On False News

Disinformation aka false news appears historically in 1939. Note the date. As a branch of intelligence, false news was deliberately spun to confuse, disconcert and disorientate the enemy. When practiced as an arm of government policy, in every aspect of statecraft or politics, across the civic realm, it’s fair to ask: who is the enemy? Answer: the entire population.

            If no news is good news, and false news is no news, who has ears to hear any kind of news at all? It comes down to Pilate’s question: what is truth?

            News is not rumour, conspiracy theory, or urban myth. Not propaganda, relations public, or celebrity puff.  Generally there’s an event involved. News isn’t opinion, reflection, ideological comment or indeed suppression.

            Can we cast away the works of darkness, like the baptismal child rejecting Satan through its sponsor’s voice? How much do we have to know? How much can we know? How much do we dare to know, and through whom?

            A little knowledge, in St. Paul’s view, is not only dangerous, but beside the point. ‘Repent, and believe the good news’ not the false news, says Mark’s Gospel. Verify the event. Without love, we are nothing.

On Keys

Keys with mysteries. Ones that don’t engage, need coaxing or slip to the bottom of the bag. Passwords that don’t connect. Streets that won’t turn right, or left. Secret solutions defying permissions. Ianuarius, like all months, was entered invoking Janus, god of beginnings and endings, standing at the year’s turn governing doorways, transitions, passages, past and future tenses. Protector of keys.

            I wonder if it’s better to focus on beginnings rather than endings. Everything falls away from its first glory, and the past is filled, as Milarepa warns, with events concluded in sorrow. All worldly enterprises fail at last. Better to remember the beginning, appearing in hope and joy?

            Peter held the keys to heaven: are they future keys? Like Janus, Peter could open the way to the divine: Christ’s door-ward. The ancients believed the future lurked behind, ready to overtake you unawares. Surely the future is a key: will it turn in the lock?

           The two-faced god, acknowledged at the start of any action, also represents a present continuous, a point in time engaged with change: it travels with you. Other times fall away. Be attentive to beauty. The only valid key is the key to my heart.