It is important in today’s world that we stay open-minded.

During the previous election cycle, Facebook friends of mine were posting wholesale declarations that basically stated, “If you like Donald Trump, or if you in any way support his racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic views—do me a favor and unfriend me!”

I am open-minded enough to understand where these people were coming from. The initial thought was “How could I possibly be friends with anyone who is so inherently mean-spirited?” But, for those of us who have to get out from behind our computers and go to work, we have discovered that there is a third dimension to a lot of these people, and not every one of them is racist or sexist.

I don’t particularly understand how that is, I just realize that it is.

Presently, in New York, we are dealing with weather I don’t ever remember experiencing before. It has fluctuated between five and eight degrees for the last two weeks. The current wisdom among meteorologists and other science-minded people is that this unprecedented weather is a direct result of global warming which is being accelerated by the American population.

If you do not believe this, I suggest you look it up. The statistics say that although Americans make up only four percent of the world’s population, we consume 24 percent of the world’s energy. To put it another way, if every country on earth consumed as much as we do, we’d need four planets to accommodate everyone.

If you care to look at the right-leaning news sources, you will notice that many of them think this is bunk. Of course, we shouldn’t forget that many of the people who watch right-wing news and listen to right-wing radio have absolutely no problem believing that women were invented using a rib from a man and two characters named Abraham and Sarah, both 100-years-old and 90-years-old respectively, gave birth to a child.

Let’s just agree that one of the beauties of America is that we are totally free to place our beliefs in any arbitrary thing we set our mind to. Then we have the more progressive people…

One day you will notice that they might be posting screenshots of tweets from climate deniers, complete with snarky caption of how idiotic these people are, and the next day they will be lamenting the end of a love relationship or their computer crashing, and damning that pesky Mercury retrograde.

According to NASA though, Mercury is not really orbiting backward, it only appears to be. It’s kind of like when you see someone driving a car with alloy wheels and they appear to be spinning backward instead of forward. It’s a trick of perception. I’m not entirely sure how this relates to electronic devices or relations between people falling afoul, but I stay open-minded. I’m sure it’s entirely possible.

As for me though, I like to stay on the safe side…I don’t believe in anything.

~

Author: Billy Manas
Image: The Prestige/YouTube
Editor: Lieselle Davidson
Copy/Social Editor:  Khara-Jade Warren