The Confirmation Bias

I've decided I have impeccable timing.  Apparently I don't need to read the news--because if the last few weeks have been any indication, I know whats going to happen before it actually does.

I had a song stuck in my head.  I didn't know who sang it.  Or any words.  All I knew is it had a freaking sweet saxophone solo.  Using the reasoning that sax solos in pop music were big in the 70s and 80s, that narrowed my search.  After searching a few minutes on Google  I found it.  Because someone had posted an article literally five minutes before that the artist had died that morning.  I mean tragic that he died an all (that sax solo was genius) but seriously that I would be looking for it the day he died?  Odds?  Not super high.

RIP Gerry Rafferty

I was thinking all about knick-knacks and how they are the worst.  Me and C were talking about them, which led to my ranty blog on the subject.  Now when it got to the landfill section I felt inspired by the tidbit about Michigan.  It was a complaint that I remembered people having when I was there, so I looked it up before I posted it (Because making sure everything I say is PC has always been super high on my priority list) and ever so conveniently the first result for "michigan paid canada landfill" was a news article written the day before about how Ontario voluntarily agreed (how else would they agree?  We can hardly gag and tie them--literally forcing their hands to sign important documents... and even if we could we probably wouldn't waste the international incident on garbage.  Literal garbage.) to have some of their cities stop sending trash.  How serendipitous.  Apparently senators agree with me.  Or at least their constituents did and complained enough.  You say potato.

Also, that whole Prince William+Kate Middleton thing... One day my landlady was freaking-out excited at me about the whole thing.  We got to watch some hour-long special on the news about it.  Can I just say that I thought they already were engaged?  Had been for months?  But then I always forget that my life-long friendship with Kate allows me to know things like that far before the general public.  Or at least glancing at tabloid covers as I go through the line at the grocery store.  It's one of the two.

And iPhone?  I thought everyone knew a new generation would be coming out in the fall.  No.  Seriously.  Everyone didn't know?

*When we convince ourselves that outcomes, results, and all-out conclusions occur because of an illogical instance, and we choose to hold as evidence only instances where-in our theory holds true and ignore all others.  This is what psychology, logic, and a million other disciplines refer to as the Confirmation Bias.  However, courtrooms call it a case.  Feel free to apply whenever you think someone's argument may be using said bias.

Raspberry Beret

Confession: I have spent more than my fair share of time this last term in secondhand stores.

Really the only response to your look filled with disbelief and derision, is: I know, right?  I honestly can't even defend myself here.

That being said, it's one thing to buy an item here or there--practical jokes, white elephants, oddly-themed costume parties, (and some normal-themed costume parties)--but what's the deal with actually shopping there?  I know; budgets, blah blah blah.  But really?  Other than being used and smelly, the only thing that all the non-clothing merchandise has in common is that they're basically knick-knacks.

Knick-knacks (kk) have to be one of the more curious of human inventions.  With the exception of very few items, they serve no real function.  Have you ever seen anyone actually use a decorative spoon?  Answer=no.  So what's the point?  On the surface their sole purpose seems to be reminders of past experience.  But really, they mostly exist to prove to other people who hold stock in such things that the person who owns the kks is traveled, cultured... or at least has a lot of money.  All things we tend to respect as a society.  Seriously, the person who came up with the idea of selling commemorative junk... I don't know if they should be congratulated for their entrepreneurial spirit, or shot for their disservice to humanity.  

Regardless, we all seem to have them (myself included)

Visted Yellowstone?  Bought a t-shirt.

Washington D.C.?  WA Monument Spoon

Rushmore?  Mini ceramic replica

With every vacation your house fills with them.  As you slowly drown in your "collectibles" eventually everyone (with the exception of class 5 hoarders) will reach a point where they finally convince themselves they aren't betraying someone's memory by getting rid of the kks.

Unfortunately, at this point in the knick-knack life cycle, there aren't a lot of options.  Some people feel the need to share their old junk with people they don't know.  This is where garage sales came from.  There are not enough "why's" in the world to express my horror at this activity.  Its bad enough to buy your kks first hand on location, but to buy someone else's?  There is no nice way to say this.  Buying someone's knick-knacks is buying their old discarded junk.  It's meaningless, often broken, and usually not very attractive.  It was literally one foot in the garbage can before you decided to step in and rescue it.  Please note: items not purchased get donated, or sent to the landfill.  Which leads me to other kk relocation options.  

Donations?  Isn't this how I started the whole rant?  And it has the same problem as garage sales.  No one should want to buy other people's kks.  I just don't understand why this ever seems like a good idea.

Landfills?  For the less environmentally inclined.  Yeah--like we need more things in there.  Did you know that the State of Michigan gets paid to have other place's trash sit in their landfills?  Including places like New Jersey (The dirtiest state--which is ironic considering it's garden status).  And Canada.  Yes, for years Ontario cities have been trucking their trash to Michigan, causing the unfortunate nick-name "the Great Waste State".  

World... enough is enough.  It's time for an intervention.  

Enter the Knick-Knack Rehabilitation Program.  Take your used knick-knacks to a rehabilitation center.  The kind people there will restore the knick-knacks to their former glory (cough) and send those magnets and mini ceramic replicas back to whence they came. Where they can be resold at gift shops for a whole new group of suckers to buy into.  So, although homes will continue to be plagued by the stuff, at least the landfills will be emptier.  Plus you get the green credit of actually doing the whole reduce-re-use-recycle thing.  Repurposing and renovating is way more points on the social green hierarchy than donating.  (If you don't think there is a social green hierarchy... welcome to the bottom of the food chain)

Caveat: People with no money and college students (not necessarily mutually exclusive), have free-reign to buy things at second-hand stores,  just not knick-knacks... there's no reason for it.  Small children who have not reached the age of accountability are allowed to want knick-knacks, both new and used.  They don't know the difference.

Cosmic Chaos

Okay.  I've been trying to figure out this situation so I can summarize it as accurately as possible.


"An astrological controversy erupted online Thursday after a newspaper article erroneously suggested that the dates that determine the Zodiac signs had shifted by about a month, throwing millions of believers into self-doubt and panic."


Astrological controversy?  Isn't that like an oxymoron?  Or at least some sort of double-negative.  I was currently under the impression that astrology was already a controversy.  But hey who am I to judge.


So the skinny is that apparently the Earth is on a tilted axis (I know, groundbreaking, right?).  Because of this tilt I guess the world doesn't line up with certain constellations anymore.  So some genius decided to move back all the dates and add a new sign.  New, as-in a sign they supposedly used in Babylon like 3000 years ago.  All I'm sayin' is they got rid of it for a reason.  All those poor kids born under the sign of Ophiuchus.  Especially since now their new sign may no longer exist... again.


 Astrologers and astronomers, in an unprecedented display of unity  have refuted this new Zodiac.  Mostly by saying that they have been taking into account the Earth's tilt since they noticed back in 130 BC.  (Wow.  Sticking around for 2000 years to defend the Zodiac.  That is one dedicated guy.)  Also that anyone can look out the window at night and tell you that the constellations don't match up with the current sign.


Speaking of.  I'm inclined to agree--mostly for two reasons.  First, did someone really think that a celestial shift like that just happened over night?  Seriously?  Second.  Does it really matter if the constellation lines up with the current sign?  I mean, April 16th in Sydney has the same sign as April 16 in Seattle--but clearly those two sides of the world can't see the same sky at the same time.  Which leads me to believe it never really made that much of a difference to begin with.  


Hopefully there are no long-term repercussions from this interplanetary incident.  I'm imagining some kid twelve years from now trying to figure out her star sign and not being able to find any info on Ophiuchus.   Leading to Freudian-type identity issues as these impressionable youth of the next generation are unable to figure out what their personalities and futures are supposed to be.  Luckily, Gen X is skeptical enough to not have fallen for all the nonsense in the first place, and optimistic Gen Y complacently decided  that, good news, now there was a whole new group of people they were compatible with.


So, although the familiar Zodiac signs have been restored to their proper places, maybe this foray into the unknown was good for us.  Teaching us that anything can, and often does, change.


Or, as James Poniewozik said, "I'm not a Cancer? Suddenly all those bigoted anti-Gemini pamphlets I self-published look embarrassing."*


*As Mr. Hall tells us, Tolerance is always a good lesson... even when it comes from nowhere."