Let’s end the week on a sweet note: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/police-probing-quebec-maple-syrup-heist-worth-up-to-30-million/article4510740/
Talk about a gift to screenwriters. This heist is just waiting for a lighthearted treatment: a Ben Stiller caper comedy about bumbling geniuses – failed sugar shackers, perhaps – who realize it’s less work stealing the stuff than making it.
You gotta think it was an inside job. You don’t secretly transport millions in syrup. My guess is the cops will have the night watchman in a secluded cell, waiting for him to crack.
Ever meet someone who will believe anything? Maybe they have an underdeveloped one of these: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/08/24/research-pinpoints-brains-gullibility-center
Here’s an article about the reason’s we procrastinate: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19389707
My favourite way to procrastinate? Working on this blog, of course.
Got a phone call at the office the other day: a report of, for lack of a better term, a UFO. The person didn’t want the report to be made public, unless other people called in with the same information. The caller sounded sincere, and the phenomenon described sounded inexplicable. In other words, it sounded like the person had seen a real outer space UFO.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think for a second that aliens visited Cumberland County this week.
It’s a tricky conundrum I’ve run into before: a sincere person (as far as you can tell) relates an experience you don’t believe could have happened. Maybe they tell you they saw a ghost, or a dead relative spoke to them; or they saw a UFO. Sometimes it’s even someone you know, someone you believe wouldn’t lie to you. Yet the evidence against what they’re saying is so overwhelmingly solid, they can’t be telling the truth.
What are we to do with this? Honestly, I’m a bit baffled. The only conclusion I can come to is the people are mistaken in what they perceived or they’re lying. Which do I believe: millions of people are capable of lying (to themselves or other people) – or millions of people, in our era of cameras and technology everywhere, have failed to produce enough compelling videos documenting these phenomena to prove they’re real?
Of course, maybe the spacemen are using their space powers to prevent documentary evidence accumulating…
Finally, courage and conviction comes in many forms: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195876/Nils-Pickert-German-father-wears-womens-clothing-solidarity-cross-dressing-year-old-son.html
Forget the issue of cross-dressing for a moment – “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” - but focus instead on individuality and integrity. This five-year old boy should not be bullied, and should not be forced to conform to a gender role he’s not happy with just to make his neighbours happy. Given that, what’s the right thing for a parent to do? Support his kid 100-per cent. Yes, I might opt to do that by repeatedly getting into squabbles with the people who are denigrating my child; he opted to do it by donning a skirt (not a new garment choice for him, anyway). And honestly, his method is probably more effective.
EDIT: No, no one complained - yet. But it occurred to me I was being overly harsh in saying people who swear to sightings of ghosts or UFOs must be liars. I need to allow that they really did see something they thought was inexplicable, but actually has an explanation they just don't know or can't imagine. People really do see strange lights in the sky, but it turns out there's a logical explanation.
