What Is Real?

This is a question asked of the old horse in the book, The Velveteen Rabbit and often asked by me when I read so much hype and gory in the press. The following story illustrates just how difficult it is to know real from unreal.

At the fish counter, farm-raised salmon looks just like wild salmon. But as the COLOR ADDED labels cropping up in supermarkets suggest, the aquacultured fillet's pinkish hue is a testament to engineering, not nature. The labels refer to the food additives canthaxanthin and astaxanthin. Without them, the flesh of farmed salmon - which don't eat the krill that colors the wild ones - would be gray.

Complicating matters further, different retail buyers prefer different pinks. So clever fish farmers use the SalmoFan - a reference that, like paint chips, lets them pick a color. Add the right amount of chemical and get anything from bubble-gum bright to dusty rose. Hoffmann-LaRoche, which manufactured the supplements (now made by DSM Nutritionals), gave the fan away with 2003 shipments.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/start.html?pg=3

Almost every day I read stuff that I know is untrue yet it is promoted as factual. One of the strengths of my training is an ability to smell hype. For example, Michael More's film is mostly hype and gore but few facts. That will not matter to those who prefer "Urban Legends" to true facts. (Truth in scripture means, "Unveiled Reality".)

Among Christians we also have persons who prefer "Urban Legends" or "Spiritual Legends" that emphasize fear not faith; despair not hope and anger not love. Whomever is elected President we shall be safe in America and we shall not lose our freedoms. No matter what people say, God is in control of our future not the Republicans or Democrats.

"Lo, I will be with you until the end of the age." Jesus