having a tiny piece of apple peel or tortilla chip stuck between two of my ever-so-slightly crooked teeth and then finally dislodging it after a long volley of intense tongue and fingernail attempts is definitely one of the most satisfying feelings i get to experience on a humdrum wednesday afternoon. it’s good to be alive sometimes.

this is on a completely different note and a little long, but i had to write something — i have developed this recent fixation on michael moore. this comes right at a time when everyone is probably sick of hearing the comments on his little oscar speech, but my interest isn’t really with that incident as much as with the man himself. see, the opinions seem to be so split on him one way or the other, with a lot of liberals loving him and what he stands for, and a lot of conservatives deriding him, his credibility, his methods, his ideas, his work as a whole… i don’t know how to feel.

i liked his book, and liked his movie quite a lot. i enjoyed them and i laughed and they made me think about current politics — these are all things i’m sure he wanted his audience to do. a lot of the criticisms of both are to the imcompleteness of the information and the picture he paints though, which makes me wonder if i liked his works because they were what i wanted to hear, but that what i wanted to hear isn’t fully true or is at least slanted.

but then i thought, what if it is slanted? is that the worst crime a man can commit, to make a documentary with an angle, or to write a book offering his own perspective on the statistics and facts available? in a time where corporations run most media channels — enormous conglomerates with interests in everything and at the same time power to filter the information we receive — how can we blame someone for wanting to mount an opposition? even if his set of facts aren’t full, at least they offer an opposing set of partial truths to the ones you might get from another more right-wing source, right? the people who are easily led at least get something to counter what is tugging at them from the other end of the spectrum, and those who are more intellectually independent seek out further information to either support or disprove what they saw in a movie (yes, a movie, which could stem into an entire new discussion on what we expect from film as far as ‘reality’ goes).

but the point is, either way, at least information is being transferred, which in the end was the whole point, wasn’t it? i see no reason why moore or his opponents wouldn’t want people to be motivated to find out more on their own, even if it eventually meant having their original claims refuted. i’m sure the intent behind the film or the book was to spark interest and inspire curiosity more than it was to provide the all-encompassing guide to violence in america, or uncover the full and final ‘true story’ of current american politics. a skeptical public is the best kind of public, isn’t it?

my real problem is the outright distrust i’ve developed of all information sources outside myself. thanks to the constant barrage of disagreeing viewpoints available to me, i no longer believe any statistic offered to me no matter what the source, and i don’t entirely believe any news story no matter who the teller. it always goes back to the method of collection of data or the source of information, which you never really know, and can never fully trust.

this is why i almost never argue, only absorb, because i hate to take a stand on something i’m not sure of, and i have come to a point where i am sure of nothing. how do i know the source of moore’s statistics is any more or less credible than those of his detractors? i don’t. and i never will. i suppose this is what you could call growing up in a media-saturated world. whereas some people are now victim to it all and believe everything they hear, which is sad but i’m guessing true in some cases, i go the opposite way and grow to believe nothing i hear about anything. i know there is a war. i know people are dying and things are exploding. i know people with power are doing things without telling me, because that’s how it has always been and i don’t expect it to be any different today. the details, however, are all subject to change, depending who you ask.

i want to know everything but all i’m really sure of is that it isn’t possible. socratic maturity at age 22; i don’t know if that’s an achievement or a tragedy.

[now hearing this: i could tell you but i would just be lying anyway.]