Smarter Every Day
I learned a valuable lesson last week. Better yet, I was reminded of a lesson I tend to offer others as a good idea for a lifetime of learning. Never ignore new information, even if your first instinct is, it is crazy. Sometimes knowledge that comes from sources you don’t want to listen to, or a person or group that makes you recoil, can, in fact, help you learn.
Last fall I recall hearing my favorite font of knowledge, Marjorie Taylor Green, say, “Yes, they can control the weather. It is ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
Of course, she was opining about Hurricane Helene targeting the red states along the Appalachian Mountains suggesting somehow “they” did this to the people in the region. She even went so far as to superimpose a voting map over the affected area to highlight how the storm tracked Republican districts. I gave her insight the attention I thought it deserved, almost none.
And then last week I learned that Florida legislators are advancing a bill that would ban the release of dangerous chemicals from planes; this follows Alabama and Tennessee who have also initiated or passed bills banning non-existent chemical releases. I will refrain from the easy jokes that can follow about these leading science driven states and their prowess for seeing ghosts around corners that don’t exist, but I digress.
Seriously, if the legislators say this is worthy of time and money, and Marjorie has decided “they” can control the weather, I figured I better get smart about this.
No longer can I rely on my dad and the question I asked when I was a child. “Dad, what are those clouds behind that plane?”
“That’s condensation from the plane. Moisture is freezing and causing the clouds to form. Pretty cool huh?”
Indeed, it was cool, and it was all I needed to know. Now I could look skyward and search for planes by looking for the clouds they created when they flew. I had never been on a plane, and it would be many years before I flew, but those clouds caused my imagination to flourish. As an adult, I still look up to see contrails and wonder where the plane is headed, and what those on board must be doing. Admittedly, today, I typically think to myself I am glad I am not on the plane.
Thanks to a wave of new information, my imaginary days are over. Now when I gaze on passing planes with trails of clouds, I must worry about the chemicals they are depositing in the sky. I believe the buzzword is now chemtrails. That’s sounds terrible. What are “they” doing? There is a lot to worry about these days, but this one has risen to the top of my list. I don’t want to have chemicals coming out of planes, I don’t want the air to be fouled by some mysterious group of people who are toying with me. I don’t want the weather to be impacted by “they.” And to think the weather pattern is in the hands of others, and The National Weather Service is being ripped apart by budget cuts, what are we going to do? Life is hopeless.
I should relax; we are in good hands. In November of 2023 a post on X claimed to release an audio tape of a whistleblower pilot. ‘The "whistleblower" in the video claimed that chemtrail pilots are chosen from the elite ranks of military pilots, are "hardened to humanity," and "could care less about killing off unwanted or leaching aspects of America and the world."’
The very thought of this brings chills to my spine, but we are safe. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to the post by saying, “We are going to stop this crime.”
Let’s take Kennedy at his word and unpack what must be happening for planes to be releasing chemicals into the air. We now know there are secret pilots who are pledged to some unknown group and spend their days flying the friendly skies poisoning us. But they can’t be acting alone, no they would need accomplices; they would need ground crew members to put the chemicals on the plane correctly so that the poison could be deployed. And what about how the chemical finds its way to the airport, someone must make it and transport it. Logistics aren’t easy, especially when others are watching. Oh yes, someone must produce what they need, and once produced, someone must pay for it. All this sounds like a lot to do, but I guess if you want to direct hurricanes, anything is possible.
However, the scale of this dangerous threat to us feels like a large undertaking. Did you know there are more than 45,000 domestic flights a day? That is a lot of flights and would require enormous coordination. After all, if they are poisoning us, I assume they are doing it on most flights? What is your guess; how many people must be a part of this for it to work and have somehow successfully kept it quiet? A thousand, ten thousand? I don’t know, but it’s a lot. Other than a mysterious whistleblower, no one has ever described anything like this. How “they” do this is more mysterious than how Santa flies around the world in one night, or how God worked wonders to create this world. To believe in God you need faith, in Santa childlike hope, and in chemtrails you must be stupid.
In December Kennedy said, “kind of frightening to think that somebody may be putting large amounts of bioavailable aluminum into the environment, spraying it in microscopic particulates from airplanes.”
Yes, it is. It is terrifying, and it is hogwash.
When Kennedy posted his “we are going to stop this statement,” 5.2 million people viewed that message. Come on people, enough is enough, we are creating a world full of idiots. Reasonable people can disagree about policy and that’s fine. It is called Democracy, and it still seems to work. What we must do is put a stop to the silliness of imagining a world that doesn’t exist.
I know when I write things like this it is almost like picking on Marjorie because she says so many things that are ludicrous; as my Momma would say, bless her heart. But she believes this crap and people who follow her believe it too.
Simple people sometimes want to ascribe simple answers to everything, they want to rationalize things which they don’t like, to fit a narrative that makes it easier for them or supports their agenda. I get that, but sometimes facts are facts and looking for monsters in the closet is fruitless.
I also find it amazing how often “they” is referenced. Yes, it begs the question, who are they? Believing in some fictional person, or a true person who holds unimaginable power is silly. In a literal sense, there is no “they.” Activities and conspiracies require people, often lots of people, to execute the fantasy portrayed. Believing in something because you piece together a fictional narrative means you believe in “they” and a group of people who work together to fool everyone.
Ok, the weather is volatile, and unpredictable, and bad things happen, but it doesn’t mean someone behind a curtain somewhere creates hurricanes to target blue collar Republicans. I choose to accept that the world is more random than we want to admit, and the reversion to the mean is real and given enough time it will normalize. We must stop seeking alternative answers to things that are understood as fact and seek answers regarding things that are truly unknown.
I love the pursuit of knowledge and accept there is so much we don’t know about the world. I also value the joy I got when Dad told me what caused those clouds in the sky. I want to get smarter every day. I am afraid we are heading in the other direction. Too many people in this country seem to make a habit of getting dumber each day.
Keep the fight for science and knowledge alive, and if you hear something that sounds crazy, it probably is.
