I found out yesterday that I’ve been being stalked online by my ex-wife. I received a letter from a government agency detailing certain aspects of my life, all garnered from this site, my twitter, Instagram and Flickr. What amazed me was this picture she had built up in an attempt to accuse me of illegal activities was so far from the truth it was almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious.

It reminded me of this video, made by Errol Morris, about the Umbrella man on Dealy Plaza the day JFK was assassinated.

“If you put anything under the microscope, you will find a whole dimension of completely weird and incredible things going on”

There were all sorts of ideas about who this man was, on a sunny day, holding an umbrella up.  Some suggested he was the gunman, some that he was a lookout and some even crazier. It turns out he was campaigning about JFK’s father supporting the Nazi appeasing PM Neville Chamberlain,  many years before, and he testified many years later about this.

“If you have any fact that you think is really sinister, is obviously only a fact that can point to some sinister underpinning  hey, forget it man, because you can never on your own, think of all the non sinister perfectly valid explanations for that fact.  A cautionary tale”

To clear this up, all they needed to do was talk to the umbrella man.  Instead, for years, people presumed something sinister was going on.  

Presumptions mixed up with pessimistic thoughts added to hearsay (online photo’s/twiters etc) in a situation where a person is missing crucial facts will obviously create a warped image, which can be very far removed from reality.