Loose Leaf Notes

1. But first the March mud.

2. The Shape of Truth: You know it when you see it / You hear it when you listen / The meaning transcends the rhyme / like the content of a person / speaks louder than their looks / Like the living heart can hear / what the ears sometimes don’t / and the soul clearly knows  / what the mind tends to doubt

3. The illusory truth effect -In a 2015 study, researchers discovered that familiarity can overpower rationality and that repetitively hearing that a certain statement is wrong can paradoxically cause it to feel right.[4] Researchers observed the illusory truth effect’s impact even on participants who knew the correct answer to begin with but were persuaded to believe otherwise through the repetition of a falsehood, to “processing fluency.” From the Wikipedia

4. Plus, there is a built-in paradox: Correcting a lie involves repeating the falsehood—which only solidifies it further. How, then, is it possible to counter false claims—or even discuss them at all—without reinforcing them? Cognitive linguist George Lakoff has proposed a way to correct any lie by framing it with the truth. You begin by mentioning the truth, briefly mention the falsehood others are spreading, and then describe the correct information. Putting the truth first and last capitalizes on the cognitive capacity of people to remember beginnings and endings more than middles. “1. Start with the truth. The first frame gets the advantage,” Lakoff has advised on the social media platform X. “2. Indicate the lie. Avoid amplifying the specific language if possible. 3. Return to the truth. Always repeat truths more than lies.” -Psychology today

5. The light is returning but these times are dark.

6. Where have all the flowers gone? The girls have picked them every one. Where have all the young girls gone? Gone for husbands everyone. Where have all the young man gone? Gone for soldiers everyone. Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards, everyone. Where have all the graveyards gone? Gone to flowers, everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn? – Pete Seeger

7. After listening to the song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone,’ I googled ‘where do all the lies go?’ and the AI Overview answered this: Based on theological perspectives, lies and habitual lying are said to lead to severe spiritual consequences, often described as leading to “the Fire” or a lake of fire as a form of divine judgment for wickedness and disobedience. The accumulation of falsehoods is seen as leading to spiritual destruction and separation from divine truth.

8. Don’t shoot black men / for traffic violations / Don’t take Christmas pictures / of your children with AR15s / Don’t poison earth’s apples / Don’t drop bombs on people! / Don’t be fooled by a flag / or ruled by a fool – Read my poem 10 Commandments for the 21st Century in its entirety HERE.

9. Jeff Bennett, who stands 6’ 3” shared some family stories, including one about his enslaved third great grandfather who was 7 foot tall, and who, because of his physical build, was used as a “stock man” to breed with women, an inhumane practice of the times that was imposed on Black women and men. Bennett figures that one of his African ancestral lines, discovered through an Ancestry DNA test, the Senegambia region (Senegal and Gambia) is known for tall people and is likely responsible for his family’s tendency to be tall. He has cousins who are 7 feet. Questions and comments were freely expressed during the hour-long talk. Many included regional and local references on Black schools, Black community displacement (including his father’s community in the Bellevue Hill community of Danville), segregation, integration and shared ancestry. Bennett spoke of large regional family reunions attended by both Black and White people…. – Read my story for Floyd Times on Jeff Bennett and his new book The Black Belt HERE.

10. “And here’s the part no one in Trump’s orbit will say out loud: he is not steering policy, he is performing identity. Conflict is branding. Militarization is marketing. Threats are content. War is leverage. Lives are props. Diplomacy is optional. Reality is inconvenient. Strategy is irrelevant. The only metric is dominance optics and personal survival.” Michael Jochum

11. “The mirror is here; it is not perfect, it is not identical, it is not a simplistic copy, but it is recognizable. The question is not whether Trump is Hitler; the question is whether we recognize the machinery of authoritarianism early enough to keep it from becoming our normal. We are writing that answer together, every day.” Mary Geddry, journalist

12. What is it good for? HERE 

13. I’m speechless.

______________Thirteen Thursday