Dear Diary,
Today’s northwest Oregon weather looks like my feelings and my Facebook feed. Bright and dark, clear and stormy, warm and cold, and general mayhem — predictable in that it’s all chaos all the time right now, and unpredictable as far as when, exactly, the next deluge will start.
I admit, Diary, I’m becoming increasingly distressed by the viral spread of conspiracy theories and debunked scientists/doctors’ videos, and disheartened by the swirling funnel clouds of disinformation wreaking havoc on people’s minds and hearts. I have no problem with disagreements regarding Staying Home vs. Reopening our economy; I just wish folks would use peer-reviewed science and respected epidemiologists and public health experts to make their arguments. Not all the experts agree — there’s a discussion to be had here, a debate to respectfully curate — but just as America failed the Ability to Source Reliable Data test in the 2016 presidential election which, in retrospect, was grossly influenced by bots and bad actors reporting an enormous amount of false information via alarmist headlines that fed confirmation bias and encouraged viral spread, so America is failing the same Ability to Source Reliable Data test in this 2020 global pandemic in exactly the same way. ... read more