These Times

Facts, fish, and Lady Gaga, too

Kirk Ericson | Feb 13, 20250

“If your mom tells you she loves you, check it out.” — A phrase many newspaper journalists have been told

I bought some frozen salmon last week from a fishmonger at the fish store. It was coho.

While paying, I impressed the guy behind the counter with my extensive knowledge of coho. I told him about the amazing coho run this season in the Salish Fjord, and how the Union River had its best coho numbers in decades. I asked the guy where the coho I was holding came from. I dropped some names of rivers where I knew coho ran. I rambled about coho for a couple of minutes. It was nothing but coho, coho, coho.

He didn’t respond much to this coho talk, so we left, me and my frozen coho.

An hour later, part of my brain sent a breaking news alert to some other part of my brain: I had confused chum with coho. Everything I had confidently and persistently told the fishmonger about coho salmon was what I knew about chum salmon. I was Charlie Brown with a cartoon bubble over his head: “Aaugh!!!”

I returned to the salmon shop four days later to confess and seek atonement — and to discover why the fishmonger hadn’t bothered to correct me while I recited what I thought were facts about coho, coho, coho.

“You know, it’s the whole customer being right thing,” he told me.

He’s a nice guy. I gave him permission to correct this customer in the future.

Ignorance story No. 2: A year or so ago, I saw a clip on the internet showing singer Lady Gaga walking next to an assembled crowd when a female bystander yelled to her, “You’re going to hell!” Lady Gaga took a few steps past her, turned around and put herself inches from the woman’s face. Lady Gaga then kissed her heckler on the lips. Once done, Miss Gaga said something inaudible to the woman while staring hard into her eyes. She gave her heckler a little push and continued on her way.

I shared that story with many people, noting what a brilliant method it was to deal with a heckler. I imagined the heckler was of a certain persuasion, and I wondered about the woman’s reaction to being kissed by Lady Gaga. Was the woman upset, stimulated, stunned, converted? And what would she tell her family and friends, who were likely of the same persuasion? And would this method of dealing with hecklers catch on?

I thought about that scene a lot and it made me admire Lady Gaga, and this nation of ours, even more than I already did.

A month ago, I discovered that scene was staged. It was from a movie she was making. I had been suckered by something on the internet. It was another Charlie Brown moment.

I had believed something on the internet because I wanted to believe it. I was guilty of the error I often condemn in others. Using “I saw it on the internet” as a justification for believing what you believe is like attributing “a fact” to something you saw in your dreams. Both are sketchy sources for discovering what is demonstrably real.

Many people in this country these days are treating facts as candy. They seek the sweets that accord with their beliefs and avoid the sweets that don’t. Some of you right now might be summoning images of those people, as I am, and it’s possible those very same people are summoning images of you — and me.

“The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.” — Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president and slave owner.