From time to time I express my political views explicitly. They’re probably a lot more obvious than what I think, but bias is bias. What triggered this flare up? I frequently see a statistic indicating that 30% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. It’s the word “believe” that gets me in particular; yet, when it’s embedded in this sort of proposition, I feel compelled to gag. In my view this pseudo factoid is akin to claiming that the Mississippi River actually begins 5 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. Forget that the entire watershed covers what, two thirds of the country? While we’re at it, forget also that the percentage is even higher among Republicans. I simply wish that, each time the so-called statistic is mentioned, someone might feel inclined to ask how it is that this belief was first implanted and how it has been nourished so long. It may be the very nature of “beliefs.”