Broken compass

Wasn't there a wise old man in a fictional world who explained the difference between the need for encouragement and the need for guidance?

That, I think, is my problem now - the realization that those whose judgment I consider and accept (more days than not) have the same questions about important issues, for all that they and I stand on opposite sides of those issues (religion, politics, fried chicken skins). They're not the first to consider that there are things to question, even (especially) in the organizations they value, and I'm certain they won't be the last. (Best to add that they're not nearly as annoyed as I am with the issues below, lest someone decide to tar them with the same brush.)

I'll agree that it is in no way encouraging, having two officials who felt such a need for impeachment that they spoke to a third about the issue. But if information from that third official lessens the need for impeachment, then an organization's choice to focus on the actions of the two is something that points, not to a place that's meant to have news as its middle name, but to a people with their own scores to settle, their opinions and feelings coloring what they're meant to convey. I don't have to have voted for someone to see that such a choice is not guidance, and further convinces me that an organization I once looked to for information now needs all the iodized and the pickling I've got in the cupboard (not the kosher - it doesn't suit).

And the fork, so commonplace on the modern table, was once denounced by religious leaders in the area where it was introduced to the West. If I remember reading correctly, its eventual acceptance in dining practice led to a decrease in diseases spread through food eaten with bare hands. The issues may have changed over time, but the usage of a pulpit as a weapon hasn't, and unless I missed it, it isn't a modern-day religious leader who wrote something along the lines of the true practice of faith being self-improvement within the faith and not mere religious observance. If a leader who offers mere encouragement leads a person into the kind of cloud that results in a hospital bed or a jail cell, then I'm even more convinced that mere encouragement isn't enough. Dancing with a doll can raise one's heart, but it doesn't do so much for one's head.

But who am I to say anything about such bastions of culture? It's not like these organizations are bankrupt in any way, ideologically or financially or otherwise.