“Facts” about Gaddafi

In my estimation death brings out the best and then the worst in a lot of people. I have been commenting on the two high-profile deaths last month October – that of Steve Jobs and then Muammar Gaddafi.

The media was filled by reports, anecdotes and factoids that were flamboyant in its praise for Jobs as it was in its disdain for Gaddafi.

Then a few days go by and the frenzy dissipates into a trickle, suddenly the reports, anecdotes and factoids in the media are no longer as rosy or rabid as they once were.

Jobs is being portrayed more and more as a dictator and a hard man to get along with; someone who bullied his way to getting what he wanted, and in the way he wanted it.

Suddenly there are reports on Gaddafi's benevolence.

Twist in crime and an honest cheat

Just when you think the criminal class have run out of new crimes to commit you hear of a story in which they out do themselves. Although it might not really be to their credit.

A south Florida kidnapping and robbery incident turned the tables on the victim and left him with a lot of explaining to do – mainly leaving him to explain to his wife (his children and his mother) why he had a girlfriend.

Incidentally he might also have explain to his girlfriend why he had a wife and kids (I'm sure he rather explain the mother though, not that he would be asked about that).

Trust my conviction, I could be wrong

Trust is a relative thing, the closer the relative the greater the trust.

Incidentally in my opinion the trust curve is a classic bell curve; the trust margins declines as we move away from family to maybe neutralise with friends (we all know friends are expected to lie to us on occasion for the laughs) and then the trust rises until it hits the level of “complete trust” by the time we get to complete strangers (albeit, seemingly respectable ones and ones we identify in our minds as an 'expert').

Of course there are exceptions – but then exceptions make the rule. The exception generally revolves around that fact that people tend to doubt at face value what they feel they can be verify themselves.

It is for this reason that when you tell a person that there are 400 billion stars in the sky he may believe you, but tell him a bench is wet and he has to touch it.

Trust is an important ingredient in the development of communities – sometimes the trust is bestowed, sometimes it is earned. “Community leaders” have by that very definition a “community trust.” Often times, however, that trust can be misplaced when the leader displaces too much trust in himself and his abilities and an infallibility to be blinded by his own convictions.

The world was supposed to end yesterday. And because you are reading this, it can be safely assumed that it has not – even accounting for international datelines and times. Today is already today all over the world, even if some people are welcoming the dawn as others are saying goodbye to the sunset.

Illustration  from Croz Walsh's Blog

Harold Camping, a preacher from California (no surprise there for some) predicted that the end of the world was upon us... on May 21, 2011 to be precise.

Not accounting for the fact that gentleman had predicted the end earlier as September 6, 1994 (which didn't come to pass either), his flock readied themselves for the 'second coming' and their ascension to heaven – while the rest of the non-believers would go to “the other place.”

Camping was not a fool, he was a well-respected by his followers. His flock would listen to him via the Family Radio Network, a religious broadcasting organisation based in the US funded by donations from listeners. The man had a significant following, so much so that through listener generosity his network owned 66 stations in the US alone. His total global network boasted assets worth USD 120 million.

Again the man was not a fool, the 89 year old preacher arrived at his timeline through 70 years of studying the Bible and, he claimed, devising a system that used mathematics to interpret prophesies hidden in it.

That is all very good until you look at his mathematical logic at arriving at the precise date for Judgement Day. He calculated that multiplying the three holy numbers – 5, 10 and 17 – together twice gave 722,500.

Believe it or not but May 21 2011 was precisely 722,500 days after the crucifixion of Christ (believed to be April 1, AD 33)!

Now, not to undermine his prediction, I guess multiplying the aforementioned holy numeral trinity by three (or four) would put the date of the second coming way past his lifetime and wouldn't make for too good radio.

You see granted that 5, 10 and 17 may be holy numbers from the Christian scriptures (I am not familiar with what those numbers represent and why, so I am putting myself on a limb here), but what accounts for multiply the product of the three numbers with '2'?

Our preacher's conviction overtook his ability to reason – I am certain that the community leader did not believe that he was infallible, but nonetheless he let his flock down by being blinded by his own conviction to be right. He most definitely put in the time for it. Those who believed and were prepared did so on faith... fuelled also partly on the trust they had bestowed on their preacher..

To be honest when I first read about the prediction weeks ago, I did not trust the preacher's conviction (he may have been respectable, but in my mind he was not an 'expert').

Could he have been right? He could have been; but because he wasn't, all of us dissenters can appear smug today (particularly more so because we do not find ourselves in the “other place”).