CAN THIS INCIDENT SHOW US WHAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN WRONG? ..May 29, 2020

The Minnesota governor  appears to honestly speak now.  And  strive to acknowledge  the seriousness of George Floyd's death. And to teach, not threaten  or preach, that if civil order is not found now  there will be no justice for anyone.

Can America actually take this moment to face our long history  of injustice to people of color? Do we have yet, so civil disobedience can end in Minneapolis, confidence  in ourselves and courage  to act strongly and clearly  enough to this to bring equal  justice for all?.

This question is before us, no matter how uncomfortable: I don't see how there can be any honest person who does not ask her/himself, " If the nation had seen a white person treated as George Floyd  was would someone have already been arrested while careful investigation proceeds? "  The world will watch again  now for that to happen or not.

It appears , to many persons, from   video evidence that an unarmed bound American citizen, George Floyd,  has been murdered by a policeman, while other policemen  watch his death. That is grounds for arrests to follow quickly. Then time can be had for establishing guilt or not in court. Right hearted  professional  law officers would be as determined in this outcome  as any citizen.

Are Americans agreed that arrest should come as swiftly for any color of person in America?  Hopefully we will see that  our determination for equal justice is alive. Each American needs to Express themselves as well as they can to each other as this unfolds.

If the answer to the  question regarding arrest  is yes, then we can clearly understand, more of us can  really get it,  why Minneapolis is burning. We must face ourselves and our history of  thousands of times across our land when justice has come slow and often never to protect persons of dark skin compared to fair skin.

If we dont face this  simple  historical American reality than our  incapacity to learn what our own personal and collective  lives teach us can naturally destroy us.

FEW WHITE PERSONS CAN YET HONESTLY SAY WE ARE AGAINST RACISM..May 30, 2020

Unarmed, bound, black man George Floyd was murdered  wide openly while other policemen watched. Sadly there is much racism , treating people of color different under the law, in our world. The law has not given dark skin persons the same protections as the fair skinned.

 I think there is little question  that these things  are far more likely to happen to persons with dark skin. There is still embedded in white America that black persons do not deserve equal treatment by the law. Somehow they are not equally valued when the rubber meets the road.

White persons have long often vented their own frustrations on to dark skinned people. It's as if we think they should not be here.  They are in our way,  not fellow equal  contributing citizens. We call in troops when rioters threaten violence . When will we call in highest  public forces to stop  routine violence  and injustice against people of color? Our weak responses are quite irrational and usually come from the  strong   emotional dark core of our political/social/legal systems.

 I too Cindy  wish it weren't so. I know Black parents have to teach their children to not expect equal treatment. They have to live daily knowing that and being more careful than a white person has to ever  consider.

I think we'd all do better to  not say , " I'm not racist" . I know as a child of the  segregated South that I'm far less racist than I once was. But it is unusual  to be white in America and not carry some racism that can surface any moment in us. Our strong insistance we are not often shows that we do not face it.

We'd make more  progress if we could consider ourselves  somewhere on a scale of racism. At one end actual hating,  abusing  and hurting others and the other where we are unwilling to acknowledge the problem and to go on record with others  as standing against it when it happens. And failing to always sadly hope we can help end it.

Its our American original sin that has yet to be set aside in how  the law on the street works. Sad. :(

SOMETHING BETTER THAN THE PAST IS POSSIBLE...May 21, 2020

Jung's reflections of nearly  a hundred years ago may have more to give when the conflicts, high  death rates and uncertainties of human life are more evident to more of us.

This surely  can have an awakening effect on sensitive persons. Like this moment of the Earth's humans facing the Coronavirus.

Of course many will be untouched and insist that our American type materialistic and competitive  values and handed down  notions of  an anthropomorphic God  are all we need.

Humans are capable of questioning these  values and we should. Something better than our past may be very needed and possible.

AN EVOLVING AND RELEVANT RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE...May 20, 2020

Here is a great and nearly still unnoticed paradox of human evolution in our 'Christian' world. Jung , like few, saw a century ago that the Christ Story lost its central benefit and wisdom  to humankind with the necessary coming of modern science beginning 400 years ago.

The original impact of the Christian teaching  promised and quite well provided a moral transforming power in the ancient Mediterranian world. A lifting up of the human spirit and culture.

C.G. Jung said,  "As at the beginning of the Christian Era, so again today we are faced with the problem of the moral backwardness which has failed to keep pace with our scientific, technical and social developments.

So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern man.

Is he capable of resisting the temptation to use his power for the purpose of staging a world conflagration?

Is he conscious of the path he is treading, and what the conclusions are that must be drawn from the present world situation and his own psychic situation?

Does he know that he is on the point of losing the life-preserving myth of the inner man which Christianity has treasured up for him?

Does he realize what lies in store should this catastrophe ever befall him?

Is he even capable at all of realizing that this would be a catastrophe?

And finally, does the individual know that he is the makeweight that tips the scales? "~Carl Jung; The Undiscovered Self; Page 78.


So the Christ story was both the nurse maid of modern science but also lost most of its  relevance to morally transform persons and cultures with the growth of that science. In this psychological sense science is an 'Anti Christ' and has already been this long with us.  It had to be this way. We now are psychologically and spiritually the result of this paradoxical mutual gain and loss. This is a central evolving process for us right now.

We gained materially by leaps from science's basic hypothesis that the only reality is the material world.  With that came the grand rush of knowledge of all things material and external, and the ever streaming technology. World-wide humans were  rightly dazzled by it. Some benefitted from this far more than others. Science alone lacks any moral or ethical foundation or judgment as a branch of human learning. It generates physical facts and correlating principles and is coldly amoral.

Some Christian well wishers may have wanted to give  God the credit for science.  But actually it was accomplished by purposely removing  the anthropromorphic  traditional God from the hypothesis of science. That is how science does it wonders. Adding an interfering  God being  factor would destroy its objectivity. Paradoxes never cease in this world. And these science wonders are limited precisely to half of human experience, the material.

But many also now deeply sense in recent decades that humanity has lost its inner self, it's own soul. At the heart of the Christ Story is that there is a non material factor which is where the Human and Divine actually connect. It is this irrational half of human life that science disconnected us from. The part of life that in ancient times was the world of the living spirits and Gods. It is what gave and still gives life its  spiritual zest and exhilaration.

This other half of human reality reality is  also heard in Paul's teaching about the 'inner man', the truer fuller man who is both material and spiritual.  It is heard in Jesus' reference to a 'kingdom not of this world' that is 'within the human'  and the paradoxical  irrational nature of a 'new birth.'

Science, which is so much in all of us now, necessarily abhors including such a non material factor for it threatens the high ground of the materialistic hypothesis of science that has so rightly captured our confidence.

The hypothesis of Paul and Jesus adds to the kind of knowledge science achieves by reminding humans that we are also a spiritual  phenomenon. And that the Christ story has always promised it is natural for our inner person, as adults, to potentially be ' transformed' and to usher in a far more loving, responsible  and caring world. A world that places a far higher value on cooperation among humans  than 'science /technology only' whose primary motivator becomes  greed and competition for the Earth's  finite resources.

And so the several hundred years of war and tension between science and religion, Christ and its opposite 'Anti Christ' goes incompleted and won by neither side alone. For  the reality must be there is both the physical outward reality and the inner non physical spiritual one. And these still contending opposites now seek an evolutionized hope based harmony with each other.  A grand union of opposites to a transcendent 'third ' reality. This describes a 'new world' coming into view perhaps in some of our youths' life times.

None of this means anything has ultimately gone wrong. It is a grand example of how the paradoxical mind of evolution has done its work in bringing humans to the present state of consciousness. A state where we might see how centrally important this new consciousness of ours is to be in helping shape the evolution of the world's future.

Again, the Christ Story after remarkably transforming the ancient Western world to a higher plane of consciousness and culture,  paradoxically gave birth to its opposite: Science which strengthened the human capacity to explore and take much control of the physical world.  And now  materialistic science, absent the Spirit that birthed it, has brought us to a sterile technological world with very little sustaining joy, harmony, deep fascination  or  soul.

What's next? Humans  need to keep what science has taught us and somehow reclaim what was lost from ourselves, our soul life, to make that monumental achievement possible. Now required by evolution is a return to a trust in the reality of the 'inner person' which as the Christ Story claimed can be transformed to a fuller expression of the meaning of being human. This  requires the courage to return to a place in the collective mind that most of us have never been, but that our ancient forebears, before science , experienced in their own way.

Such confidence in the inner spiritual reality along with affirmation of our physicality makes possible a ' new kind of  person' , a fuller more complete human.  Or as Jung suggests here a more *four dimensional human. The human who is not only of this world via science  but is also in fuller union with the cosmos and with the Divine.

The new discovery now waiting as a 'pearl of great price' is that humans now need a broader more inclusive hypothesis of reality. That humans are both a physical and spiriual phenomenon, both mind and living soul.  We are only half if either is ignored by our own bias.

This I think is the kind of hope that can still be resurrected to humanity from the Christ Story with no attack or invalidation, but inclusion of and cooperation with, the other major world religions.

*Note by Jung on human transformation. "Rebirth, you receive the immortal soul you at first did not possess, you are a twice-born. Like Jesus you are now no longer a simple personality, but a non-personality or symbolic personality, you now belong to the entire world, which is somewhat more important than the role of being the son of Joseph and Marie!

Manipura is the center of identification with God, where one is part of the divine substance. You are now already part of timelessness, no longer merely 3-dimensional, but now belonging to a fourth-dimensional order of things where space does not exist and time is not – but only eternity exists. We see a new image of ourselves." Carl Jung

MANY AMERICANS ARE SHOWING DISCIPLINED COOPERATION..May 19, 2020

It's good to be reminded many persons and groups are still maturely doing what is right. Keep it up. This is not over at all. We may find some healthy habits we will want to keep even.

A NEW EPOCH DAWNING FROM OUR CHAOS...May 15 2020

I think this well describes, as daunting as it sounds,  the  long time developing present psychological /spiritual state of at least Western humanity.

But Jung also anticipated a change in this isolated condition could be at hand. Tildehard de Chardin called it an enfolding of humanity onto itself. A state of great chaos and animosity which though could awaken us to our higher values, a higher consciousness and reconnect us to nature and to our actual place in the universe.  Humans will  cease to see themselves as competitors with each other but as cooperators with that which is much larger.

What has long sunk into unconsciousness may be quite a ways along to coming back into consciousness now ... first to a person here and to one there throughout the world.

Until there is truly a new epoch to appear, ones that last generally for about 2000 years before becoming irrelavant for the new needs of humanity. Christian symbolism and the  physical/natural science it inspired have been the dominant living symbols in the West for that long. What the new ones arriving from our collective unconacious via natural evolutionary paths no one can know. But it will to very many seem new and much better to us than anything has been before.

We will lose our strong nostalgia or longing  for 'good old days'. We will be most glad for the 'new creation'

AMERICA BEFORE HAS TRUSTED IN COMPETENCE AND HONESTY..May 15, 2020

It's pretty clear Presidents Trump and Xi, to varying degrees with Trump being more, did what a very common human weakness does when faced with bad damaging news: They did not face the reality, danger and consequences of the Coronavirus and held truth from the people dependent on them for that.

That weakness in a person then turns automatically to their only way out, to blame others for their own lack of facing truth and acting on it with their governing power for the benefit and protection of the people. This is the path that President Trump is taking and President Xi to a lesser degree.

For small people this is expected but for ones who formally vowed to protect their countries as the top officer it is nothing short of a betraying cowardice. It is a leader not facing the truth  at their crucially appointed time as a nation's leader.

America, more deeply and obstinately than China, was deserted by its top official when his courage was most needed. Nothing can change this in history now. The more the facts are combed through the more glaring this lack of rising to the occasion with truth and courage  will become.

In spite of this governing  leadership  blundering at the federal level the American people with a scattered leadership style( a real leader here and there) will find it's way through this.  And I'm counting on will have relearned that Qualified, Competent, Honest leadership in the central government is how America has always thrived the best.

This principle is at the core of America's best past and it's best destiny as a nation of descent reliable persons in the world. If enough people learn to vote for this principle at every election  the Coronavirus will be understood as a harsh  but perfect gift for our awakening. There never is any real awakening  of the human heart without a preceding most unwelcome harshness. It is how human nations learn their biggest  lessons or they become the refuse of social evolution.

WHEN THE PERSONAL SITUATION SEEMS HOPELESS...May15, 2020

Wouldn't it be good to be able to live by such  ancient, and I think timeless, wisdom and with such confidence in the personal psyche  being so connected to the  World Psyche?  To  sometimes choose to wait, not in fear but confidence,  and do the work at hand.  And grow into what is to be. One would simply never be hopeless.

C.G. Jung said, "Often we are led to a wall, it is too high, we cannot get over it and we stand there and stare at it.

Rationalism says, “There is no getting over it, just go away.”

Yet natural development has led the patient up to an almost impossible situation to show him that this is the end of his rational solutions.

It is meant that he should get there, and perhaps stay there, make roots and grow like a tree; in time overcome the obstacle, grow over the wall.

There are things in our psychology that cannot be answered today.

You may be up against a stone wall but you should stay there and grow, and in six weeks or a year you have grown over it.
The I Ching expresses that beautifully.

A similar situation which looks quite hopeless is depicted thus: “a goat butts against a hedge and gets its horns entangled.”
But in the next line: “The hedge opens; there is no entanglement/ Power depends upon the axle of a big cart.”

So if you could stop butting against the fence you would not get your horns entangles, and presently you would have the power of a cart with four wheels.

There is another way in nature, the way of a tree…The tree stands still and grows and makes roots and eventually overcomes the obstacle." C.G. Jung. The Seminars. Volume One, Dream Analysis: Notes of the seminar given in 1928-30. p.249

Jung believed that Western women find hope in themselves and their situation far more readily than men. Men generally  have the deeply ingrained notion that their ego will is all there is to open up a new way.  You might call that the John Wayne complex.

SENIORS AND CORONOVIRUS....May 12, 2020

Since seniors are very  literally threatened by   this virus it is good to reflect on the meaning and lessons of being old and growing more so.

 It should be clear to us that we have made a god of youth in America despite it being only a near unconscious beginning of a long path.

Carl Jung, at 85 yrs.,reflecting on the aging process:

“Old age is only half as funny as one is inclined to think.

It is at all events the gradual breaking down of the bodily machine, with which foolishness identifies as ourselves.

It is indeed a major effort– the magnum opus in fact– to escape in time from the narrowness of its embrace and to liberate our mind to the vision of the immensity of the world, of which we form an infinitesimal part.

In spite of the enormity of our scientific cognition we are yet hardly at the bottom of the ladder, but we are at least so far that we are able to recognize the smallness of our knowledge.

The older I grow the more impressed I am by the frailty and uncertainty of our understanding, and all the more I take recourse to the simplicity of immediate experience so as not to lose contact with the essentials, namely the dominants which rule human existence throughout the millenniums.“ (C.G.Jung Letters 2. 1951-1961. p.580)

It is a  sad sign of human ignorance where a senior races to not look old. If we are given to reach old age it surely , besides finally giving us a way to experience  genuine humility, must be a wondrous opportunity for a reach at wisdom which is simply not present till well after midlife.  I wish I could say that most seniors reach for these things  but many stopped the climb at middle life, giving up on the possibility that the truly best was yet to come.

Here an elderly Jung reflects on late life's unparalleled opportunities. These are not easy for any senior to Express to youth. It would not be heard anyway.

THE PRESIDENT AGAINST THE PEOPLE?..May 15, 2020

The President's and his strongly supportive VP's  less than enthusiastic attitude toward doing the things known to help slow the  virus should be troubling to all Americans .

But human nature being what it is the persons who really believe, from most sound information, they could  easily die a very suffering death  if they were contracted  by Coronavirus are most concerned.

Such persons are extremely offended by how the president , and his staff, on whom he presses his behaviors, blatantly refuses, as if it were a  weakness, to social distance from each other and  from other  public contacts. Many lame excuses he gives.The same is true of his childish defiance to wear a mask in public or in his offices. This while half heartedly, wink-wink,   saying common folks should.

Just as  offensive is how the President has  from the start dampened the importance of testing. He gradually has seen the importance of testing for himself , now daily, while downplaying any urgency of getting testing for the public, you and me.

Science is united that adequate testing, whether to benefit the president or common folks,  is the essential ingredient in any intellectually serious defense of the virus. The rest is social media  non expert opinion. Make no mistake about this. To reject that is to be an anti -science person in 2020, no less than persons who refused small pox  or polio vaccinations once discovered by science.

This article is a wake up to seniors, most of whom by the way   do not wish  either to die  suffering a preventable cause, should be clear eyed that their lives are being consided expendable by the President and a wide swath of political leaders..

Mr Trump is  well  into  senior  status and  seems to now realize  that he  needs these scientifically proven measures to protect him.( two in his circle now have the Coronavirus). I doubt he's asking himself if  other seniors should rightly expect a similar medical based care, not his spontaneous absurd  anti-science hunches.

Nature is proving again she is no respector of persons and only real substantiated science  does she respect in biological matters.. My God how any 6th grade graduate should possess and practice this common knowledge.

Mr President and others who are becoming  progressively more nonchalant  about this threat, to some more than others including seniors, wake up!

Do for others as you are doing for yourself. This is the  fundamental conservative nature of basic communal character for any President and any citizen.

WHY EVEN SMART PEOPLE SOMETIMES BELIEVE CONSPIRACY THEORIES. .May 8, 2020

In times of radical change and chaos,  some of it created purposely  by powerful persons as a smoke screen for mishieveousness, the cultural atmosphere is ripe for  provocative untrue conspiracy theories.   They often appeal to specific political persuasions.

No one can protect us  from such  serious   breaks with reality but our own diligence. We cant just always trust what weve always trusted. We are experiencing a high level unknown  and  change presently.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200406-why-smart-people-believe-coronavirus-myths?ocid=ww.social.link.facebook&fbclid=IwAR1sK5BNTjQxQfxbCS8Naf4TGB04EsqZwPTNu2s2xt7Gy7AibICkNnupig4

 It's not just a matter of  normal intelligence that  can assure us we are on a soundly informed  social path.  Smart   people also get misguided.

It can be healthy to hear a person who is not Americam describe what they see happening to us and our judgment about our changing situation.  He is an experienced well trained journalust and author. So I post this.

HUMANS MAY LEARN LIFE IS NOW ABOUT COOPERATION-NOT COMPETION...May 9, 2020

Teilhard de Chardin, life-long Catholic priest often in exile by his church for his scientific rigor,  and world renown paleontologist has left  us a most positive informed explanation of  the days we are in.

He speaks of humanity, after first spreading across the whole Earth,  is now enfolding in on itself.

This at first causes  chaos and  strong resentments as we are pushed by nature to "know each other' more than we wish. We are in each others backyard, in each others face.. This process  can never be reversed no matter how  many in  fearful panic  and violence would try.  These are our difficult,  but for de Chardin, times of hopeful  transition

Eventually  though humans  will learn by life experience  the truth that we are all one, truly ' in this together.'  Over time humanity will become a far more  heart- felt unity without losing authentic uniqueness.

Humans will have  learned in natural ways of evolution to  hold each other in high respect, embracing  social, religious and political lifestyles of cooperation, not competition, for resources.. This  instead of our  long history of competition  constantly pitting humans against each other.

Few  wide minded  humble thinkers have presented such a hopeful view of the future of humankind as de Chardin. 1881-1955..We would be wise to listen to such modern prophet-like geniuses among us.

WE ARE MORE THAN EGO BUT EGO STRENGTH IS IMPORTANT...May 8, 2020

Basically Jung is here saying that during the  most bewildering times life brings that the human ego, that which we call "me'  is being challenged to forge itself into what is its intended destiny.

https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/05/08/carl-jung-it-is-important-to-affirm-ones-own-destiny-for-the-ego-to-endure/?fbclid=IwAR3iNwfFT28r1l7KnfWc3p9A30wSbVB1md9QJGceSCIiMFmkNTvOa

To walk this natural very 'down to Earth' path we are asked to not reject anything that is going on inside or outside of us. Here I wish to emphasize the inner life for that is the one we most often ignore.

Only by objectively noticing and allowing our most disconcertingly unpleasant and unexpected inner thoughts and dreams, images, questions,  even our judgments can the ego forge an enduring, truthful, indestructible by outer worldly forces, objective reality.

Its not a matter of  'if' these inner factors are ultimately true in outer reality but that they are  presently real and they are you, the most real and true unique you.

They are there to affect( create strong concrete honest emotion)  and form you into the truest most effective  'you' in the end. This is what nature or fate wants from and for each of us.

To not notice them, or treat them as nothing, to eschew them, to not value them  is to miss the greatest human opportunity.

But instead, no matter how at first unwelcome or fantastic, we can  choose to be 'dealing ' and deal making with them, with the inner world.(Recall the story of Jacob ' wrestling with the God'? ) To not  wrestle with our own inner world,  but giving most all of our energy to outer things, is how we turn away from our own one and only  personal destiny and our part of humanity's intended destiny.  It means missing the opportunity to become the authentic person  we are here to be.  This is a human's greatest possible fulfillment.

That opportunity is easily and even understandably, for it is so difficult,  missed entirely or is embraced at all different possible  levels of completeness.  It could never be completely won.

This is one of my efforts, using Jung, to describe the natural,  not supernatural though it can seem that way, process of closest becoming our destined unique life... to the extent which fate invites and allows.

We should strongly wish each other the very best in this personal endeavor for the more anyone achieves this the more we all do.  It is an 'all win or all lose' evolutionary process. This is very  far from the misguided American notion of  'mind or character competition with each other', often correctly called idividualism,  but instead individuation is a competition with one's self.

As it's said often these days, (and this is the greatest  gift, insight and lesson of the Coronavirus.) " We are ALL in this together." Oh if we could only know and live not only for our most complete self but also  intentionally for the good and well being of ALL.

Jung, and a few scattered others, in his work and rediscoveries of the inner world, and its relation to the outer one, was attempting to show how to go about this endeavor. And how such a wisdom and 'pearl of great price' is always trying to get our attention in each long and brief  day of our lives..

https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/05/08/carl-jung-it-is-important-to-affirm-ones-own-destiny-for-the-ego-to-endure/#.XrUw-69Ol-E

EVOLUTION NOW INSISTS ON COOPERATION, NOT COMPETITION.. May 3, 2020

The  imperfect mind of evolution , with the expansion of human consciousness in recent centuries, has changed its emphasis and its demand on us humans.

Successful evolution and nature itself now requires humans to intentionally and compassionately participate in the goal that evolution has in mind for the world.

It is no longer successful competition between humans and with nature that is required ( these are now our obstacles) but a surviving, intelligent and redeeming  cooperation. We are now called to be strongly 'for' humanity and the Earth.

BEST KNOWKEDGE- CORONAVIRUS IS NATURAL NOT FROM A LAB...March 4, 2020

It is important for world powers to  intelligently not start  finger pointing and blaming each other for this natural tragedy. No one has handled it perfectly.

Serious national  leaders  should be using such a horrific event  on the earth to communicate,  collaborate  and stand against the true problem, the pandemic.

HOW UNNECESSARILY TREACHEROUS AND TRAGIC FOR OUR NATION.......May 7, 2020

I'm not easily alarmed about the foundations crumbling. I still carry a rather strong hope for the world and even this nation. But this strikes me as more than typical bad news.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-nw-coronavirus-trump-cdc-guidelines-on-reopening-20200507-6esn7tktrva6lamj7gyzvxzaqi-story.html

I think it is safe to say we are without morally courageous or fundamentally honest leadership at many top places of the federal government.. I'm concerned we are at great risk because that  failing leadership is being endorsed by many others  for self serving interests and lack of basic ethical character. 

C.G. Jung said (paraphrasing) his anima kept repeating, "Truth is strong and in the end will prevail." It seems in America the collective
inspiring  World Anima had best come through soon or  I'll  think something has even gone wrong with her. (In my cosmic view that would truly be an insurmountable crumbling of the very foundations. I don't think that will happen , at least not  at this point in cosmic evolution....thus my hope.)

 It seems we are spinning out of collective control. We seem like a seriously deranged person. We seem to be giving  the Coronavirus a very wide path to do us greater harm than otherwise  she could or should. I'm very alarmed, more than ever before for our  nation and the world.

The core of our young nation seems about to melt. Her structures have absorbed about all the dishonest and ignorant abuse she can withstand.. Similar to nature she is not without limits in cleansing herself. 

Everyone has become an expert via the social media world so the truly trained experts are no longer respected or listened to. That expertise is a hard won critical democratic resource from and  for our culture. It's a highest of egotistic behavior for citizens to reject it for quickly spun, spontaneous, non-expert opinion and conspiracy theories.

 If ever there were a time for, "Just the facts mam"...and the wisdom to apply them, this is it.