Should you believe what you read? More to the point, should you believe what I write? Seems like an easy answer. You're on the internet folks. If I can write something out here, so can others. Anybody, about anything, with any motive. I'm not going to complain. I've been cheering since the idea of WWW got through my scattered brain cells. No way for me to tell if what I read is true---unless I do my homework, use some common (or uncommon) sense, and make decisions based on those results. I like the idea of making up my own mind, based on what I can glean from multiple sources. And, Most Appealing, those sources are endless, now.
No longer must I depend on one local or national news anchor to tell me what the speech-maker meant by what he said. I can read an article at full length instead of getting sound bites. I can decide from peripheral articles whether their bias matches or challenges mine. I'm free!
But the major thing I want you to know, for your good and mine, is that I am a writer. I'm not a journalist. You may get an opinion. Or you could get a fact. Or, more likely, you will get whatever story is plaguing me to be born.
Occasionally, I will climb my soapbox to rant about something that I find stupid or unjust. Even at those times all you'll get is an op-ed. Don't ever swallow anything I say, whole. If I'm any good at writing at all, you will have trouble deciding whether something really happened, whether I invented it, whether I embellished it.... Don't agonize over it. Relax, enjoy the scenery while I take you for a ride. And if anything, ever, starts you thinking and wondering---I'm not just free, I'm elated.
That said, never doubt anything I tell you. You could end up with a bird messing up the paint on your vehicle, day after day after day. Those internet curses really work, you know, and the good-luck-wishes, and dialing your pin number backward.........
Okay, no more lecture. Tomorrow I entertain again.
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