When it comes to lasting life lessons, the most important class I ever took was a journalism class back in high school. The teacher, Mr. Kim, divided the class into four groups and each group monitored the (then-current*) Vietnam War by reading a single news magazine: Newsweek, Time, Christian Science Monitor and I forget the fourth. After a few months, each group reported on the war from our magazine’s perspective —- and it was as though there were four different wars going on. The differences were not subtle. A battle lost according to one magazine was won according to another! That experience carved deep and healthy skepticism toward the news.

Below is today’s example of the same lesson, currently pinging around Facebook (I shared from a friend who shared a Twitter snapshot that originated on the timeline of George Takei).

BTW and P.S. THANK YOU MR. KIM!

It’s all in the adjectives.

* yes, that’s how exceedingly old I am.