Certain people are out there demanding verification these day - verification on the death of Osama bin Laden; verification on the verification of Obama's birth certificate.
Now, verification ain't a bad thing. There's been a paucity of that what with the ability of any idiot (like me) to post information on the World Wide Web. Google is supposedly attempting to address this issue with its new Panda Update (along with trashing some democratic sites like Hubpages, but that's another story).
News organizations have, in the past few years, closed news desks and cut down on the number of bona fide journalists - people whose investigative work was verified by fact checkers, leaving us with a hodge-podge of questionable information. So, this sudden demand for verification may be a good thing.
But, how far can we take it? Would it really verify the death of Osama bin Laden if the US government posted photographs of his mutilated corpse? The man was shot in the face. The resulting image would be gruesome, inflamatory, and unseemly. Photographs of a mutilated corpse prove nothing.
Al Qaeda has verified the death of Osama bin Laden. But should we believe them? Should we believe the President of the United States? Frankly, most of us have trouble believing anything today. (Where is Walter Cronkite when we need him?)
The whole mess reminds me that I'm glad I believe in God. Like Job, just take everything away, and I'll still have faith in the unprovable.
So, in the immortal words of Tiny Tim (no, not the singer) "God Bless us - every one."
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