Thought for the Day

Good Morning Scotland

Radio Scotland

December 19th, 2006

Good morning

Alex Salmond takes the heat over his meetings about a golf course. More computer disks are missing. Ministers in Westminster are once again shifting their weight to their back feet. Tommy Sheridan finds himself arrested on his way out of a talk show. The media is having a field day. Headline writers are using their blackest ink – television and radio presenters their gravest voices.

Questions posed to ministers can’t really be answered because they’re not supposed to be answered. You’ll never hear a journalist say ‘well that pretty well clears that one up. Thank you minister for your time’.

Knowing this will never be the case, the politician uses the occasion to launch a sound byte of her own. She refutes with a simple negation the charge that has been made and heads off to the right or left of the mark with something scripted. Her government is committed to this or that. The word ‘robust’ will undoubtedly appear. Robust - like a rugby player with red cheeks bounding across the playing field. Nobody can possibly have something against robust things.

It’s all a drama. Wittingly or unwittingly, by choosing to arrest Tommy Sheridan outside a radio station the police opened a door to a ‘blow by blow’ account of the arrest on the same station – something with entertainment value – “Huge News” the headlines proclaimed ‘Tommy Sheridan arrested outside radio station”

The ancients believed that truth was something to be discerned. The Book of Proverbs takes the getting of wisdom and the discovery of truth as a lifelong goal.

Do not forsake wisdom..... it says, .....and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.

Information may well travel at the speed of light. The truth takes a little longer to arrive.