What You Read Isn’t Always What You Get

To begin, as advice to anyone who is reading out there, if you want to be like me and start up a blog, here is a fair warning; it is not as easy as it seems.  After the first three entries…it has taken me almost a week and a half to find a topic to write about.  So future bloggers be warned!

Now on to our main discussion…

Tonight, I was pretty bored as usual, and went onto facebook to waste see what everyone was up to.  After a few minutes, I stumbled upon a few statuses about people worrying about their zodiac signs changing.  My first reaction was “WTF? What are you guys talking about?” and my second reaction was, is that even possible?  First off, I do not believe in zodiac signs, horoscopes, and all that astrology nonsense.  The most that I know is that I am a Virgo.  Yeah, I said it, I believe its nonsense, that’s my opinion and I believe that there is no way that you can determine a bunch of peoples personalities and daily activities with so-called vague and overarching “predictions.”  But if you believe in it and disagree with me, you’re entitled to your opinion as well. 

So being confused about this, I always follow the advice my mother told me as a kid.  If you don’t know something, look it up.  So I did.  So when I entered “Zodiac Signs Changing” onto google, I found an interesting CNN article that basically discredited the claims of an article in a Minneapolis (funny how fast word spreads huh?) newspaper that stated that our understanding of the zodiac is off by about a month and that people have been associating themselves with the wrong signs.  The CNN article says even though they weren’t wrong per se, they neglected to report that there are two different types of zodiacs: the tropical and the sidereal.  If you followed the tropical, the zodiac that Western astrology is based off of, whereas the East uses sidereal zodiac instead, and is the one the Minneapolis newspaper reported on.  Based off of the tropical zodiac, nothing has changed and if you were a cancer last year then you are still a cancer.  That’s funny, last time I checked, Minneapolis, MN is in the WESTERN Hemisphere.

Which leads me to my point.  DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ.  NEVER TAKE THINGS ON FACE VALUE.

The funniest thing about this article wasn’t the negligent reporting of the newspaper staff, but the fact that people were going crazy after people started posting this on Twitter and Facebook.  C’mon people, are you serious?  How can you believe what people post on Facebook?  If I decided to post that I am the son of Barack Obama, would you really believe it?  As a college student, I’ve had to hear over and over again the difference between credible sources and just flat out stupidity!  Before I even believed in this zodiac nonsense…I LOOKED IT UP!  Maybe I think more logically and rational then most people, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a frigging genius to tell the difference between the fact and fiction. 

I feel as if society feeds more on misinformation then the actual truth.  Please people, do us all a favor, get off of facebook and pick up a newpaper.

Thanks.