Ok, I will admit that this post is really not about fake news, but it is about untruths that seem to be so prevalent in the world today. That is what this post is about.

The untruth, maybe I should call it a myth, that set me off came from a recent episode of NCIS. I have been a long time fan of that program, but this episode made me upset. It was about a marine that became deaf from a explosion but somehow she managed to become a perfect lip-reader within two months of her injury.

All she had to do was to look at the person talking to her and she understood 100% of what they were saying. COME ON…. Let me give you the real facts.

Only 20% of the English language appears on the lips. So, even with a perfect ability to read lips it is a guessing game to begin to comprehend what is being said. Yeah, there are sentences like “How are you”, “Are you deaf”, and “Can you understand what I am saying” that are pretty easy to read but anything that is slightly unexpected is down right hard to guess what the other 80% of what you can’t discover on a person’s lips.

The second part of my complaint is that it is literally impossible to become a fluent lip-reader in two months. When I went deaf, I spent six months learning to read lips and really never managed to be very accomplished at it. The vast majority of deaf never are.

I know the story line came from a bunch of writers sitting around a table and I would be willing to bet that none of them even know a deaf person, so I can understand their ignorance on this topic. But, that doesn’t relieve them from trying to find out if their storyline might be utter fantasy. This kind of ignorance just make life even more difficult for those of us who are deaf.

While I am in the ranting mode I want to finish up this post on a very remote side note.

Now that winter is here I am watching more TV than I do the other 8 months of the year and I suddenly realized that much of what I watch is about violence. I suspect I watch at least a hundred people a week get killed by guns. I could give you a long list of these types of shows that are very popular today. It just seems that our American culture is attuned to violence and just can’t seem to live without it.

I also watch quite a bit of British TV, especially now that I have signed up for AcornTV via Roku. The difference in violence between British and American entertainment is absolutely profound. Even in the British cop shows there are rarely any shots fired. I don’t know maybe it is time to chuck all the American cop shows and move on to other things. But if we did, my wife would have a conniption fit.

As I mentioned a few posts ago rainy days and Mondays get me down but never to the degree that Lies and Violence do lately.

I will get off my soapbox now and calm down some.

Feel free to add your list of annoyances.