Too much -- Too little

It seems to me that we are bombarded with information but too often not enough to make really informed decisions. One moment something is good for you and the next it will cause cancer, make your brain turn to mush, and ruin your sex life.

Yes, I know that we have a choice and don't have to read it all. We could toss the email forwards without reading the latest threat to our health or country; but the Internet has made getting too much and too little information all too easy.

In a newspaper, I had to actually turn pages and then the newspaper edited what I should know about whatever happened recently. On the Internet, editing is in my control. I choose which newspapers, scan titles, have the option of reading news sites that compile three different newspaper slants on the same story. I can cycle through a lot of information instantly. Raw milk seized. Beef recalled. One week Ibuprofen is the super drug, next week it might threaten my life to take it.

So what to do? I want to be informed to make my choices intelligently. I want to know about health advances or threats. I feel I should learn when other countries have been hit by disasters as I assume they would like to know when my country has been. I want to know politically what different candidates have said or done. But how much good does it do to know about bad things that are happening or have happened that I can't do anything about?

If a headline promises new advances for a more youthful face for no cost, it is likely I will read it even knowing it's going to be something that doesn't work. Likewise when it gives a warning about a product I regularly might consume which is now said to be potentially deadly, I'll read it; but should I? Is the most deadly thing of all so much out there with no real way to weigh the 'information' or only getting part of it while knowing contradictory facts are likely to arise next month or year?

Sometimes I wonder if I'd be better off reading none of it. It's not just newspapers headlines, and email forwards, but say a friend gets a disease, my instinctive thought is to click on the Internet to find out what can be done about it. Right after that, I notice symptoms of the same disease that I never noticed before...

Part of the problem with these stories is that a lot of research is done by companies wanting to sell their products. Out comes the information, piecemeal, aimed at one conclusion with a different company and a different take in another month.

It didn't used to be that drug companies could advertise on television. Now we can't turn on a news program without learning more than we ever wanted to know about erectile dysfunction-- and at the same time learning nothing about it.

I don't know the answer unless it would be to quit being informed, but is that really a good idea? While I may not have an answer, these recent sheep photos do show how I am feeling about a lot of it.


If you'll notice, most of our sheep have tails, which is not what you usually see in flocks. A few years back, we got into Shetland sheep which are a bit smaller than most other breeds, also more agile, boy can they climb. They don't generally have tails quite as long as some other breeds. Our first Shetland, bought from a flock that did not dock (remove) tails, showed us what we had been taught by the experts was wrong. Having tails did not lead to more mess, no more difficulty in lambing. It is more work for the shearer.

Since removing tails is uncomfortable for the animals with some small risk of infection if you don't keep an eye on the lamb, we only now dock tails from lambs that have the longer ones. What we are doing is not the 'in' thing for sheep growers. When we know we will likely be selling an animal for breeding, we are forced to de-tail; but when we are keeping them, or they are going for lamb chops, we let them wag their tails behind them.

It's odd how customs like removing tails become so prevalent. At the last county fair, I noticed tails were virtually gone from the show ewes which will make them more prone to prolapse in lambing; but when you're talking about showing livestock, we learned years ago, practical farm husbandry has no role.

The sheep tails do illustrate something. Listen to the experts, read the research, but also observe what actually works as best you know it. Experts know a lot. They don't know it all.