When I was a rookie Flight Controller at JSC’s Mission Control,
my boss had a hand drawn poster on the wall of his office.
During tedious checklist and flight rule reviews I had plenty of
time to study that poster; I wish I had a copy of it today. It
featured a hand with the thumb upraised and words that went
something like this: “Thumb’s Rule: A Simple, Easy to Understand
Falsehood is More Useful than A Complex and Incomprehensible
Truth”. In the Internet age, it seems many folks practice this
maxim. After all, the 10 second sound bite on the evening news
or the 140 character tweet conveys all the information the
public needs to know about the complex and difficult problems
facing us today, right? Just like the shouting heads on the
“news” channels have replaced thoughtful adult conversation
about how to move forward through the challenges of 21st century
life. Nor is a thousand word blog post going to fully convey the
complexity of the real world. February is a month for
introspection for me, and the events