REALLY?

Hey guys!!! It has been very long time since I updated this blog and some of you have been reminding and encouraging me. I appreciate that. Part of the list of excuses for interrupting is…”once you stopped it, it is harder to start it again”…of course u may not buy that excuse.
But today I got a small kick to begin it. I was attending a seminar series in the Department of Economics. The speaker was a New York Times columnist by the name David Leonhardt. He was giving a seminar about a new field of study that getting popular in social sciences called the “Economics of Life”. He said, among other things, the new field has two parts: Really and incentives matter.
These are not new in a sense, but have got some twist by some researcher and thus are popping up. I am not going to report about his seminar: but I felt we need the two words badly in ER and thus I will say some thing about them. For today, I will write about the first: Really? Hummm that sounds good. Really?
David indicted that popularly held views are questioned in this new field and these studies suggest that most of the time these views are not correct. People often base their argument, and sometimes their believe, simply because it is believed by the majority: or because it is so popular, that they fail to question them. The truth of the matter is most of the time these views turned out to be incorrect. Studies that question such misleading popular views are categorized under this new field.
The message is simple: “ don’t take any thing at face value. Don’t base your arguments on unfounded, but largely held views. Instead use to question and try to find facts.”

For most of us, we may not have the drive to ask and challenge against largely believed views. And we may not say “really?” every time we came across these views.

But there are many occasions that make you say "Really?". Sometimes we get really pieced off when somebody try to sell us their garbage ideas. In fact it is an insult and when you don't have the courage to challenge, what do u say? then comes "Really?". and that is my favorite time to say "Really? Take this example:
Dimtsi Hafash on May 2004: “ Many parents have called the ministry of information to express their outrage about the content of internet cafes that are spoiling their kids and demanded for the government to close the internet cafes.”
REALLY?
Here is another example:
Last month PIA was making interview with TV-ER about the relationship with US and Mana Kidane asked him this: “ why is Eritrea criticizing the United States while everyone is quite? PIA answered this:
“ In fact they should be happy about that because our criticism helps them”
REALLY? What about criticism against you?

So, here I am, in my small rooming writing this piece for Friday night when suddenly my cell phone range. It was from a girl that I know and she picked a topic that we disagreed last week. I was not convinced by some of the stuffs she told me about her and that pieced her off. So today she told me this:
“ Mike! I am down to earth open person. Don’t interpret the things I told you from different corners. Take them at face value”
REALLY?