I normally start the day with letting the dogs out. Then it’s my reading time (Bible) and then I go for a walk/jog before I come back, get cleaned up, have brekky and then into my study to start the work day.

All useful tasks so far.

Then I start to look at some headlines in the papers, and the futility of the day starts.

Increasingly, I wonder why I bother reading the papers anymore. News mostly don’t really reflect what most people think or how they live. Opinion pieces only add to the state of confusion. There are experts or opinion writers on opposite sides of just about any issue you can think of, and increasingly the tent has shrunk so that you’re either in or out, either in this tent or the one across the ditch. Differing opinions no longer live together. So a lay person who just reads stuff on papers or any other non specialist publications, no longer knows what to think.

A piece in The Australian is what make all this gel enough for me to make this entry. It’s about mask wearing during this pandemic. Covid 19 was christened in 2019 so this is into its “4th” year now. This piece said “experts” like Dr Anthony Fauci and other in WHO had said mask wearing was useless. They said this in March 2020. As late as 31 March 2020, scientists in the National Institutes of Health (the umbrella body that Dr Fauci is part of) said masks didnt make any difference. This echoed what WHO said. But – on 3 April 2020, all that changed and masks suddenly became very important. It has been since and today, you can’t go into any building or public indoor places, without wearing one. I often feel stupid wearing one when I’m shopping, in a restaurant, or in church. Yet I wear one because apparently, “experts” (now) say it makes a difference.

I no longer want to read (or watch/listen to) “experts”. Maybe there are just too many people thinking they ought to have a say and be listened to.