that penguins do fly. In September 2005, I had a conversation with another long-time Boonville resident who was adamant that we were importing only 5% of our oil requirements. When I objected that we were importing much closer to 60% of the country’s gluttony needs, that old-timer shot back, "Not from the long article I read," as he was giving me a look that silently, yet loudly, meant "and who are you, anyway...you have an accent..." Whatever he had read — quite possibly the Santa Rosa Press Democrat (a New York Times possession in Northern California) — he had obviously misread it, but his belief was much stronger than the objective knowledge of that alien man sitting in front of him. Ignorance keeps thwarting understanding. So, when Martin Murie advocated in his March 24 piece, "Streets, Doors, Offices," that we should be ambidextrous and go talking to people in the streets, I merely smiled in both disbelief and the regret that all the talking we can have, when we can have it, is for naught. We are either ignored, mistrusted, shunned, or ostracized. There may have been a time in the old days for this kind of endeavor, but those days are long gone. Not only does one have to deal with people who are misinformed through extremely well refined propaganda, but one has to engage people who for the most part refuse to talk or even listen (with the possible exception of the effects of the migrant workers on the community). It quickly becomes a rather insurmountable challenge.

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